Genetic modifications happen far more frequently that we understand in Nature, and has been around much long before humans. There really is no need for biotechnology to make GMOs. There are numerous examples of organisms inserting their genes in other organisms for all sorts of purposes. And organisms have molecular machineries to accept or discard pieces of exogenous DNA as they see it fit.
A few examples include viruses that will splice their genes within the genomes of their hosts. This they will do to either hide from host defenses and/or to hijack their hosts' genome to make it work to the virus' advantage. Bacteria will commonly uptake random DNA that may happen to be in their environment and incorporate them in their genomes with the view that this might be useful in the long run. A very common example of an organism that genetically modifies another is the bacterium
Agrobacterium tumefaciens. This bacterium will splice several rogue genes from its genome in the genome of its host plants with a view to divert the plant's metabolism to suit the bacterial needs. Examples of organisms genetically altering the genomes of other organisms are plenty in the natural world and for ecologically-related organisms it is just another trick in the book to establish parasitic and/or mutualistic relationships.
Ironically enough, and as far as the technical aspects of how to make a GMO go, scientists use
the very same tools that were taught to us by Nature to carry genetic modifications. With regard to GMO plants, one popular approach is to take
Agrobacterium tumefaciens and tweak it so that it will splice our gene of interest instead of the genes it would normally splice in the plants we wish to genetically modify.
Sorry to break it but we do nothing novel by creating GMOs. We can make GMOs because we saw it happening in the Nature and then we used the very same tools to do the same.
EDIT; the process og gene transfers among different organisms is also known as Horizontal Gene Transfer and wikipedia has a fairly accurate article, including examples, on the matter.
jamie wrote:Eugenics and selective breeding, hybridization etc, as they have been practiced through history are entirley different from what we are calling "genetic modification". Selecting certain traits we like in say, carrots, and then growing otu successive generations of seeds produced from those specimens is selective breeding. Crossing a cannabis indica strain with a cannabis sativa strain to creat a new indica/sativa hybrid is hybridization. These things occur, becasue it is entirely within the genetics of the species for such things to occur. You are not loosing any context, there is no cutting and pasting the the genetic code. It's SEX. These things are able to occur due to SEX..procreation..which is what has happened in nature for millions of years on earth. GM does not happen without human biotech. Hybridization happens all the time without human invovlement.
Selective breeding is not too entirely different from genetic modification. By eugenics you effectively select which genes from an organism's genepool you wish to propagate and which ones to discard. As such you may end up losing a fair amount of context in the long term. One may even claim that deleting a gene from a plant by using biotechnology is not too entirely different than doing the very same thing by selective breeding.
As far as safety of GMO foods go I am still sitting on the fence; there sure are arguments in favor and arguments against. With regard to human or animal health feeding on GMO plants, we can only say that most test or comparisons may not have been in depth enough or performed to the right direction to identify a difference. And scientists can and have been wrong in the past and there is always more to learn about the delicate mechanisms of biological systems.
As for the labelling of GMO content on food packages mention in the OP? There is ambiguity here as well. From one side the consumer should be informed enough about what he puts in his body, fair enough. But how much should he be informed? Should we also start adding Bisphenol A, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, phthalates etc warnings wherever there is some sort of plastic? Or the potential contaminants of bleaching agents on recycled paper? There is a whole can of worms to open if we are to label anything potentially toxic. And from my perspective, it'd make more sense to add warning labels to items containing compounds with well-documented health risks such as BPA or PHAs instead of GMO products without much well-recognised risks. But it is the nature of politics to always be absurd and dirty...