Others disagree, citing profit as the primary motivator behind the production of genetically-altered organisms. As recently as 1995, no genetically-modified crops were grown for commercial sale. According to estimates compiled by the Sparks Companies, an agricultural research and analysis company based in Memphis, the world's largest transgenic seed market is the United States. A growing number of scientists, nutritionists, and politicians see the introduction of genetically-altered crops into the food chain as grim news for consumers, farmers, the environment, and global food security. Even more disturbing is the fact that there's no knowledge of what the overall effect of genetic modification will be on the nutritional value of the food item.
Plants are holistic systems in which everything affects everything else.
Changing the fundamental make-up of a food could cause unforeseen problems, far more serious than those caused by artificial fertilizers, herbicides, and pesticides. The catalyst for the recent furor over transgenics was a report issued in early 1998 by Dr. Arpad Puzstai from the Rowett Institute in Scotland, which detailed his experiments of feeding transgenic potatoes to rats. The report showed significant negative impacts on the immune system of rats as well as on some of their vital organs. After disclosing certain aspects of the report, he was dismissed from the Rowett Institute in August 1998 and is still forbidden to speak about his case in public. Although Pusztai's results have yet to be duplicated, unknown long-term health effects of GMOs on humans continues to keep this issue in the public eye.