When we think about the term pollution, we
think about environmental pollution, city pollution, and hazardous pollution, generally considering it a strictly environmental concern. But
pollution also has implications to genetics. It has
been a highly controversial and much debated topic. There
are a lot of different views not only on the ethics and risks of genetic pollution, but
on the name and term of genetic pollution itself. For years, scientists have been debating
whether or not the term genetic pollution should even be used.
Genetic pollution is defined as the undesirable
gene flow out into populations in the wild. It typically refers to the flow of
genetic material from a genetically engineered organism to that of a non
genetically engineered organism. Although, some conservational biologists refer
to it when describing the gene flow from a feral or domestic species to that of
a wild or unknown population or species.
No matter how you look at or interrupt the
term, to many scientists it is merely a meaningless concept and nothing but a
subject of controversy in the scientific world. The term seems to have derived
from the concept of crossbreeding between different genetically different
varieties and creating a hybrid with the rest of the genes. There were
significant concerns with what would happen to the population from this process
of modifying organisms and spreading their genes out into a wild environment
from their natural environment.
In the field of agriculture, genetic
pollution is being used to describe certain undesirable genes that flow between
the genetic engineered species and the non-genetic engineered species. There is
a lot of concern regarding what the long-term effects of this kind of genetic
mastery will have and the repercussions that it will leave in its wake. Many
scientists and researchers have been and continue to be concerned with this risk as they are unsure what
will happen to the future generations of these species that have been tampered
with and had hybrids made out of them.
Some scientists wish to not even use or
refer to the term genetic pollution. They state it should be called something more
like genetic mixing, which suggests that the reasons for mixing the genes of
different species is for the good of the population and scientific community. The implications of using the word pollution associated with
genetics implies it to be a negative thing.
