Contemporary problem with the system of healthcare is closely connected with environmental issues. Such sphere of life as food production causes numerous problems related to the sphere of health. Due to the growing risk of psychological, anthropogenic, and ecological character the necessity to solve and problems connected with health and food system is highly topical. Such methods of food creation as usage of genetically modified products are not a new phenomenon nowadays. Taking into account the fact that the aftereffect of the GMP application in the process of food production is not investigated yet, although such products are already introduced to the food production system, the problem of adverse impact of food on human health is topical indeed. Nowadays, there is necessity of improvement of the criteria and methods of quality evaluation in connection with expanding range of national food, the increase of imported and exported products. There is a necessary of quality and safety evaluating methodology of agricultural production. Besides the threat of untested goods implementation, contemporary society suffers from more familiar problems, such as, for example, the polycarbonate problem. Usually labeled as # 7, bisphenol A is included to the composition of canned products wrappers. “Rapidly accumulating scientific research indicates that bisphenol A is an endocrine disruptor and may be adversely affecting our ability to have children” (Grossman 55).
As long as food we eat is raised in connection with surrounding world it doubtlessly influences environment. For example, genetically-modified crops are grown without separation from wild environment. There is scanty data concerning the question of long interaction between genetically-modified and natural plants. First may depress second ones. It is enough to remember the situation with the monarch butterfly in order to understand weaknesses of the U.S. regulatory system: “In the spring of 2000, the U.S. media were abuzz with stories about a preliminary report in Nature indicating that pollen from Bt corn could kill the larvae of monarch butterflies in laboratory studies.” (Mellon and Rissler) At the same time, wastes we throw out, including modified food, canned products, etc., get into environment and pollute it.
Ethics aspects of the problem are highly connected not only with the responsibility which we as humans bear before the nature. It is also the question of liability for the society we live in. Drawbacks in the control and quality evaluating system of food productions hit, in the first place, us. The same is with the environmental damage. The first who suffer are people. Sooner or later, it may lead to critical consequences.
Nowadays attention to the questions of the quality and safety of animal feed is observed. It became the matter of concern of both, veterinary and public health practitioners as long as it influences animals as well as humans. The reasons of this alarm started in December 2003 alarm, when the first U.S. case of bovine spongiform was identified and nowadays scientists mention that “many studies have indicated that animal-based food products (including fish and dairy products) are the largest dietary contributors to PCDD, PCDF, and PCB exposures in the U.S. population” (Sapkota, Lefferts, Mckenzie, and Walker).
Still, the problem hides in the roots of the social structure, which is called consumer society. “Preventing the collapse of human civilization requires nothing less than a wholesale transformation of dominant cultural patterns” (Assadourian and Yunus 3) Though, measures are necessary nowadays. Establishment of strict criteria of food products quality evaluation and intensification of agricultural governmental control law system are required as well as rise of standards and demands for producing agricultural goods.
Works Cited
Assadourian, Erik, and Yunus, Muhammad. State of the World 2010: Transforming Cultures: From Consumerism to Sustainability (State of the World). New York: W. W. Norton & Company. Print.
Grossman, Elizabeth. Chasing Molecules: Poisonous Products, Human Health, and the Promise of Green Chemistry. Washington: Island Press, 2009. Print.
Mellon, Margaret, and Rissler, Jane. “Environmental Effects of Genetically Modified Food Crops — Recent Experiences.” Union of Concerned Scientists, 2003. Web.
Sapkota, Amy R., Lisa Y. Lefferts, Shawn Mckenzie, and Polly Walker. “What Do We Feed to Food-Production Animals? A Review of Animal Feed Ingredients and Their Potential Impacts on Human Health.” Environmental Health Perspectives 115.5 (2007): 663.