Are GM crops safe?

Genes which encode genetically modified (GM) traits in crop plants for improved agronomic (農事的) properties, such as tolerance to herbicides or resistance to insect attack, must be shown not to adversely affect the performance of the crop, nor to introduce unsafe alterations in food or feed products produced from these plants. Methods used to demonstrate the safety of GM crops have improved and expanded over the approximately 18 years since their introduction, with a trend toward inclusion of more global “-omics” technologies to gain a broad picture of plant biochemistry and physiology. Furthermore, the utility of any new method requires that it bring additional understanding of any potentially negative impacts that the engineered trait may have on the overall biochemical makeup or physiological performance of the target plant. Metabolomics (代謝學), which is the global analysis of small molecule metabolites, is proving a powerful and sensitive technology for revealing perturbations (攪亂), whether environmental or genetic, in plant metabolic compositions.

Clarke, J. D., Alexander, D. C., Ward, D. P., Ryals, J. A., Mitchell, M. W., Wulff, J. E., & Guo, L. (2013, October 30). Assessment of genetically modified soybean in relation to natural variation in the soybean seed metabolome. Nature News. https://www.nature.com/articles/srep03082