What are the main health concerns related to GE crops?
Potential harm from GE crops include the production of new allergens or toxins, or unexpectedly increased levels of naturally occurring toxicants or allergens found in crops. Such unexpected changes may be caused by disruption of native genes, unexpected interactions between the GE genes and plant components, or due to the GE process itself. A more remote possibility is that new harmful substances could be produced by the plant. It is important to understand that all of those categories of unexpected changes can occur through traditional forms of plant breeding that have been carried out for many decades. In fact, the only known cases of increased or new harmful compounds have been due to traditional breeding methods, not genetic engineering. Nonetheless, it is clear that many genes that have never been in the food supply, and that could not be introduced by traditional means, can be introduced by genetic engineering. Uncertainties about the properties of new genes and uncertain intera
