Rastogi Verma Smita
Department of Biotechnology, Delhi Technological University, Delhi 110042, India.
ISRN Biotechnol. 2013 Mar 7;2013:820671. doi: 10.5402/2013/820671. eCollection 2013.
The potential of genetically modified plants to meet the requirements of growing population is not being recognized at present. This is a consequence of concerns raised by the public and the critics about their applications and release into the environment. These include effect on human health and environment, biosafety, world trade monopolies, trustworthiness of public institutions, integrity of regulatory agencies, loss of individual choice, and ethics as well as skepticism about the real potential of the genetically modified plants, and so on. Such concerns are enormous and prevalent even today. However, it should be acknowledged that most of them are not specific for genetically modified plants, and the public should not forget that the conventionally bred plants consumed by them are also associated with similar risks where no information about the gene(s) transfer is available. Moreover, most of the concerns are hypothetical and lack scientific background. Though a few concerns are still to be disproved, it is viewed that, with proper management, these genetically modified plants have immense potential for the betterment of mankind. In the present paper, an overview of the raised concerns and wherever possible reasons assigned to explain their intensity or unsuitability are reviewed.
目前，转基因植物满足不断增长的人口需求的潜力尚未得到认可。这是公众和批评者对其应用及释放到环境中所引发担忧的结果。这些担忧包括对人类健康和环境的影响、生物安全、世界贸易垄断、公共机构的可信度、监管机构的公正性、个人选择的丧失、伦理问题以及对转基因植物实际潜力的怀疑等等。即便在今天，这类担忧依然广泛存在且影响巨大。然而，应该认识到，其中大多数并非转基因植物所特有，公众不应忘记，他们所食用的传统培育植物在无法获取基因转移信息的情况下，也存在类似风险。此外，大多数担忧是假设性的，缺乏科学依据。尽管仍有一些担忧有待证伪，但人们认为，通过适当管理，这些转基因植物具有改善人类福祉的巨大潜力。本文对所提出的担忧以及在可能情况下为解释其严重程度或不合理性而给出的原因进行了综述。
