Dear readers, have you ever bought chicken flavored tomatoes? And to plant potatoes that the Colorado potato beetle basically does not eat? And to see a birch tree with such soft wood that its trunk cannot support its own weight and lies on the ground? Do you often eat soy meat?
All these miracles are the work of genetic engineers. Even soybeans have been grown since ancient times, but they have recently become very productive and extremely resistant to pests. And whether these miracles are good or not - judge for yourself.
Moreover, products from genetically modified raw materials are sold everywhere, and there is no label “contains GMOs” on them. Moreover, if the content of genetically modified (transgenic) additives does not exceed 5%, manufacturers are not obliged to put such a label!
How to make a myth come true
In myths, monsters such as a gargoyle, a sphinx, and chimeras are often active - solid compounds of the incompatible. And we will talk about the same at the present time. Genetically modified organisms are not plants or animals. This is something like chimeras, in which plant and animal organisms are not combined in nature. For example, hardy wheat with North American flounder genes! Or a tomato with chicken genes! Potatoes with scorpion genes that prevent even the hungriest Colorado potato beetle from eating them. He simply does not recognize in it not only a potato, but also a plant in general. And also
- Escherichia coli (a marker bacterium for sanitary and epidemiological services) with human genes, thanks to which it produces insulin in laboratory conditions for patients with diabetes.
What's bad about it? - perhaps someone will say. - Everything for the good of man! And in general, there have always been hybrids …”However, there could not be such hybrids not only in nature, but also in the previously existing selection.
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Not a mouse, not a frog
Nature places severe restrictions on hybridization. Most often, the crossing of even similar species of plants or animals is impossible due to different body structure, size or sharp behavioral differences, geographic distance, and so on.
Hybrids are either unviable or sterile. Rare exceptions (natural hybrids of different types of mint and a cross between two species of hares - a hare and a hare) only confirm the general rule. And even in these cases: mint does not cross as successfully, for example, with a burdock, and a hare even with a rabbit close to it.
Successful hybridization in breeding occurred only between plants, and mostly closely related: raspberries with blackberries, different types of cereals, and so on. And not all experiments were successful. Michurin's experiments on grafting some plants onto others do not count, because there was no crossing as such. The hybridization of a wolf and a dog is also, because, in fact, it is a backcrossing of a wolf domesticated beyond recognition with the original one.
Of course, it is impossible to cross a plant and an animal in the usual way either in nature or even under experimental conditions. Too different chromosomes, very different and incompatible in principle, genomes (genetic sets) as a whole. And even mutations under the influence of radiation or any chemicals can not so shake the stable mechanisms of heredity as to lead to the union of a plant and an animal.
Genetically modified potatoes Amflora from the German chemical concern BASF, approved by the European Commission on March 2, 2010 for production in Sweden, the Netherlands, Germany and the Czech Republic for use in the textile and paper industry.
Gene modification is the direct insertion of completely alien genes into the genome of a plant or animal, the so-called horizontal transfer. In nature, it occurs only between microorganisms, which quickly change, sometimes being, in fact, a mixture of species and transitional forms. It was with microorganisms that the industrial application of genetic modification (otherwise, genetic engineering) began - with a bacterium, into which a human gene from the pancreas was inserted, which is responsible for the synthesis of insulin. As a result, the bacteria began to produce this hormone. Further more. Now hundreds of species of food, ornamental plants and industrial crops are genetically modified, and most of the products and planting material of these species are not referred to as genetically modified at all.
Why is that bad?
If we talk about the technology of the gene modification process itself, there are two main methods of introducing foreign cells into a plant. One - using a microscopic "gun", "bombarding" the genome of the cells undergoing the experiment with foreign genes. If the “projectile” gene hits “the target,” they begin to interact. If the result of this interaction is able to reproduce itself, then such, already hybrid, cell begins to multiply - of course, in laboratory conditions, and not in living organisms. If whole seeds are bombarded, they also become hybrid.
