Potential Risks And Ethical Analysis Of Genetically Modiifed Food

Genetically modified food (GMF) began to spread worldwide, bring hugeeconomic benefits to people, and also potentially present the risks. At the sametime, how to deal with the potential risk of GMF has also aroused hot debates.related to these debates is two different risk management principles: substantiveequality principle adhere to the scientific standard,and if detected components ofGMF have no obvious difference from that of corresponding traditional food, twokinds of food would be thought to have the security of substantial equivalence.Precautionary principle emphasizes the uncertainty of science and technology,think that GM technology contains enormous risks for its power of reinventinglife, and hazard events could be devastating and irreversible, therefore, evenwithout sufficient scientific evidence, necessary measures should be taken toprevent risks.Along with the advance of science and technology, especially rising of hightechnologies such as the transgenic technology has huge capacities of remaking,the abilities of science and technology are being exaggerated and moral restraintof science and technology is being absent. Driven by the immediate interests,science and technology interfere with natural too much, with the result ofexacerbating the crisis.Therefore, we should fully recognize at the present stage ofdeveloping GMF that science and technology is limited, ethical guidance wouldhelp avoid or reduce the risks of GMF. GMF should follow the ethical principlesbelow and their guiding role: GMF has advantages and risks at the same time, itsultimate goal is to improve human well-being, therefore, the principle of healthfirst, of double effect, of risk prevention and of respecting nature should befollowed; science still can’t predict risks of GMF, therefore, the principle ofautonomy should be adhered to, to implement identity management and to protectconsumers of informed choice; Given that the inequality between profit and riskcome from resource allocation imbalance, the principle of fairness should also befollowed,and acording to this principle,gene patent system should be establishedreasonable to ensure fair distribution of resources.This paper uses the methodcombining the theoretical analysis and empirical analysis, begin with the potentialrisk of GMF, and than analysis the necessity of using ethics to reduce the risk ofGMF and the guiding roles of ethical principles, ethical analysis is the key andsignificance of this study.