Genetically modified organisms (GMOs) A genetically modified organism (GMO) is an organism whose genetic material has been altered using techniques in genetics generally known as recombinant DNA technology.

Recombinant DNA technology is the ability to combine DNA molecules from different sources into the one molecule.

An overarching ethical question is whether humans have the right to manipulate and modify other organisms in this manner, or whether it is “playing God.” In modern biological and biomedical research, the use of GMOs is acknowledged to be an invaluable tool for generating new knowledge. However, even if one has no normative objections to genetic engineering, research ethics questions arise: Do we know enough about what we are doing when we introduce new DNA? Is safety guaranteed? Does the research have an ethically acceptable purpose?

Topics DNA Foetus Food

Introduction Risks Ethical perspectives Responsibility

IntroductionSince the 1970s, science has developed methods of characterising DNA and identifying genes from numerous different organisms and their function. Recombinant DNA technology, which combines DNA in new ways and introduces it into bacteria, plants and animals, is used in research to study the function of genes and proteins. Applied research aims rather at the development of new products, such as bacteria that produce enzymes or drugs, plants that give higher yields, or transgenic (genetically modified) animals that can perhaps be used for organ transplantation in the future.

What Are GMOs?All organisms change over time—that’s evolution. But some 10,000 years ago, humans figured out they could speed up and direct the process of evolution by selecting individual organisms that exhibited preferable traits and crossing, or selectively breeding, them with each other. Prehistoric humans did this with maize, over time turning the grassy weed, teosinte, which had scrawny clusters of seeds, into a crop that produced plump, nutritious kernels. They also did this

with our first pets, dogs, transforming them from their wild wolf ancestors into the incredibly diverse assortment of domesticated canines we know and love today.

To achieve outcomes that once took thousands of years and countless failures, scientists now are turning to genetic engineering techniques, which enable them to speed up the process of evolution and fine-tune it to create precise changes in the physical attributes of organisms to achieve certain benefits.

This type of rapid genetic manipulation began in 1973 when the first “GMO”—an E. coli bacterium carrying a gene from another species of bacterium that enabled it to become resistant to the antibiotic tetracycline—was created. Later, in 1982, Humulin—a form of human insulin produced by genetically modified bacteria—was approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. In 1992, the first GM plant—the Flavr Savr tomato, engineered to remain firm longer to allow for vine ripening—was approved for commercial production in the United States. Monsanto’s Roundup Ready soybean was given the go-ahead by the U.S. Department of Agriculture in 1994, followed in 1997 by the approval of insect-resistant Bt cotton. In 2009, the FDA approved the first GM animal, a goat that produces an anticlotting agent in its milk that can treat people with clotting diseases. Finally, the Arctic Apple, which is genetically engineered to resist browning, was approved by the USDA in February 2015 and by the FDA in March 2015.

Other GM crops approved for sale in the United States today include potatoes, sugar beets, rapeseed/canola, corn, soy, and cotton. In addition, several varieties of genetically modified crops in the late stage of testing include crops that are salt tolerant, crops that produce omega-3 fatty acids, canola that requires half the amount of nitrogen fertilizer, pink pineapples that contain cancer-fighting lycopene, and wheat with reduced potential to cause allergies. GM animals that are being investigated include salmon that grow to market size faster, chickens that are resistant to avian influenza, and pigs that utilize phosphorus more efficiently and pollute less.

How are all these organisms created? The simplest method includes using natural enzymes to cut a gene—or fragment of DNA—from one organism and insert it into another organism either indirectly via some kind of vector, such as a virus, or directly via a gene gun or microinjection technique, for example. Generally, the introduced gene confers a new trait to the organism.

Newer techniques for creating GMOs allow scientists to more precisely change the sequence of genes to introduce the desired trait. Known as “genome editing,” the tech- niques involve removing, inserting, or editing a fragment of DNA using bacterial enzymes that are like “molecular scissors.” These enzymes are part of the immune systems of microbes, which use them to edit their own genomes and protect themselves from attack by pathogens.

