Isn it the case that genetic modification is an unstable process and genes are inserted at random to make a GM plant – doesn this makes unexpected effects likely?
It is true that with current GM techniques there are potential uncertainties about how inserted genes may perform, and this means it is possible for unexpected effects to occur. But this is also the case with conventional plant breeding. Both GM and conventional varieties undergo extensive testing to select those which have desirable traits and reject those which do not. If a newly-created GM plant has an unstable genetic structure this is likely to manifest itself early on, resulting in that plant not being developed any further. A GM crop will go through years of research and development and many generations of plant breeding before it is ready for possible commercial use. By that time, if the GM plant is growing in a stable and reliable fashion it may reasonably be concluded that the novel genes have been inserted stably into the plant’s genome.
