Food Safety

Nowadays the world face very serious problems like terrorism, poverty, as well as food safety. Thousands of world population die every year because of this problem.

“Genetically Modified (GM) foods are produced from genetically modified organisms (GMO) which have had their genome altered through genetic engineering techniques. The general principle of producing a GMO is to insert DNA that has been taken from another organism and modified in the laboratory into an organism’s genome to produce both new and useful traits or phenotypes. Typically this is done using DNA from certain types of bacteria” (www.wikipedia.com).

Some argue that there is more than enough food in the world and that the hunger crisis is caused by problems in food distribution and politics, not production, so people should not be offered food that may carry some degree of risk.

Others oppose genetic engineering on the grounds that genetic modifications might have unforeseen consequences, both in the initially modified organisms and their environments. Activists opposed to genetic engineering say that with current recombinant technology there is no way to ensure that genetically modified organisms will remain under control, and the use of this technology outside secure laboratory environments carries potentially unacceptable risks to both farmed and wild ecosystems. Although some scientists have claimed that selective breeding is a form of genetic engineering, (e.g., maize was modified from teosinte, dogs have evolved with human intervention over the course of tens of thousands of years from wolves), others assert that modern transgenesis-based genetic engineering is capable of delivering changes faster than, and sometimes of different types from, traditional breeding methods.

This problem is espacially acute for the USA. There are a lot agencies and organizations which try to solve this problem. One of the biggest is the FDA (Food and Drug Administration). It is an agency of the United States Department of Health and Human Services and is responsible for regulating food, dietary supplements, drugs, biological medical products, blood products, medical devices, radiation-emitting devices, veterinary products, and cosmetics in the United States. Of course it has several serious achivements in this field but the most important problem is that only less than 1% of imported (in the USA) food is inspected by this agency. Besides, it has no control on some very popular food in the USA. So, FDA’s existence maybe is under a big question. We think that this problem must be solved because our lives depend on this, we eat either poisoned or fresh and pure food depends on this. The FDA and such kind of agencies must cover this uncontroled food. We must be sure that the food that goes from our nation’s ports to our families’ dinner tables is safe.

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