The GMO Insects Are Coming: Be Very Afraid

the-gmo-insects-are-coming-be-very-afraid_300If you think that GMO (genetically modified) crops created in Monsanto labs are worrisome, wait until companies start releasing GMO insects. The arguments have already started about how safe or dangerous these Frankenbugs are likely to be.

Many experts fret over the potential threat GMO foods present to the world’s ecosystems. Organisms that contain unique genetic combinations cooked up by technologists may convey those genetic abnormalities to wildlife. No one really understands what the long-term impacts of this will be.

Enter GMO insects. In an effort to control diseases like malaria that are spread by insects, scientists are hard at work building modified insects that are supposed to help control and kill off their pathogen-spreading brethren.

Researchers at the University of Minnesota already are struggling to come up with a method to understand the implications of GMO insects.

“When new technology is developed, you want to make sure it’s safe,” says researcher Amy Morey in what may be the GMO understatement of all time. “You want to know what could happen when you release these novel organisms into the environment.”

Because GMO insects are such a new technology, there is no reliable way of evaluating how safe they are.

“Our project is trying to get it a little bit further into standardization — a framework for how do you go about systematically evaluating a new technology so you’re looking at all the sorts of different interactions that could possibly happen,” Morey says.

What’s really scary: We seem ready to release genetically modified mosquitoes even though nobody even comes close to understanding what role mosquitoes play in the ecological well-being of the planet.

Yes, we know these bugs are annoying. Yes, in many parts of the world they spread devastating diseases like malaria. But before we tamper with the wild mosquito population, we need to know what kind of new disaster we may be concocting.

Carl Lowe

By Carl Lowe

has written about health, fitness and nutrition for a wide range of publications including Prevention Magazine, Self Magazine and Time-Life Books. The author of more than a dozen books, he has been gluten-free since 2007.

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