Benefits and Concerns Associated with Recombinant DNA Biotechnology-Derived Foods

Today, nutrient deficiency diseases in the Western world are a distant memory. A huge variety of food is available year round. For this to be possible, many of these foods are grown thousands of miles away from where we live, and processed by people we neither see nor know. Furthermore, in the United States, expenditures for food are among the lowest in the world—about 10% of average family income. Supporting those facts is an enormous breadth of science and technology, some of which we discuss in this report. That technology is no longer simple and familiar to all. It is complex, and to most consumers, unknown. Discussing the benefits and concerns that biotechnology creates requires discussing these usually unfamiliar technologies into which biotechnology fits. History teaches another aspect that must be addressed in the course of introducing any new technology. Except for some life-saving medical advances, and sometimes not even then, it is rare for a new technology to receive a broad and enthusiastic welcome. Canned food, for its first hundred years, was viewed apprehensively, and not without reason. In those pre-bacteriology days, it was far more an uncertain art than a solid science. Pasteurized milk, a life-saving technology in its elimination of the microorganisms causing tuberculosis and undulant fever, was originally viewed with deep suspicion. Artificial insemination of farm animals—critical in selective breeding of improved Benefits and Concerns Associated with Recombinant DNA Biotechnology-Derived Foods