Are GM products harmful?

Genetically modified organisms with an artificially altered genotype are considered. Gmo products are created in order to reduce the cost of eating people and animals. In Russia, 17 types of GM-lines of five products - soybeans, corn, potatoes, rice, sugar beet, are allowed to be used .

Disputes about the safety of genetic engineering products at times resemble an information war for the minds and stomachs of consumers. The opinions of researchers are sometimes opposite. Whom to believe? Is it right to call products with GMOs harmful in the absence of the results of serious large-scale studies?

What are the arguments for "worth" attention?

• All crops of plants and animal breeds are the result of human intervention in the genome of wild cultures and breeds (mules are used by man for centuries). Genetic engineering is different in that it changes the genome purposefully.
• Our cells are impermeable to foreign genes. In everyday human diet contains a huge number of genes. And from what we eat, for example, fish, gills do not grow in us.
• Genetic engineering allows you to significantly diversify the diet, to achieve the best taste and nutritional properties of foods. In medicine, there is even a special branch - gene therapy, which corrects health by enriching the diet with new cultures.
• GMO products are cheaper than traditional ones and can solve the problem of food shortages in the conditions of population growth of the planet and frequent natural disasters.
• Traditional technologies of agricultural production in today's
  Conditions actively use plant protection products, including pesticides and nitrates. GMO products are initially resistant to weeds and pests, that is grown "without chemicals."
• Millions of people use GMO products for 15 years (in the US, the share of transgenic products reaches 80% today, labeling them is optional), no side effects were noted.

Opponents of the spread of products of gene modification speak of serious risks to human health and the state of the environment:

• Food containing GMO products is potentially allergenic, due to the synthesis of new, foreign proteins in it. When eating them for food, metabolic disorders and reduced immunity are also likely.
• Unstable genotype of transgenic plants can cause changes in their chemical composition. There is evidence that in the process of metabolism toxins are formed in them, thousands of times higher than those in natural cultures.
• There is a risk of uncontrolled spread of GMOs in the environment. Some species of plants of natural selection can gradually disappear, and then changes in food chains of animals and entire ecosystems are possible.
• Experiments conducted on small rodents prove the suppression of reproductive function due to the use of transgenic products already in the second generation (mules, by the way, are sterile).

According to the current legislation in Russia, the manufacturer must indicate the presence of GMOs on the labeling of the product if their content is above 0.9%. If you do not want to eat transgenic foods, avoid eating lecithin E322, corn flour and starch, modified starch, hydrolyzed vegetable protein.