Word: humanize
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Dates: during 2000-2000
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Debates over genetically modified (GM) organisms usually involve airy conjectures, obfuscating scientific terms or ecological theories and excessive rhetoric about human hunger or the importance of uncontaminated nature. In the last month, however, all of the airy conjectures solidified into one intricate, international mess that provided us with an early warning of the dangerous potential of GM organisms not only to our natural environment, but also to our economic world...
...United States. The strain of corn, known as StarLink, has been altered so that it can "naturally" produce a toxin for corn borers, one of the more significant pests that plague corn crops. The pesticide produced by the artificially enhanced corn, however, is not quite as harmless to human health as initially predicted: the transplanted gene also codes for a human allergen. Recognizing the uncertainty, if not the danger, involved with this GM organism, the U.S. government revoked the right of Aventis--the company that produces StarLink--to plant the seeds once the strain was detected in the food supply...
Despite these restrictions, last month corn exported from the United States to Japan and meant for human and livestock consumption was also found to include some of the StarLink strain. Even without the danger of an adverse reaction in humans, the unexpected occurrence of modified genomes is an enormous ecological problem. Yet this time, because of the suspected threat to human health, the matter was significantly more than "theoretically" wrong. Despite a ban on the use of a GM organism in the United States, a possible health threat found its way into the food supply of another country from American...
...worse. Yet this is just what we face, since the modification of any genome is irreversible. Apart from the fact that GM foods can threaten our health, there exists a greater danger that such genes can never be "recalled." Once a gene is released into the environment, human control over it diminishes greatly. If our scientific assessments on the safety of our technology are wrong--and the StarLink case proves that such things do happen--then there can be no effective, corrective action. Even if the government revokes Aventis' right to plant corn because it causes allergies, the gene...
...response, Gore gave a relentlessly sanguine "60 Minutes" interview in which he professed to have no human frustration whatsoever at his current plight. "At the end of the day, when all processes have taken place, if George Bush is sworn in as president he'll be my president," the veep declared for broadcast Sunday night. "He'll be America's president." Gore thinks it'll be over by mid-December, but isn't willing to micromanage it. And if he's beaten, Gore said his family and his faith will set him free...