TRANSGENICS. TRUTHS AND MYTHS ABOUT CARCINOGENESIS: A BIBLIOGRAPHIC SURVEY

Abstract

Introduction: Transgenic foods have been growing exponentially in recent years, emerging as components inevitably present in the diet of Brazilians. This is what Embrapa (Brazilian Agricultural Research Corporation) points out, when it highlights that, after twenty years of the insertion of the transgenic market, the cultivation area has grown from 1.7 million hectares to 175.2 million, and every 100 hectares planted, 30 have corn seeds with altered genes. Thus, it is essential to understand the association of this massively consumed grain with carcinogenesis. Objective: To propose a reflection on the consumption of transgenic foods and its long-term consequences through the study of a cereal used in the daily life of the national population. Methodology: Analysis of scientific research carried out substantially from 2018 to 2022 on the subject on the platforms: Google Scholar, PubMed and SciELO. Development: It is known that transgenic corn (Bt corn) is essential for Brazilian agriculture, however, associated with pesticides, it becomes a source of toxins, predominantly Atrazine and Glyphosate, both linked to cancerous development according to studies de SOARES, 2020. Conclusions: There are two aspects that are applicable to the subject: understanding transgenic foods as beneficial to the food marketing process and boosting the Brazilian economy or understanding them as questionable and harmful factors in the long term for human beings, raising, above all, the risk of malignant neoplasm.

Keywords: Transgenia; Corn; Cancer.