This research examines an article on the subject of genetically modified (GM) foods, with a view toward identifying and analyzing the pattern of ideas in the text and its argumentative cogency. The research will present a basic outline of the article, citing its main argument and evaluating its validity, with reference to other contributions to the discourse of GM foods.
In their severe critique of GM-foods research and development, Teitel and Wilson take the view that the R&D into GM foods, which is controlled almost exclusively by large corporate interests, has been heedless and in many cases dangerous and that to encourage the introduction of GM foods into the agricultural and consumer-foods marketplace or to use GM foods as a mechanism for the raising of crops that are meant to affect the structure of medical-care delivery represents a significant risk for the future of every feature of experience that it touches directly. As well, the authors suggest, GM foods hold significant, though unknown, negative indirect consequences for the quality of life in both the developed and undeveloped world.
Teitel and Wilson begin with an analysis of what they term "farmaceuticals," the name they given to GM crops that are have infused or grafted into them certain healthful properties and/or substances such as vitamins, enzymes, or other antioxidants that are meant to beneficially alter their metabolism when ingested. They give such examples as rice boosted with additional beta carotene, a precursor of vitamin A that does not lead to vitamin-A overdose; and various crops that can be infused with additional iron, a vital nutrient. The problem with the so-called golden rice, they argue, is that the added beta carotine could interfere with rice's other metabolic properties, and the problem with what could be called superferrous vegetables is that male and female body systems have different needs for nutritional iron, which in any case is alrea...