美国《大西洋月刊》“转基因食品有非常真实的危险”

许多转基因食品的支持者喜欢说：如果必须测试转基因食品的毒性，那么对世界上的全部食品都应该做毒性测试。

 Many GM fans will point out that if we do toxicity tests on GM foods, we should also have to do toxicity testing on every other kind of food in the world.

可是，现有食物植物的毒性？——测试早就做完了。我们做了几千年艰难的测试，我们试尝陌生的植物，导致有人死亡、或者濒临死亡。我们就是这样学会的识别有毒植物。我们每一个人都在以一生的时间不断地确认，我们究竟会对哪些食物过敏。

 But we've already done the testing on the existing plants. We tested them the hard way, by eating strange things and dying, or almost dying, over thousands of years. That's how we've figured out which plants poisonous. And over the course of each of our lifetimes we've learned which foods we're allergic to.

我们食用的一切非转基因的或杂交品种的植物，它们的遗传特性都包容在各自的父母亲本中，而它们的基因足够相似，以使它们能够通过固有的交配方式、嫁接方式甚至人工受精（试管）方式，繁育和它们自己相似的后代。

 All of the non-GM breeds and hybrid species that we eat have been shaped by the genetic variability offered by pnts whose genes were similar enough that they could mate, graft, or test tube baby their way to an offspring that resembled them.

给我吃一颗转入了鱼类基因的土豆？且慢。对我来说，那是一种新型植物，需要做测试。今天的科学是多么的新奇；新植物有没有有毒、会不会造成过敏，我们可不能用老掉牙的方法去察看它。

 A tomato with fish genes? Not so much. That, to me, is a new plant and it should be tested. We shouldn't have to figure out if it's poisonous or allergenic the old fashioned way, especially in light of how new-fangled the science is.

时光流转，物换星移。承认眼前的事实吧：改写转基因知识蓝本的时刻已经到来！基因系统的复杂性超过我们的监管系统千百倍，比制定这些规则的公司更复杂千百倍。

 It's time to re-write the rules to acknowledge how much more complicated genetic systems than the legal regulations -- and the corporations that have written them -- give credit.

孟山都公司说“测试转基因食品对人类健康的安全性，既没必要也没有价值”，这无助于提升该公司的公众形象。应该承认，食品安全性测试很不好做，因为没有哪一个人愿意，去吃一盘转基因玉米，只是为了证明转基因食品对人类健康有害，或者无害？真正的问题是：孟山都公司把RNA（核糖核酸）干扰原理用于杀虫了，而那个能致死昆虫的生物学机理，在人类身上也是同样存在的。这样的话，在实验室先做个安全测试，就是十分必要的了。

 Monsanto isn't doing itself any PR favors by claiming "no need for, or value in testing the safety of GM foods in humans." Admittedly, such testing can be difficult to construct -- who really wants to volunteer to eat a bunch of GM corn just to see what happens? At the same time, if companies like Monsanto want to use processes like RNA interference to make plants that can kill insects via genetic pathways that might resemble our own, some kind of testing has to happen.

应该从这里开始：测试异源DNA被插入后导致的其他后果，如miRNA，而不是仅限于那块预期的“比萨饼”。但是在孟山都公司网站上，我们看到的却是：