Several disputes exist around Genetically Modified Organisms （GMOs）. This article uses the concept of biopolitics to refer to all the GMO-related political issues and the mechanisms that are used to handle them. As ...Several disputes exist around Genetically Modified Organisms （GMOs）. This article uses the concept of biopolitics to refer to all the GMO-related political issues and the mechanisms that are used to handle them. As a world famous genetically modified crop developed for the welfare of humanity by public institutions, Golden Rice has on one hand won glories, whereas on the other met with criticisms. It could be used as an analytical model to illustrate the biopolitics of GMOs. On the basis of an overview of its technological background, this article first introduces the participants and the debated issues of the Golden Rice project and then the disputes between the supporters and opponents and consequently analyzes the biopolitics of the Golden Rice. In conclusion, this article justifies the biopolitics of the GMOs and its doctrine.展开更多
In 2012, genetically engineered （GE） crops were grown by 17.3 million farmers on over 170 million hectares. Over 70% of harvested GE biomass is fed to food producing animals, making them the major consumers of GE cr...In 2012, genetically engineered （GE） crops were grown by 17.3 million farmers on over 170 million hectares. Over 70% of harvested GE biomass is fed to food producing animals, making them the major consumers of GE crops for the past 15 plus years. Prior to commercialization, GE crops go through an extensive regulatory evaluation. Over one hundred regulatory submissions have shown compositional equivalence, and comparable levels of safety, between GE crops and their conventional counterparts. One component of regulatory compliance is whole GE food/feed animal feeding studies. Both regulatory studies and independent peer-reviewed studies have shown that GE crops can be safely used in animal feed, and rDNA fragments have never been detected in products （e.g. milk, meat, eggs） derived from animals that consumed GE feed. Despite the fact that the scientific weight of evidence from these hundreds of studies have not revealed unique risks associated with GE feed, some groups are calling for more animal feeding studies, including long-term rodent studies and studies in target livestock species for the approval of GE crops. It is an opportune time to review the results of such studies as have been done to date to evaluate the value of the additional information obtained. Requiring long-term and target animal feeding studies would sharply increase regulatory compliance costs and prolong the regulatory process associated with the commercialization of GE crops. Such costs may impede the development of feed crops with enhanced nutritional characteristics and durability, particularly in the local varieties in small and poor developing countries. More generally it is time for regulatory evaluations to more explicitly consider both the reasonable and unique risks and benefits associated with the use of both GE plants and animals in agricultural systems, and weigh them against those associated with existing systems, and those of regulatory inaction. This would represent a shift away from a GE evaluation process that currently focuses only on risk assessment and identifying ever diminishing marginal hazards, to a regulatory approach that more objectively evaluates and communicates the likely impact of approving a new GE plant or animal on agricultural production systems.展开更多
Safety assessment of genetically modified organisms (GMOs) is a contentious topic. Proponents of GMOs assert that GMOs are safe since the FDA’s policy of substantial equivalence considers GMOs “equivalent” to their...Safety assessment of genetically modified organisms (GMOs) is a contentious topic. Proponents of GMOs assert that GMOs are safe since the FDA’s policy of substantial equivalence considers GMOs “equivalent” to their non-GMO counterparts, and argue that genetic modification (GM) is simply an extension of a “natural” process of plant breeding, a form of “genetic modification”, though done over longer time scales. Anti-GMO activists counter that GMOs are unsafe since substantial equivalence is unscientific and outdated since it originates in the 1970s to assess safety of medical devices, which are not comparable to the complexity of biological systems, and contend that targeted GM is not plant breeding. The heart of the debate appears to be on the methodology used to determine criteria for substantial equivalence. Systems biology, which aims to understand complexity of the whole organism, as a system, rather than just studying its parts in a reductionist manner, may provide a framework to determine appropriate criteria, as it recognizes that GM, small or large, may affect emergent properties of the whole system. Herein, a promising computational systems biology method couples known perturbations on five biomolecules caused by the CP4 EPSPS GM of Glycine max L. (soybean), with an integrative model of C1 metabolism and oxidative stress (two molecular systems critical to plant function). The results predict significant accumulation of formaldehyde and concomitant depletion of glutathione in the GMO, suggesting how a “small” and single GM creates “large” and systemic perturbations to molecular systems equilibria. Regulatory agencies, currently reviewing rules for GMO safety, may wish to adopt a systems biology approach using a combination of in silico, computational methods used herein, and subsequent targeted experimental in vitro and in vivo designs, to develop a systems understanding of “equivalence” using biomarkers, such as formaldehyde and glutathione, which predict metabolic disruptions, towards modernizing the safety assessment of GMOs.展开更多