Two hundred laboratory rats were divided into two groups. One was fed genetically modified food, the other healthy. A year later, deviations and severe pathologies were found in rats fed on genetically modified food. Many females developed mammary gland tumors, in some cases reaching 25% of the animal's body weight; males had liver and kidney abnormalities. All these diseases occurred 2-5 times more often than in animals fed with healthy food.
The percentage of survival and viability of such seeds is small, but the profits from their initial sale are well worth the cost. When using the second method, which is even more dangerous from the point of view of long-term results, a microorganism - a bacterium or even a virus is used to introduce foreign genes.
Microgun treatment mixes genes, for example, from flounder and wheat, or rabbit and tomato, or scorpion and potatoes. When a bacterium or virus is used as a transport, as a rule, at least a minimal piece of genetic, that is, hereditary, material is added, and this microorganism too, even if this was not supposed. For microorganisms, this "mixing" of heredity is normal: they both mutate and multiply. However, for a person to eat potatoes with genes not only, say, a scorpion, but also some unknown virus is very harmful.
Danger to us
However, does not our digestive system break down all foreign organic molecules into original "building blocks" from which it already builds its own proteins, carbohydrates and fats? It breaks, however, only those that were provided by evolution. That is, there is no need to vouch for the "transformation" of altered cells in our body into harmless to humans and normally assimilated.
And further. All genetically modified organisms have a shattered genome, and when a hybrid is grown next to common plants, the latter also become genetically modified. In the United States, where the cultivation of genetically modified organisms is encouraged by the government, transgenic infestation of rapeseed and maize is very common. Moreover, farmers trying to defend their genetically pure products in court most often lose the case due to the enormous influence of transnational corporations.
These are monopolists that produce genetically modified plants and pesticides for them and control the corresponding market throughout the world, not only directly, but also through a very extensive network of subsidiaries.
And the contamination of ornamental plants with GMOs is not monitored at all. Many of these varieties are grown, for example, in Holland. Transgenic cotton is especially abundant in India, soybeans, corn and rapeseed in the USA and Canada. Information about the numerous varieties of genetically modified tomatoes, cucumbers, cotton, wheat, flower crops and others, distributed around the world, is not advertised.
In Russia, according to ecologists, genetically modified potato varieties are "amflora", "elizaveta" and, according to some sources, sunflower "pioneer", as well as some varieties and lines, mainly field (corn, rapeseed and wheat) and ornamental crops … And in Pushkin (Moscow region) already Russian leaders are engaged in the breeding and introduction of transgenic birch with soft wood.
The biosphere can turn into biomass
If the critical number of transgenic plants is exceeded in individual countries, and then around the world, the modification process will become, according to scientists' forecasts, irreversible. The immediate consequences for humans and animals are massive hereditary diseases, congenital deformities and disorders in the offspring of healthy and genetically unburdened parents. And also - an increase in the number of allergies of all types, because the main reason will be a massive failure of the body systems aimed at recognizing foreign antigens (markers "friend or foe") and markers of altered (for example, oncological) cells, which will also lead to the growth of oncological diseases.
In addition, the resistance of weeds, pests and fungi to a variety of relevant pesticides will increase, as well as the unpredictable resistance of the most unexpected organisms to antibiotics. Long-term consequences are the transformation of all the diversity of nature and humanity into amorphous biomass. And this, alas, is not a fairy tale.
How not to fall into the "risky tale"
In order not to feel the influence of transgenic products, it is necessary to avoid the use of products, especially foreign-made or imported ingredients, with vegetable protein, soy in any form and rapeseed oil.
It is necessary to stay away from plants with clearly not inherent properties. With atypical culture properties (for example, blue roses) - find out how old the selection is. If the variety was bred before 1990, there is a chance that these are not genetically modified plants.
When buying seeds, you can find out from the supplier their origin, and ideally - and pesticides of all types and products up to the head manufacturer, look at the prices and other documents, especially carefully reading what is written in small print.
If you have a plot, grow your own fruits and vegetables of the old selection and replace chemical plant protection products with biological and agricultural ones.
Lyubov LINTSOVA
"Secrets of the 20th century" January 203