As it turns out, bacteria and viruses have been doing this “gene swapping” for millennia. Once scientists saw how the microbes did it, it was not long before they developed tools to move genes around in plants and animals themselves. “We now have the ability to edit genes like you would edit a document in your word processor,” said Troy Ott, professor of animal science. “It’s like taking the book War and Peace, turning to page 743, and changing the word ‘man’ to the word ‘woman.’”

To create the most widely used GMOs—Roundup Ready crops, which are engineered to be resistant to glyphosate (the active ingredient in Roundup)—scientists at Monsanto investigated an enzyme in plants called EPSPS. The enzyme is part of a pathway that manufactures three of the 21 amino acids—the building blocks of proteins—that all living things have. Glyphosate binds EPSPS, preventing it from producing these three amino acids.

“The plant gradually starves to death,” said Richard Roush, dean of the College of Agricultural Sciences.

To avoid this outcome for crop plants, the Monsanto scientists found a form of EPSPS in bacteria that is naturally resistant to glyphosate and used it to engineer crop plants that also were resistant. Now, when glyphosate is applied to the crops only the susceptible weeds die.

How GMOs are made—simplified.

In this first-generation example, genes are cut from plants or animals that have a desired trait,and then pasted into plants or animals at precise locations to create a desired beneficial effect.

Regulating GMOsSince the introduction of GM crops in 1996, farmers have adopted the technologies widely. In 2014, around the globe, nearly 500 million acres of biotech crops were grown in 28 countries (2). That’s at least 15 million acres more than were grown in 2013.

“The adoption trajectory of these technologies has been unprecedented,” said David Mortensen, professor of weed and applied plant ecology. “The very first of the herbicide-resistant GMOs [soybeans] became available in 1996, and by 2006 or so we were upwards of 90 percent adoption in the United States. It is phenomenal for anything to be adopted at that rate and that completely.”

Most of the harvest from these crops are fed not to humans as one might expect, but to livestock. In the United States, more than 9 billion food-producing animals are raised each year annually, and more than 95 percent of these animals have been consuming feed containing GM ingredients for almost 20 years (3).

With such a rapid adoption rate, and with so much of the food going to animals instead of humans, how are GMOs regulated?

According to the Library of Congress, GMOs are regulated under the same U.S. laws that govern the health, safety, and environmental impacts of conventional foods (4); there are no special regulations that govern GMOs. However, the government has taken the position that it will evaluate the risks and benefits of each new GMO individually through conventional processes. Regulatory agencies employ a concept known as “substantial equivalence,” which the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations defines as “the concept that if a new food or food component is found to be substantially equivalent to an existing food or food component, it can be treated in the same manner with respect to safety (4).”Depending on the type of GM food, evaluation may fall under regulatory oversight of the FDA, USDA, EPA, or all three. “This is a science-based approach,” said Ott. “It’s the safest way to do it.”

Global Production of Biotech CropsIn 2014, 28 countries worldwide produced a total of 181.5 million hectares of biotech crops. To achieve outcomes that once took thousands of years and countless failures, scientists now are turning to genetic engineering techniques. The following map depicts the relative distribution of biotech crops planted in industrial and developing counties. In 2014, 18 million farmers (nearly 17 million of whom were small and resource poor from developing nations), planted biotech crops.

Total global production of biotech crops in hectares in 1996 compared to 2014. Over the past 18 years, biotech crops have been successfully grown in 1.78 billion hectares.

Global production of biotech crops in hectares in developing nations compared to industrial nations in 2013.

Human HealthAsk just about any scientist if GMOs are bad for our health and he or she will say, “Probably not.” That’s because no reputable studies have shown any negative health effects of eating GMOs, at least so far. And scientists around the world continue to look for any evidence of risk or unintended consequences.

“Europe is famous for being the place with the greatest objection to GM crops, so I think it’s instructive that the European Union spent nearly $300 million to study the impacts of GMOs, and what they concluded was that essentially there is no substantial difference between GM and non-GM crops in terms of either food safety or environmental impact,” said Roush.

Indeed, the EU report, published in 2010, stated, “The main conclusion to be drawn from the efforts of more than 130 research projects, covering a period of more than 25 years of research, and involving more than 500 independent research groups, is that biotechnology, and in particular GMOs, are not per se more risky than e.g. conventional plant breeding technologies (5).”