Given the public concern over the safety of genetically modified （GM） technology and products, the article elaborated the safety regulatory and administration on agricultural GMOs in China. China has made a set of l...Given the public concern over the safety of genetically modified （GM） technology and products, the article elaborated the safety regulatory and administration on agricultural GMOs in China. China has made a set of laws and regulations of GMO safety management and confirmed competent authorities with clear-cut responsibilities. According to the laws and regulations, GMO products before entering markets have to pass through safety evaluation, get production and processing permission and be labeled correctly. For the importation of GM products, China has set up an import approval system. In addition, China has established technical supportive systems, including safety evaluation specifications, trial specifications and criteria specifications. The existing regulatory system supervises and regulates all activities and work related to agri- cultural GMOs in China.展开更多
The objective of this research is to assess the global economic and greenhouse gas emission impacts of banning GMO crops. This is done by modeling two counterfac-tual scenarios and evaluating them apart and in combina...The objective of this research is to assess the global economic and greenhouse gas emission impacts of banning GMO crops. This is done by modeling two counterfac-tual scenarios and evaluating them apart and in combination using a well-know Computable General Equilibrium (CGE) model, GTAP-BIO. The first scenario models the impact of a global GMO ban. The second scenario models the impact of increased GMO penetration. The focus is on the price and welfare impacts, and land use change greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions associated with GMO technologies. Much of the prior work on the economic impacts of GMO technology has relied on a combination of partial equilibrium analysis and econometric techniques. However, CGE model-ling is a way of analyzing economy-wide impacts that take into account the linkages in the global economy. Here the goal is to contribute to the literature on the benefits of GMO technology by estimating the impacts on price, supply and welfare. Food price impacts range from an increase of 0.27% to 2.2%, depending on the region. Total welfare losses associated with loss of GMO technology total up to $9.75 bil-lion. The loss of GMO traits as an intensification technology has not only economic impacts, but also environmental ones. The full environmental analysis of GMO is not undertaken here. Rather we model the land use change owing to the loss of GMO traits and calculate the associated increase in GHG emissions. We predict a substan-tial increase in GHG emissions if GMO technology is banned.展开更多
This paper provides an overview of the economic analysis,policy debate,and methodological issues on soybean production, import and export, and impacts of GMO regulation on soybean foreign trade of China. The paper ana...This paper provides an overview of the economic analysis,policy debate,and methodological issues on soybean production, import and export, and impacts of GMO regulation on soybean foreign trade of China. The paper analyzes China’s soybean production capability and discovers that the present yield of China’s soybean plant system cannot satisfy the domestic demand.The paperalso provides the method to solve such matters by using the result of a modified Cobb-Douglas model. In the third section of this paper, the impacts of GMO regulation on soybean trade and marketin China are analyzed.In this section,we provide a methodological issue to analyze the impacts of such regulation on trade.The paper then explains the implicated result induced by such regulations.展开更多
By obtaining changes on gene sequences of living things with the applied biotechnological methods;The idea of“Genetically Modified Organisms(GMO)”,which aims to bring the living creature in question the original gen...By obtaining changes on gene sequences of living things with the applied biotechnological methods;The idea of“Genetically Modified Organisms(GMO)”,which aims to bring the living creature in question the original gene combinations with the desired characteristics,came to life in the late twentieth century.Despite the high probability that hunger problems may increase with the increasing world population;It is thought that plant breeding with classical farming methods will be insufficient in solving these problems.With various GMO applications developed all over the world,it aims to produce solutions to these problems.With the presence of GMO,it was possible to increase the shelf life of qualitative and quantitative values of the existing foods.In addition,decreases in agricultural use of pesticides used in agricultural struggle and threatening human health with GMO production are noteworthy.However,some concerns about anomalies that may occur in living things fed GMO products remain on the agenda.Because,in the long term,there is no clear and precise information that GMO will not have negative effects on living things;There are many recorded incidents showing their negative effects.展开更多
基金Acknowlegements This research is supported by National Social Science Foundation of China （04CFX004）.
