advances, others contend that biotechnology of this sort opens an entirely unknown world fraught with potential disaster.
Scientists have introduced chicken genes into potatoes to make them more disease resistant. Firefly genes have been introduced into the biological code of corn plants. To increase sterol production, Chinese hamster genes have been introduced into the genome of tobacco plants. Rifkin (1998) warned of the dangers of such genetic modification a half decade ago: ôEcologists are unsure of the impacts of bypassing natural species boundaries by introducing genes into crops from wholly unrelated plant and animal species. The fact is, there is no precedent in history for this kind of shotgun experimentationö (37). This analysis will look at different kinds of foods ands crops that are being genetically engineered, in order to provide an assessment of the real and potential dangers such biotechnological experimentation poses for the ecosystem and human health.
Despite a good deal of controversy and concern over the safety of genetically engineered foods, the U.S. continues to lead worldwide production in genetically engineered crops. There are currently 672 million acres of cultivatable land in the world, with approximately 25% or 167.2 million acres consisting of genetically engineered crops (Genetically 2004, 2). The U.S. (105.7 million acres), Argentina (34.4 million acres), Canada (10.9 millions acres), and Brazil (8.4 million acres) are the four leading nations among genetically engineered planters (Genetically 2004, 2). Genetically engineered crops have mainly been engineered in order to introduce them with some new trait that will produce greater yields and/or lower costs. The four biggest planted crops that are genetically engineered are: soybeans, cotton, corn, and canola (Lapan and Moschini 2004, 635).
The traits that are typically desired in these crops are herbicide resistance and insect resis...