A separate review of the scientific literature published in 2014 examined animal health in particular. The review examined data on over 100 billion animals following the introduction of GM foods and found no “unfavorable or perturbed trends in livestock health and productivity (3).” In fact, during the period studied, animal health and growth efficiency actually improved.

Ott noted that some of the concern about the health effects of GMOs may be due to a study—which was flawed and later retracted—claiming that feeding GM corn to mice caused them to develop tumors. However, he said, much of the concern is generated from claims of risks found ubiquitously on the Internet and social media posted by individuals opposing the use of the technology or by people selling non-GM foods.

Beyond actually ingesting GM foods, some people worry that the genes inserted into GMOs could “jump” out of target plants or animals and into other organisms. Indeed, “horizontal gene transfer”—the transfer of genetic material from one organism to another without reproduction or human intervention—is a real phenomenon, one that has occurred in nature since the beginning of life on Earth. For example, scientists have known for some time that natural insertion of genetic material from viruses into the human genome is responsible for a significant proportion

of cancers (6). Yet, a review article published in 2008 noted that the risk of horizontal gene transfer from GM plants to human health or the environment is negligible (7).

When it comes to the health risks of GMOs themselves, Mortensen believes there is science yet to be done that could reveal more compelling evidence of health effects. “When we do science, if we do it well, it is objective, but the science that we choose to do is subjective,” he said, suggesting that perhaps the right questions have not yet been asked. But data do exist indicating that the herbicides used on GM crops may have negative health effects. “GM seeds do not exist in isolation, but rather are sold alongside pesticides, which they are designed to resist,” said Mortensen. “Using a technology that results in a clear and deliberate intended increase in the use of pesticides, some of which have negative health effects associated with them, and very clear ones, well there are clear health downsides to that.”

Glyphosate is the most commonly used herbicide and is applied to Roundup Ready crops, including soy, corn, canola, alfalfa, cotton, and sorghum. Most people agree that the health effects of glyphosate are not as severe as some of the other pesticides in use. However, there is not universal agreement on this issue. “The health effects of exposure to glyphosate are not clear,” said Mortensen, “but I don’t think there is compelling data to indicate that the herbicide is dangerous.”

Roush too believes that glyphosate is “arguably the safest herbicide ever developed. It is so safe that we let people buy it in grocery stores and take it home and spray it in their gardens,” he said. “Its toxicity is on the order of salt.”

But Roush and Mortensen are less enthusiastic about some of the other pesticides in use. Mortensen, in particular, is concerned about the use of an herbicide known as 2,4-D (2,4-Dichlorophenoxyacetic acid), a widely used chemical that will soon become even more widespread in its use. He predicts its use will increase four- to sevenfold (8).

Resistance to the herbicide 2,4-D—along with glyphosate resistance—is a feature in a new, stacked (containing two or more GM traits) plant developed by Dow AgriSciences as part of the Enlist Weed Control System, which was approved by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency in October 2014. According to the EPA’s website, “When used according to label directions, Enlist Duo is safe for everyone, including infants, the developing fetus, the elderly, and more highly exposed groups such as agricultural workers (9).”So far, the EPA has approved the use of Enlist Duo, an herbicide containing glyphosate and 2,4-D, for six years in six states: Wisconsin, Ohio, South Dakota, Indiana, Iowa, and Illinois.

The EPA’s statement, however, is in direct opposition to some recent research findings. For example, a meta-analysis of some 45 studies from around the world found that 2,4-D is strongly correlated with an increase in non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma and with a number of neurological disorders, including early onset dementia and Alzheimer’s disease (10).

According to Roush, one of the most important things that Roundup-resistant crops have done around the world is to replace many herbicides of dubious safety with one (Roundup) that is safer. So why the need for Enlist Duo crops? Why add 2,4-D to the mix?

The EnvironmentAccording to Mortensen, the answer is weed resistance. “About 40 percent of the corn and soybean fields across the United States and at least that percentage of cotton fields across the south have glyphosate-resistant weeds in them,” he said. “It happened so quickly.”

