Food and Environmental bioethics
GMOs: Since without mosquitoes, epidemics of dengue fever and malaria could not plague this planet, scientists are attempting to re-engineer the insects so that they cannot carry the diseases. They must create enough mutants to mate with wild insects and so that they may one day outnumber them. An altered organism on wings would be a first.
Critics of bio-engineering, especially in Europe, view some genetic alterations as unnatural, even monstrous. People fearful of so-called Frankenfood could sound similar alarms over Frankenbugs.
Trans fats: The New York City Board of Health voted to adopt the nation’s first major municipal ban on the use of all but tiny amounts of artificial trans fats in restaurant cooking, a move that would radically transform the way food is prepared in thousands of restaurants, from McDonald’s to fashionable bistros to Chinese take-outs. Some experts said the measure, which is widely opposed by the restaurant industry, would be a model for other cities. Chicago is considering a similar prohibition that would affect restaurants with more than $20 million in annual sales. Trans fats are the chemically modified food ingredients that raise levels of a particularly unhealthy form of cholesterol and have been squarely linked to heart disease. Long used as a substitute for saturated fats in baked goods, fried foods, salad dressings, margarine and other foods, trans fats also have a longer shelf life than other alternatives.
Institutions: Fair-trade commodities such as coffee, chocolate and bananas, animal welfare and healthy organic foods have been capturing headlines, but what about institutional change? Is there a need to investigate what can be done to create a more ethical food supply? Peter Singer, a bioethicist with Princeton, has been promoting awareness regarding food ethics issues: pollution, water supply, labor and alternative ways of offering food that is more supportive of family farms. Singer believes that European countries are more progressive than the US in their view of food ethics. He states that the US focuses on respecting the rights of individual choice whereas European countries emphasize public health.
