Roundup ready GMO plants are only one type of GMO, but currently they are one of the most prevalent in the human diet. The human diet is already packed with industrial chemicals that have known adverse effects, so engineering food crops to allow for more chemical use is clearly not good health policy.
Genetic engineering is not in itself always a bad thing; it is all in how you use it, and how well you use it. If done properly and very cautiously in order to improve the healthfulness of food plants (for example by adding algae-derived enzymes that produce omega-3 fatty acids to food plants) it could be a positive aspect of modern life. However, using transgenic technology to make plants resistant to toxins so that more toxins can be sprayed on our food is not a beneficial use of genetic modification techniques. When this type of corporate mentality is applied to genetic engineering, as in the case of Roundup ready crops, you get GMO foods that contain much more herbicide than is healthy for people or livestock to eat. In fact this is one of the worst possible uses of genetic engineering I can think of.
It is important to note that glyphosate, as well as the acetyl-glyphosate that is produced from it in Corn Event 98140, are not well metabolized by plants. Most of these compounds simply remain in the plant tissues waiting to be consumed by humans, or by animals intended for human consumption. This type of genetic engineering has nothing to do with human health - it has only to do with profits for GMO companies. Roundup ready plant varieties may be good for profits in the short run, but they will be bad for human health in the long run due to increased toxin load in our diets. Clearly, the analogy with Mary Shelly's Frankenstein holds some merit, but where the scientific megalomania is replaced by corporate avarice and an indifference to human health.
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