Modified

To be honest, neither my friend nor me had too much idea about what genes were actually modified in those GM soybeans; I looked it up from the Wikipedia that evening.

To my surprise, there are only two - both from bacteria and are supposed to confer resistance to herbicides. In fact, over 75% of all soybeans around the world, and close to 95% in USA, are genetically modified; it has become, let's face it, the standard species.

And, what's the worry? Extrinsic DNA will be digested, and same for that extrinsic protein (or, "gene product" for the technical jargon). Fear of allergic reaction or other inadvertent reactions is, by all probability, unrealistic - you are exposed to that two particular proteins anyway, as the bacteria is everywhere. Tens of millions of people had it for over 10 years.

Yes, there remains a small possibility of adverse effect in the long term.

But, if we follow this principle, FDA should not pass any new medicine unless the item at hand has been marketed for 10 years. (What a logical statement!)

By the way, strictly speaking we are all genetically modified animals because all of us have 37 bacterial genes, from a parasite in our body, which supplements our own genome.

We call it the mitochondria.

PS. Biology quiz: Can you name a eukaryotic organism that has no mitochondria?