文摘Several disputes exist around Genetically Modified Organisms （GMOs）. This article uses the concept of biopolitics to refer to all the GMO-related political issues and the mechanisms that are used to handle them. As a world famous genetically modified crop developed for the welfare of humanity by public institutions, Golden Rice has on one hand won glories, whereas on the other met with criticisms. It could be used as an analytical model to illustrate the biopolitics of GMOs. On the basis of an overview of its technological background, this article first introduces the participants and the debated issues of the Golden Rice project and then the disputes between the supporters and opponents and consequently analyzes the biopolitics of the Golden Rice. In conclusion, this article justifies the biopolitics of the GMOs and its doctrine.
基金support from National Research Initiative Competitive Grant no.2009-55205-05057Agriculture and Food Research Initiative Competitive Grant no.2011-68004-30367 and 2013-68004-20364 from the USDA National Institute of Food and Agriculturesupported by funds from the W.K.Kellogg endowment to the UC Davis Department of Animal Science
文摘In 2012, genetically engineered （GE） crops were grown by 17.3 million farmers on over 170 million hectares. Over 70% of harvested GE biomass is fed to food producing animals, making them the major consumers of GE crops for the past 15 plus years. Prior to commercialization, GE crops go through an extensive regulatory evaluation. Over one hundred regulatory submissions have shown compositional equivalence, and comparable levels of safety, between GE crops and their conventional counterparts. One component of regulatory compliance is whole GE food/feed animal feeding studies. Both regulatory studies and independent peer-reviewed studies have shown that GE crops can be safely used in animal feed, and rDNA fragments have never been detected in products （e.g. milk, meat, eggs） derived from animals that consumed GE feed. Despite the fact that the scientific weight of evidence from these hundreds of studies have not revealed unique risks associated with GE feed, some groups are calling for more animal feeding studies, including long-term rodent studies and studies in target livestock species for the approval of GE crops. It is an opportune time to review the results of such studies as have been done to date to evaluate the value of the additional information obtained. Requiring long-term and target animal feeding studies would sharply increase regulatory compliance costs and prolong the regulatory process associated with the commercialization of GE crops. Such costs may impede the development of feed crops with enhanced nutritional characteristics and durability, particularly in the local varieties in small and poor developing countries. More generally it is time for regulatory evaluations to more explicitly consider both the reasonable and unique risks and benefits associated with the use of both GE plants and animals in agricultural systems, and weigh them against those associated with existing systems, and those of regulatory inaction. This would represent a shift away from a GE evaluation process that currently focuses only on risk assessment and identifying ever diminishing marginal hazards, to a regulatory approach that more objectively evaluates and communicates the likely impact of approving a new GE plant or animal on agricultural production systems.
文摘Safety assessment of genetically modified organisms (GMOs) is a contentious topic. Proponents of GMOs assert that GMOs are safe since the FDA’s policy of substantial equivalence considers GMOs “equivalent” to their non-GMO counterparts, and argue that genetic modification (GM) is simply an extension of a “natural” process of plant breeding, a form of “genetic modification”, though done over longer time scales. Anti-GMO activists counter that GMOs are unsafe since substantial equivalence is unscientific and outdated since it originates in the 1970s to assess safety of medical devices, which are not comparable to the complexity of biological systems, and contend that targeted GM is not plant breeding. The heart of the debate appears to be on the methodology used to determine criteria for substantial equivalence. Systems biology, which aims to understand complexity of the whole organism, as a system, rather than just studying its parts in a reductionist manner, may provide a framework to determine appropriate criteria, as it recognizes that GM, small or large, may affect emergent properties of the whole system. Herein, a promising computational systems biology method couples known perturbations on five biomolecules caused by the CP4 EPSPS GM of Glycine max L. (soybean), with an integrative model of C1 metabolism and oxidative stress (two molecular systems critical to plant function). The results predict significant accumulation of formaldehyde and concomitant depletion of glutathione in the GMO, suggesting how a “small” and single GM creates “large” and systemic perturbations to molecular systems equilibria. Regulatory agencies, currently reviewing rules for GMO safety, may wish to adopt a systems biology approach using a combination of in silico, computational methods used herein, and subsequent targeted experimental in vitro and in vivo designs, to develop a systems understanding of “equivalence” using biomarkers, such as formaldehyde and glutathione, which predict metabolic disruptions, towards modernizing the safety assessment of GMOs.
