According the Institute for Responsible Technology, “the foreign genes may come from bacteria, viruses, insects, animals, or even humans” (Smith). The main purposes of this is a higher tolerance for herbicides and causing the plant to release its own pesticides. These provide no health benefits, and in fact may very well be detrimental to human health. The IRT adds, “genetically modified foods have been linked to toxic and allergic reactions, sick, sterile, and dead livestock, and damage to virtually every organ” (Smith). Although not exactly known how GMOs directly affect humans, the effects on animals have shown to be disastrous. Mice that were fed GMOs had damaged intestines, reduced digestive enzymes, reactions to formerly harmless foods, atrophied livers, smaller, sterile babies that died shortly after being birthed, and altered sexual organs. Also, “a growing body of evidence connects GMOs with health problems, environmental damage and violation of farmers’ and consumers’ rights” (Burke). Clearly showing extensive damage, these effects are scary and is a recipe for certain …show more content…
They will tell you that somehow genetically engineering crops “allows farmers to use fewer chemicals, such as pesticides...helps them utilize more environmentally friendly planting techniques [and]...[less] greenhouse gas emissions” (Get). What they won’t tell you is the unabbreviated truth. In reality, yes, in the first few years, statistics show that herbicide and pesticide use decreases within the first few years of utilizing genetically modified crops (Hoffman). Yet, the long terms effects hold a much higher importance, which geneticists do not want you to look at. When pesticides are repeatedly sprayed on a plant, the weeds around it adapt to it, and eventually they become resistant to the chemical, usually given the title of “superweeds” (Hoffman). These weeds proceed to reproduce, the offspring possessing an increasingly higher resistance (Hoffman). Causedly, farmers find it necessary to use more and more pesticide each time, and “Food and Water Watch found that the ‘total volume of glyphosate [a pesticide] applied to the three biggest GE crops - corn, cotton and soybeans - increased 10-fold from 15 million pounds in 1996 to 159 million pounds in 2012” and pesticide use has “since then risen by 26 percent from 2001 to 2010” (Hoffman). If more herbicides and pesticides make an appearance, this means for a deadly increase in