Are there potential problems for human health and safety associated with GM foods?
Each time a new gene is introduced into a food, there is a risk that the gene (or other DNA that was carried over with that gene) will lead to toxic or allergic effects in people. In Australia all new GM foods must have been subjected to safety testing before they can be offered for sale. The same requirement for safety testing does not apply to new varieties produced by conventional methods, so it could be argued that new GM foods should be safer to human health than new conventional foods. For example, in the United States a variety of celery was developed in the 1980s–using conventional breeding methods–to have enhanced natural protection against insect pests. No safety testing was conducted. When the celery was handled it led to severe skin rashes. An inadvertent effect of the breeding program had been to increase the quantity of a chemical that became an irritant to human skin when exposed to sunlight. By way of contrast, in the mid 1990s a form of GM soy was developed that inco
