Modifications have been made to some soybean and canola plants to produce oils with a different fatty acid composition so they can be used in new food processing systems. They have engineered corn that carries a protein toxic to certain caterpillars, and some soybean plants carry a gene that makes it resistant to an herbicide used to control weeds. This makes spraying a field of soybeans with a pesticide possible, the Soybean crop is not affected but the weeds are.
Safety is one of the biggest issues when bioengineered food is discussed. There are several important concerns: the safety of genetically modified foods, food allergies, the use of marker genes that confer antibiotic resistance and environmental concerns. "Scientific evidence for either safety or risk is hard to come by "in part because large-scale, long term trials have not been conducted,"" says Laura Tangley from U.S. News and World Report. .
There is no evidence that a genetically modified food has harmed a human being. There are concerns that manipulating a crop's genes could enhance plant toxins in unexpected ways, by accidentally switching on or off a nontargot gene. The new genes or proteins that are being placed in plants have no affect on people eating them. "All of the proteins that have been placed into foods through the tools of biotechnology that are on the market are non-toxic, rapidly digestible, and do not have the characteristics of proteins known to cause allergies."" says Commissioner Jane E. Henney, MD. There has not been any human allergic reaction to a new gene product documented for commercially available transgenic plants according to the Journal of Environmental Health. .
There are two cases that were highly publicized for possible food allergens. One case found in Scientific American in April 2001 was StarLink corn modified to produce an insecticidal protein from the bacterium Bacillus Thuringiensis (BT) turned up in taco shells, corn chips, and other foods.
