Future benefit of GM food? by Ain

I realized that I forgot to include an interesting issue during my research. Scientists are actually working on the possiblity of edible vaccines and medicines for the future.

Scientists are working on to create edible vaccines and medicines through creating plants that produce medical drugs, also known as plant made pharmaceuticals or PMP for short.  The crops used for release trials are maize, tobacco, rapeoil seed and soybean. Examples of the pharmaceuticals obtained from these are blood and blood coagulation proteins, vaccines, structural substances like collagen, antimicrobial and antiviral substances, growth hormones, various enzymes and antibodies. Therapeutic antibodies such as for treating cancer and infectious diseases are the key focus in the development of PMP. However, these PMPs are still in clinical trials and none have been approved anywhere in the world. An example of PMP in the clinical trial is safflower which has the active substance is insulin, to treat diabetes.

Imagine if we have edible vaccines, it would be cheaper than the traditional vaccines. All we have to do is to eat the foods containing the vaccines, and would not need to go through the pain of having the needles poking through our skin. It would definitely save the trip to the clinics or hospitals for the vaccines, and save ourselves, especially children from emotional distress of going through the injections.

References:
http://www.gmo-safety.eu/basic-info/483.pharma-plants-status-report.html

Good or bad?

Hey guys, recently, there are many reports on fake food. Like fake eggs, fake beef, fake lamb.

Recently in China, there is this "exploding watermelon" as the farms inject some hormones to make it grow faster, sweeter and bigger just like how people inject hormones to make the chickens grow up faster. The watermelon would actually explode like a bomb(but dont know when) which I feel that is quite dangerous as the skin of watermelon is thick and it will cause at least a bruise if injured by the flying skin.

It makes me wonder, all these alterations on food has been done against how things are in in the nature. Just like the issue of geneticaly modified food which we did for our report. The food is almost not the same anymore as we all know that genes kind of alters and also decides how we are. After altering the genes or inserting new genes, the food is not the food that it is supposed to be anymore. That is what I feel. It makes me think if in the future, we might just need to pop a pill and it actually contains all the nutrients that we need and most importantly, the calories we need for survival.

Are we eating food or are we eating products that are man made?

human milk in cow?

hey guys(: here is something i found out while researching.

Scientists are actually trying to inject human genes into cow in order for the cow to produce a more "human" milk that contains higher prebiotics and antibodies! however, animal protectors are strictly against this research as it may harm the future development of the calf.

This research, which is being lead by China said that genetically modified food would not pose a threat to food safety. however, other researches shows that "resulted in 42 transgenic calves being born, just 26 of the animals survived after ten died shortly after birth, most with gastrointestinal disease, and a further six died within six months of birth." 


Not only this, response in the market has been negative about the issue of purchasing this modified product. 


so, what do you guys think? to buy or not to buy?? THAT is a question(:
-FM
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/agriculture/geneticmodification/8423536/Genetically-modified-cows-produce-human-milk.html 

Bacteria does not really cause harm.

Hey girls, do you know that bacteria like yeast and mould, or TPC results does not really causes any discomforts unless at dangerously high limit. Even at 100,000 for TPC and yeast and mould about 3-4 thousands. My company actually had release these products, although it exceeds legal limit, so why do we do micro instead?? reason is simply, by doing micro is to test out the cleaning effectiveness of the productions, thus when it is discovered to have this high amount of bacteria, the next immediate action is to ask the cleaner to wash properly as this relates to how well the cleaner cleans the tanks. Unless in the TPC, pathogens are present, which is isolation through differential agar, it will cause food borne poisoning to the consumers and must be recall back.

Also food allergy has various method to be tested. Like Enzyme-Linked Immunosorbent Assays (ELISA), AgraStrip Gluten do test on the targeted allergen. -Quanjin

My opinion of GM food

Hello everyone,

I was thinking that I might want to include my personal opinion about GM food after researching and also reading the post that everyone posted. This post is just my opinion and it might be different from other people so I hope that I would not offend anyone of you. :)

Like the research we found on GM food which shows GM food has pros and cons, I support and also object to the presence of GM food.

I have been introduced to GM food when I am 10 years old(Primary 4) as my school sent me to some workshop which teaches us about GM corn(which kernals are of multi-coloured) and I have also been given a chance to plant the corn from the kernal(but the plant never germinated. haha). I am surprised that after so many years, the issue about GM food is still being debated.

I agree to the presence of GM food as we all know that GM food most likely would be pest resistant, herbicide resistant, or the food will ripen slower. As the earth's population keeps increasing, there is a serious increasing trend of proverty in hunger all over the world. According to what I know, if humans use the most natural way of farming, the yield of the crops might not be able to feed the population. To a certain extent, I feel that GM food shows the natural instinct of fighting for survival as food is the most basic need in the Maslow's hierarchy of needs.

I object to the presence of GM food because being a nature lover, I feel that GM food do protect the human kind but does an imbalance in the eco system. Cross pollination has occurred in between GM modified crops and non GM modified crops in some of the countries. This made me wonder if will we see some giant plant walking around(like those mutated organisms I have watched in some sci-fi movie when I was young). At the same time, it made me think if it is right to actually make all these changes to the natural world when the we belong to the Earth and not the Earth belonging to us. 

Another thing I realised is that many people buy organic food now because they feel that organic food is healthier and also more beneficial to their health but only little people buy organic food because they feel that it is better to the natural environment.

I have spent many days asking myself which side would I want to take; Support or object GM food and I realised I could not come up with an answer.

Chui Ying(Yvonne)

Belive it or not!!

Hey girls! i was reading up some artical on GM foods and it says that according to FDA, the companies that uses gm foods are not required to disclose the information, meaning they do not have to tell us if the ingredients are being Genetic modified, in addition, it was estimated that about 80% of our processed food are genetically modified, so how do we know if the food we purchased are gm or not??