As do all organisms, weedy plants naturally contain a significant amount of genetic variation. So the possibility always exists that a small number of weeds will exhibit a genetic makeup that allows them to survive a particular herbicide application. When they do, these survivors are free to grow and reproduce. Over time, the population of resistant weeds increases.

Mortensen said that weed resistance to Roundup has occurred because farmers have overused the pesticide. In fact, resistance to Roundup predated Roundup Ready crops, but the new technology has accelerated development of glyphosate-resistant weeds. “Farmers have planted the same transformed crop year after year in the same fields with the same herbicide applications,” he said, “and now we have widespread resistance.”

Mortensen worries that adding 2,4-D resistance to crops on top of glyphosate is a step on a “pesticide treadmill” in which more and more pesticides—and possibly more dangerous pesticides—will be needed to stay ahead of weed resistance.

Besides resistance, another danger of applying herbicides is drift. In his 2012 BioScience paper, Mortensen wrote: “All herbicides can have negative impacts on non-target vegetation [including plants that are important for pollinators] if they drift from the intended areas either as wind-dispersed particles or as vapors evaporating off of the application surface. Because of their volatility and effects at low doses, past experience with injury to susceptible crops has indicated that the synthetic auxin herbicides [including Enlist Duo] may be especially prone to drift problems and many crop plants are very sensitive to this class of herbicides (8).”

Another issue with drift involves the rights of nearby farmers who choose not to use a particular herbicide, noted Mortensen. If the herbicide keeps drifting into adjacent fields and killing crops, farmers may be forced to purchase it to avoid going out of business. To be fair, Dow has conducted research on ways to reduce particle drift, but Mortensen fears that farmers will not always use recommended herbicide application practices, especially if they are more costly.

In the case of Bt crops, which are engineered to manufacture a natural insecticide produced by the bacterium Bacillus thuringiensis, the insecticide is produced in minute amounts by the plant itself, so farmers do not need to apply it to the surface of the plant, which greatly reduces drift.

A growing group of like-minded scientists advocate for weed control using integrated pest management practices—characterized by the use of multiple weed management approaches that are based on ecological principles. Such practices could include crop rotation, the use of cover crops and competitive crop cultivars, the judicious use of tillage, and targeted herbicide application.

“It’s not too late in some systems where Roundup resistance isn’t a problem yet to develop systems that are based on more integrated weed management principles,” said Roush. “Australian grain growers use two or three different tactics in the same growing season, only one of which is a chemical, to try to control annual ryegrass, which is a notorious pest. I think in the United States we’re going to have to move more toward that.”

Decisions to MakeMore than 7 billion people live on Earth, and 870 million of them suffer from chronic undernourishment, according to the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization. By 2050, the world population will be close to 10 billion, and the world will need to produce 70 percent more food to keep up with this growth.

The promise of GMOs includes providing more food—even more nutritious food—to a growing population. GMOs also can bring financial security to farmers. For example, GM technology adoption has increased crop yields by 22 percent and farmer profits by 68 percent (11). This, according to Ott, is the reason GMOs have been so widely adopted, especially by the poorest farmers.

But relying completely on GMOs is not the answer either. “We can never forget that farmers grow food to serve society, and society has a say in what type of food production systems we use,” said Ott. “GM foods are not the only solution, but they are an important tool in the toolbox to feed a growing population sustainably.” Indeed, much work remains to be done to ensure that fewer people go hungry and that all agricultural practices are conducted to minimize the impact on human health and the environment.

When the Pew Research Center published its survey results about the beliefs of the public versus scientists, Alan Leschner, CEO of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, told the Associated Press that “science is about facts; science is not about values.” He meant that science is a powerful tool that can lead us to understanding, but it can only take us so far. Only we, as thoughtful, ethical beings, can decide what science to do and what to do with the results of science. With GMOs, as with many technologies, science allows us to evaluate the risks and benefits.

The question is, do the benefits outweigh the risks? What do you think?

Funding, Disclosure, and TransparencyThe scientists quoted in this story have not received money from companies, such as Monsanto, Dow AgriSciences, Syngenta, or Bayer. The scientists feel that the data from the studies mentioned in this story speak for themselves about the costs and benefits of GMOs to humans and the environment. Here, they attempt to share those unbiased data with readers.

