What is the Buddhist attitude to Genetically Modified Foods or Genetic Engineering generally?
From a talk given by Professor Ron Epstein MD at the Temple of Ten Thousand Buddhas on the 14th of February, 2004: Genetically modified organisms are organisms (plants, animals, bacteria, viruses, trees, insects, all kind of sentient life forms) that are made or transformed through genetic engineering, which involves artificially moving the DNA from one species to another species. For example, using genetic engineering you can put plant DNA in animals, or animal DNA in plants, or human DNA in the vegetables or fruit that you eat. All of these are examples of genetic engineering creating genetically modified organisms (GMOs). These GMOs are different than anything that would naturally occur or that would be developed through breeding or hybridizing. GMOs have fundamental changes in their DNA, which is the program for determining how the particular organism will develop. DNA contains genes, which then create RNA, which then creates nucleic acids, which then creates proteins. Proteins are