One "the most common GMO ingredients are non-organic soy, canola, corn and now beet sugar, including all of their derivatives like corn oil, corn syrup, soy protein, soy sauce and canola oil. Avoid products that contain these ingredients unless they are certified organic, as it is highly probable they are GMO." (

GMO 101: What you need to know about genetically modified foods, july 10th 2011)

 So basically these few ingredients are needed in abundant amount to feed the growing population, thus genetic engineering may be necessary to support it, in terms of resistance and bulk. Many people, especially developed countries, demands transparency in their food, yes if you buy a fan, they can say made in india, then low quality plastic but its cheap. You may still buy it right? However, if the food contains Genetically modified ingredient, high chance that we may be afraid and rather chooses not to buy, and these companies would suffer huge loss.  so it is either man kind reduce reproduction rate or choose gm food for help.


Resource : http://www.lodinews.com/online_features/how_to/article_52b5f7d0-cdb6-5f0a-b18a-773898d77808.html
 -Quanjin

Are we consuming GM foods? -Maryann Rolands

Guys, Singapore is importing 90% of food products. This is because we dont have much primary producers due to lack of land. Soybean,maize,cotton and canola are the main four GM crops that are exported. This is based on assumption, Singaporeans love soybean milk? I know i love it. Do you think that we are consuming GM soy all the time? and how do we tell? From research, They say that currently there is no legislations in place for labelling in Singapore. So, how would we know? Currently, according to AVA they just have to go through tracing requirements and have a proper ingredient list. labelling of GM foods is a complicated issue in Singapore. GMAC says that there are alot of factors that may implicate such as tax, pricing, imports etc.

The government website states the the GM foods we consume is safe for consumption as stated by AVA. My question to all this is don't consumers have the right to know what is going into our foods? what if i am anti-GM due to personal reasons? what if I believe there may be health complications involved? is it fair for consumers if the GM food is not labelled? especially after knowing most of our foods are actually imported from other countries. Does it take a food crisis to spark people to talk about this issue. I feel this to be a serious issue. and to be honest I did not know of this until i did this research on consumer rights and labels on GM foods. Hopefully, this will help Fangmin and Ain in writing about the controversial issues in the report.

References
http://www.gmac.gov.sg/Index_FAQs_Genetically_Modified_Foods.html
http://www.ava.gov.sg/

Disease-Curing Eggs! - Ain

British scientists have actually created a breed of genetically modified hens that produce cancer-fighting medicine in their eggs. These hens have been genetically modified to lay eggs that contain medicinal protein similar to medicine used to treat  multiple sclerosis, skin cancer and arthritis.

To achieve this, human genes are added to the hen's DNA, and human proteins are secreted into the egg whites. The gene in the hens which produces ovalbumin is modified so that it will produce specific medicinal proteins. In the flock of the genetically modified hens, it was discovered that all the egg whites from the hens contain a monoclonal antibody that has the potential for treating arthritis and malignant melanoma; and an antiviral drug that resembles modern treatments for multiple sclerosis.

It was discovered that using farm animals to produce drugs is much faster, cheaper and more efficient than the current industrial methods. An example would be the hens used for the genetic modification, are from a common breed and are able to produce 300 eggs a year.

The production of pharmaceutical proteins has been shown previously in genetically modified mammals such as sheep, goats, cattle and rabbit. However, the proteins have been difficult to extract and the ability to produce useful proteins vanishes after a few generations. But, in this latest research, five generations of hens were bred and each produced good concentration of drugs. In theory, the technique can be used with a wide range of genes so that hens could produce many different drugs for a range of diseases.

Imagine, if it really happens in the future, and we are diagnosed with any type of diseases, all that we have to do is to consume the eggs of hens which contains the proteins to cure the disease, and we would be cured after that. Amazing isn't it. We would be able to save the costs of our medical fees. But then again, we would be exploiting the hens, and disturbing their natural being. Would that cause any negative effects?

References:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2007/jan/15/medicalresearch.drugs

How Safe Is GM Food?

http://www.biotech-info.net/how_safe.html

while researching, i came across this information about how exactly is GM food safe??

According to the article, "In southern Africa, hunger now affects some 14 million people. The USA has donated GM maize to help alleviate the crisis, but in Zambia the food rots in warehouses because the government believes it unsafe. President Levy Mwanawasa has even called GM maize "poison", saying he is not prepared to "use our people as guinea pigs". In some areas, citizens have rioted and looted to get to the food." 


But, what made them think that way?? Was it the lack of safety?? This reason was used as an excuse according to officials in USA as the donated food was they type of food the Americans have been eating for years, however, there are debates over this fact that the US, which is promoting biotechnology building is now using the UN to do its protectionist bidding.


Again, the topic of the safety of GM brings back to its advantages and disadvantages that most consumer worries. "The advantages, achieved through improved crop protection, include insect and virus resistance, and herbicide tolerance. Public health might be improved through a greater supply of hardier strains or through products that have been enriched with vitamins and minerals, such as "golden rice", to which vitamin A has been added.
Disadvantages, though, are that GM crops may threaten biodiversity, decrease the richness and variety of foods, and make farmers dependent on chemical and biotech companies, through the use of sterile seed or chemical products that would have to be purchased yearly. Health concerns include: allergenicity; gene transfer, especially of antibiotic-resistant genes, from GM foods to cells or bacteria in the gastrointestinal tract; and "out-crossing", or the movement of genes from GM plants into conventional crops, posing indirect threats to food safety and security."


However, is it really the disadvantages that stops the consumer from consuming GM food, or is it the politics behind that restricted most GM food being imported thus causing a misunderstanding in consumers that the government thinks that GM food is unsafe??

-FM