By Sara LaJeunesse

Genetically Modified Organisms: To Eat Or Not To Eat?

An Argentine farmer stands by his field of trangenic soy, designed for resistance to drought and salinity.

Rarely is the relationship between science and everyone so direct as it is in the case of genetically modified organisms (GMOs), in particular foods. It is one thing to turn on your plasma TV or talk on your iPhone; it is an entirely different proposition to knowingly ingest something that has been modified in the lab.

It is no coincidence that reactions for and against GMOs are often radical and polarized. We see purists who want to ban any kind of GMO, claiming ill effects for health and environment. We also see the defenders of GMOs claiming benefits for health and the environment, as well as solutions to global hunger and malnutrition.

Behind the debate lurks the giant shadow of Monsanto, the world's largest producer of GM crops and controller of a large fraction of the seeds available to farmers.

Few debates are as important. We see here echoes of what happens with global warming and vaccines, where the rational and irrational get mixed up into a single, confusing soup of argument. We see a huge popular distrust of the alliance between science and giant corporations, of scientists that have "sold out." They are sometimes even compared to those working for the tobacco industry, fairly or not.

Hundreds of scientific studies have been performed over recent decades to determine the impact of GM crops on plantations and human and animal health. A list with over 600 articles can be found at the site of Biology Fortified, an independent, nonprofit organization. In June, the UK environmental secretary Owen Patterson offered his strong support for GM crops:

There are some that describe GM crops as "Frankenfoods", deliberately termed to imply that they pose a risk to human health and the environment. ... First, there was no scientific evidence associating GMOs with higher risks for the environment or for food and feed safety than conventional plants and organisms. Second, the use of more precise technology and the greater regulatory scrutiny probably makes GMOs even safer than conventional plants and food.

One week before Paterson's speech, protesters in Oregon damaged crops of GM beets owed by the Swiss company Syngenta. The beets were genetically modified to resist the herbicide Glyphosate, an ingredient found in Monsanto's Roundup. There is a lot of debate on whether Roundup is as bad for people as it is for weeds. Here is a view against the use of Roundup, and here is a measured view in its favor.

Nina Fedoroff, professor at Penn State University, recently offered a passionate defense of GMOs in a Scientific American article:

What are the facts? Monsanto and the other big ag-biotech companies have developed reliable, biologically insect-resistant and herbicide-tolerant commodity crops that benefit people, farmers and the environment, and are nutritionally identical to their non-GM counterparts. ... There's a mismatch between mythology and reality.

What is one to do? The science seems to be pointing toward the safety of GM crops, at least as foods. It's good to remember that "the adoption rates for GM soya stand at 88 per cent in Brazil, 93 per cent in the U.S. and 100 per cent in Argentina," as Paterson remarked in his June speech. So, odds are you have been ingesting GM crops for a while now.

On the other hand, herbicides are still very much around and we are ingesting them as well. To complicate things, the environmental impact of GM crops is quite complex given the many factors that come into play: as you change the genetic make up of a given crop, the animals that eat it may react in negative ways. A potential ecological snowball effect may ensue. Since rogue seeds are clearly an issue (e.g., wheat is pollinated by wind) the newcomers will spread around, sometimes to farmers that didn't really want them. Following mounting evidence that Bt cotton is behind a number of farmer suicides, the India Supreme Court has recommended a 10-year moratorium on all field trials of GM foods.

So, the issues are complex. They are likely to become even more so in the coming years. At stake is the perennial debate of science as a healer of human suffering versus science as a force manipulated by evil interest groups.

In the interest of consumers, it is perhaps time for the National Academy of Sciences to make public (or at least louder and more accessible) its opinion on the matter. For example, the 2004 book-length study on the issue, Safety of Genetically Engineered Foods, is largely unknown or rarely cited. Another wide-ranging reference can be found here, from where I quote:

To date more than 98 million acres (39 hectares) of genetically modified crops have been grown worldwide. No evidence of human health problems associated specifically with the ingestion of these crops or resulting food products have been identified, but concerns have been raised about the potential for transgenic food products to cause allergic reactions or produce toxic compounds. In addition, concrete information on the effects of transgenic plants on the environment and on biological diversity is still sparse.

