Do you think it’s safe for humans to consume genetically modified organisms for food? For full credit, give a good justification for your answer.

Genetically Modified Organisms

Whenever two organisms reproduce sexually, the offspring have a mixture of traits (alleles) from the two parents. You should remember from previous weeks that these alleles are sections of DNA in chromosomes. Historically, if people wanted animal or plant offspring that had certain alleles, they could do this by breeding parents that had those same alleles. Nowadays, we have the technology to actually insert certain alleles into a sperm or egg cell. This allows us to produce offspring that have those alleles even when the parents don’t. We call these “genetically modified organisms” (GMO).

1. In general, do you think it’s safe for humans to consume genetically modified organisms for food? For full credit, give a good justification for your answer.

2. Give an example of a genetic modification (real or hypothetical) in a food organism that would be unsafe for humans to consume.