文摘Given the public concern over the safety of genetically modified （GM） technology and products, the article elaborated the safety regulatory and administration on agricultural GMOs in China. China has made a set of laws and regulations of GMO safety management and confirmed competent authorities with clear-cut responsibilities. According to the laws and regulations, GMO products before entering markets have to pass through safety evaluation, get production and processing permission and be labeled correctly. For the importation of GM products, China has set up an import approval system. In addition, China has established technical supportive systems, including safety evaluation specifications, trial specifications and criteria specifications. The existing regulatory system supervises and regulates all activities and work related to agri- cultural GMOs in China.
文摘The objective of this research is to assess the global economic and greenhouse gas emission impacts of banning GMO crops. This is done by modeling two counterfac-tual scenarios and evaluating them apart and in combination using a well-know Computable General Equilibrium (CGE) model, GTAP-BIO. The first scenario models the impact of a global GMO ban. The second scenario models the impact of increased GMO penetration. The focus is on the price and welfare impacts, and land use change greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions associated with GMO technologies. Much of the prior work on the economic impacts of GMO technology has relied on a combination of partial equilibrium analysis and econometric techniques. However, CGE model-ling is a way of analyzing economy-wide impacts that take into account the linkages in the global economy. Here the goal is to contribute to the literature on the benefits of GMO technology by estimating the impacts on price, supply and welfare. Food price impacts range from an increase of 0.27% to 2.2%, depending on the region. Total welfare losses associated with loss of GMO technology total up to $9.75 bil-lion. The loss of GMO traits as an intensification technology has not only economic impacts, but also environmental ones. The full environmental analysis of GMO is not undertaken here. Rather we model the land use change owing to the loss of GMO traits and calculate the associated increase in GHG emissions. We predict a substan-tial increase in GHG emissions if GMO technology is banned.
文摘This paper provides an overview of the economic analysis,policy debate,and methodological issues on soybean production, import and export, and impacts of GMO regulation on soybean foreign trade of China. The paper analyzes China’s soybean production capability and discovers that the present yield of China’s soybean plant system cannot satisfy the domestic demand.The paperalso provides the method to solve such matters by using the result of a modified Cobb-Douglas model. In the third section of this paper, the impacts of GMO regulation on soybean trade and marketin China are analyzed.In this section,we provide a methodological issue to analyze the impacts of such regulation on trade.The paper then explains the implicated result induced by such regulations.
文摘By obtaining changes on gene sequences of living things with the applied biotechnological methods;The idea of“Genetically Modified Organisms(GMO)”,which aims to bring the living creature in question the original gene combinations with the desired characteristics,came to life in the late twentieth century.Despite the high probability that hunger problems may increase with the increasing world population;It is thought that plant breeding with classical farming methods will be insufficient in solving these problems.With various GMO applications developed all over the world,it aims to produce solutions to these problems.With the presence of GMO,it was possible to increase the shelf life of qualitative and quantitative values of the existing foods.In addition,decreases in agricultural use of pesticides used in agricultural struggle and threatening human health with GMO production are noteworthy.However,some concerns about anomalies that may occur in living things fed GMO products remain on the agenda.Because,in the long term,there is no clear and precise information that GMO will not have negative effects on living things;There are many recorded incidents showing their negative effects.