To be sure, this is science in the making, with the good and the bad of it. It is the mixing of new ideas from highly creative people with powerful economic forces and human need.

The best that can be done is to raise awareness and to encourage scientists to get out of their labs and tell the public what it is that they are finding out.

RisksWhen recombinant DNA was discovered in the early 1970s, a one-year moratorium was initiated by key American researchers to assess the risk associated with the technology, and to develop guidelines for its safe use. Today, gene technology is regulated by law in all industrialised countries. The regulations specify how the research should be conducted and how laboratories should be equipped and safeguarded, according to the category of risk of the organisms and genes that scientists are working on. The legislation distinguishes between contained use and deliberate release. Contained use means that when working with genetically modified organisms, physical means of confinement are used to limit the organisms' contact with humans and the environment. The level of containment is considered based on an assessment of the risk to health and the environment if the GMO is released. Normal molecular biological research requires a low level of security, while work with pathogenic organisms or transgenic plants requires a higher degree of containment.

The risk associated with GMOs can be discussed based on three levels of knowledge: a) known areas of uncertainty; b) known risks, and c) unknown uncertainty and risk factors. The first two known points have a scientific basis (Gillund et al., 2008). An example of a known area of uncertainty is that when introducing new DNA into plants it is not possible to know in advance where this DNA will establish itself in the plant, or whether it will be possible for the introduced gene to effectively be switched on and be functional (but it is possible to discover this experimentally). An example of a known risk is the calculated risk of insects becoming resistant

to insecticides, given that the insects feed on genetically modified plants that produce insecticide. Unknown factors are precisely that, but an indication that these exist could be based on the frequency of unexpected and unforeseen "errors" in GMOs. An example of a completely unexpected result is provided by the genetically modified petunia plants that were sown on open ground at the Max Planck Institute for Plant Breeding Research in Cologne in summer 1991. The plants had been given a gene that produced red flowers. Quite unexpectedly, a large number of plants grew white flowers (Finnegan and McElroy, 1994). Research later revealed that the gene for the colour red was still present in these plants, but could no longer be switched on. This was attributed to a modification of the DNA of the introduced gene, and this discovery led to the development of a whole new field of research, namely the exploration of how modification and packaging of DNA in the cell nucleus can prevent the switching on of genes.

Ethical perspectivesThere are those who believe it is wrong in principle to create GMOs — we should not "meddle with God's creation". Others are of the opinion that genetic engineering of organisms is not essentially different from naturally occurring gene transfer between organisms in nature, or the plant and domestic animal breeding that humans have engaged in throughout history. Since the discoveries of the laws governing the inheritance of biological features (Mendelian genetics), and particularly since the discovery that the genetic material is DNA (molecular genetics), effective breeding methods have been developed that have provided better crop yields and new, hardy plant varieties. It should therefore be the end product of the breeding or genetic engineering that is considered, and not the method that is used to add new features to an organism (Miller et al., 2008). A third viewpoint is that the uncertainty or potential risks of genetic engineering must be weighed against the usefulness of the genetically modified organism (Hug, 2008). This may require the use of the precautionary principle: In so far as it is scientifically probable, but uncertain, that GMOs can lead to negative consequences, the doubt should weigh in favour of the environment and humans (Bergmans et al., 2008). (See also Biotechnology and gene technology and Embryo, stem cell and foetus.)

ResponsibilityWhat responsibility do researchers working on the development of GMOs for commercial use have for assessing risk, purpose and sustainability? The most important potential areas of application for genetically modified organisms are in agriculture, with the aim of increasing harvests (for example by increasing resistance to pests and weeds) and improving foodstuffs (shelf life, nutritional value), and in the biotechnological production of various compounds, such as vaccines and enzymes. Research is also conducted on developing genetically modified animals for so-called xenotransplantation, i.e. the transferring of tissue or organs from animals. However, there is little research activity in this area, and in 2008 Norway decided to make permanent a temporary ban on xenotransplantation (Proposition to the Odelsting no. 66 (2007-2008)).

