Dangers and Consequences of Genetic Engineering Essay

became extinct. This was due to a new anti-inflammatory drug that was given to sick animals.

Genetically transferring genes from one organism to another may sound like something in a sci-fi movie, but now it is happening more than ever. Snipping desired traits from various

Last Seen With- Populations have declined due to overharvesting, interactions with fisheries, accidentally being caught as bycatch in shrimp trawl nets, on longline hooks and in fishing gillnets, mistakenly swallowing plastic bags floating in the ocean, as well as habitat loss from sea level rise, uncontrolled coastal development, and. vehicle traffic on

There are many incurable diseases in the world that affect an organism’s way of living. Cystic Fibrosis, a disease with no known cure, affects 1 out of 3600 Canadian child’s digestive system and lungs, while a person with sickle cell anemia is only expected to live forty to sixty years. Both of these diseases are similar in the way that they are inherited genetically; they are passed on from parents to their children. Scientists are producing a way to help these people called Genetic Engineering. This is a way of modifying an organism’s genome to produce a more desirable trait by manually adding new DNA.

It is incredible to see how far genetic engineering has come. Humans, plants, and any living organism can now be manipulated. Scientists have found ways to change humans before they are even born. They can remove, add, or alter genes in the human genome. Making things possible that humans (even thirty years ago) would have never imagined. Richard Hayes claims in SuperSize Your Child? that genetic engineering needs to have limitations. That genetic engineering should be used for medical purposes, but not for “genetic modification that could open the door to high-tech eugenic engineering” (188). There is no doubt that genetic engineering can amount to great things, but without limits it could lead the human race into a future that no one

Recently, there has been a huge uprise in reports from all over the world of new diseases that have affected much of the population today. Diseases such as obesity, Alzheimer’s, Celiac Disease, Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD), and so much more have been on the rise. Researchers have suspected the culprit of these diseases to be our food. Along with the diseases, Genetically Modified Organisms (GMO) has also been on the rise. The more poor food we eat, the greater the potential harm to our health. One of the poor foods we consume is GMO: the altering of genes in food to produce desirable effects. These effects can range from an improvement in nutritional value, texture, flavor, and a longer shelf life. These

Genetic modification is a scientific advancement with lots of possibilities. The most compelling argument for genetic engineering is to improve the health of society. Simple genetic mutations can easily affect one’s health. If there are effective and efficient methods to cure this, shouldn’t we do so? Or should we object to this? On what grounds? When it is, after all, the logical next step to medical advancement. It has the potential to save thousands of people from diseased lives and early death. Objections are often based on the fact that it is “unnatural” or the fear of the unknown. But so are IVF and organ transplants. It is difficult to predict with a definite certainty of what will occur in the future as a result of the actions of the present. But when has that ever stopped us? Shouldn’t we have the right to eliminate genetic diseases and push human capabilities through genetic engineering? But at what point should we draw a line on genetic modification?

Technology now allows us to transfer genes between organisms. For example, the tomato plant 's beetle resistance relies on a gene from a bacterium (Bacillus thuringiensis), which scientists inserted into the tomato plant 's genome. This gene, called cry1Ac, encodes a protein that is poisonous to certain types of insects, including the beetle. How is this done? Gene transfer technology is simply a sophisticated version of a cut-and-paste operation. Once the desired gene is identified in the native organism 's genome, it can be cut out, transferred to the target plant, and pasted into its genome… Once the new gene has been introduced, the plant can be bred to create a new strain that passes the gene from generation to generation. (pp 8,9)

Luukinen, B. Buhl, K. Stone, D. 2009). Exposure to Malathion can also occur from contact

Author Chuck Klosterman said, “The simple truth is that we’re all already cyborgs more or less. Our mouths are filled with silver. Our nearsighted pupils are repaired with surgical lasers. We jam diabetics full of delicious insulin. Almost 40 percent of Americans now have prosthetic limbs. We see to have no qualms about making post-birth improvements to our feeble selves. Why are we so uncomfortable with pre-birth improvement?” Despite Klosterman’s accurate observation, there are reasons people are wearisome toward pre-birth enhancement. Iniquitous practices such as genetic engineering could lead to a degraded feeling in a child and conceivably end in a dystopian society, almost like the society Adolf Hitler had in mind. In the minds of

Genetic engineering is the process whereby new DNA is added or existing DNA is altered in an organism 's genome. This may involve changing one base pair (A-T or C-G) or deleting entire sections of DNA or adding additional copies of a gene. This results in creating new traits that were not previously present in the organism’s genome. This is done to selectively breed desired traits or to create plants with increased resistance to pesticides and increased tolerance to herbicides. For example insulin is a protein that regulates sugar content in our blood and is produced normally in the pancreas. Genetic engineering is used to produce a form of insulin that is similar to yeast and bacterial cells. This genetically engineered insulin is called

What if you could design your child before it was even born? What if you could cut out any life threatening diseases, make sure that your child is not susceptible to smoking addictions or alcoholism, and then make your child genius? Would you? Are you asking yourself how this could be done? Have you ever considered human genetic engineering?

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He reasoned that there were certain rules by which these characteristics were inherited. He guessed that each plant must possess some sort of unit that specified its characteristics. In fact, each must have two units, one from each parent plant. If the plant inherited two different units, then one would override the other. This was called the dominant unit, and the one that was overridden was called the recessive unit. Mendel's theories were not discovered till 1900, and it began the science called genetics , the study of a physical inheritance. From this name, Mendel's units were changed into genes.