Each area in which GMOs are used requires a specific assessment of safety for health and the environment, and most countries have introduced legislation and regulations that ensure this. But

does our responsibility with regard to the use of GMOs go beyond safety considerations? The purpose of the Norwegian Gene Technology Act is to "ensure that the production and use of genetically modified organisms and the production of cloned animals take place in an ethically justifiable and socially acceptable manner, in accordance with the principle of sustainable development and without adverse effects on health and the environment" (see section 1 of the Gene Technology Act). Most other countries place exclusive emphasis on the consequences for health and the environment. The Norwegian Act is different in that it emphasises "benefit to society" and "sustainable development". This means that in the opinion of the Norwegian Parliament, we have an ethical duty to use this technology in such a way as to take account of long-term, global considerations for humans and the environment. This must be viewed in conjunction with the fact that GMOs for commercial use are to a great extent developed and controlled by large multinational companies that are criticised by environmental and anti-globalisation movements for focusing exclusively on profit, and that this has negative consequences on food production and the manufacture of medicines, especially in developing countries (see for example (Shiva, 2004)). Thus the use of GMOs is not simply a matter for ethical reflection, but is also part of a political battle and societal debate in which researchers also have a responsibility to participate.

References1. Bergmans, H., Logie, C., Van Maanen, K., Hermsen, H., Meredyth, M. and Van Der

Vlugt, C.: Identification of potentially hazardous human gene products in GMO risk assessment. Environmental Biosafety Research 7 (2008) 1-9

2. Finnegan, J. & McElroy, D.: Transgene inactivation - plants fight back. Bio-technology 12 (1994) 883-888

3. Gillund, F., Kjølberg, K.A., Krayer von Krauss, M. & Myhr, A.I.: Do uncertainty analyses reveal uncertainties? Using the introduction of DNA vaccines to aquaculture as a case. Science of The Total Environment 407 (2008) 185-196

4. Hug, K.: Genetically modified organisms: do the benefits outweigh the risks? Medicina (Kaunas) 44 (2008) 87-99

5. Miller, H.I., Morandini, P. and Ammann, K.: Is biotechnology a victim of anti-science bias in scientific journals? Trends in Biotechnology 26 (2008) 122-125

6. Ot.prp. nr. 66  (2007-2008) Om lov om endringar i lov 9. februar 1973 nr. 6 om transplantasjon, sykehusobduksjon og avgivelse av lik m.m.

7. Shiva, V.: Patent på plyndring? om opphavsrett, etikk og nykolonialisme. Spartacus, 2004

8. Public and Scientists’ Views on Science and Society . January 2015.9. James, C. 2014. Global Status of Commercialized Biotech/GM Crops: 2014. ISAAA

Brief No. 49. ISAAA: Ithaca, NY.10. Van Eenennaam, A.L., and A. E. Young. 2014. Prevalence and impacts of genetically

engineered feedstuffs on livestock populations. Journal of Animal Science 92(10): 4255–4278.

11. Restrictions on Genetically Modified Organisms: United States . Library of Congress.

12. A Decade of EU-Funded GMO Research . 2010.13. Riley, D.R., et al. 2013. Bacteria-human somatic cell lateral gene transfer is enriched in

cancer samples. PLOS Computational Biology 9(6): e1003107.14. Keese, P. 2008. Risks from GMOs due to horizontal gene transfer. Environmental

Biosafety Research 7: 123–149.15. Mortensen, D.A., J.F. Egan, B.D. Maxwell, M.R. Ryan, and R.G. Smith. 2012.

Navigating a critical juncture for sustainable weed management. BioScience 62: 75–84.16. Registration of Enlist Duo . U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.17. Schinasi, L., and M.E. Leon. 2014. Non-Hodgkin lymphoma and occupational exposure

to agricultural pesticide chemical groups and active ingredients: A systematic review and meta-analysis. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health 11(4): 4449–4527.

18. Klümper, W., and M. Qaim. 2014. A meta-analysis of the impacts of genetically modified crops. PLOS ONE 9(11): e111629. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0111629.