Squink
Ok…perhaps not a red herring. More like a poor choice of an example which upon reflection does not really support your argument. Granted, the problem arose from the use of a genetically modified bacterium, which probably looked pretty slick at the time. However, this scenario plays out time after time whenever a tried and true manufacturing process is changed.
Remember thalidomide? People didn’t wring their hands and say “Jeez, look what happened!!! We better stop making medicines!!!” What happened was a heightened sense of awareness that, if you’re gonna make something that people are going to ingest, you better make damn good and sure you know exactly what you’re selling, down to 0.1% or less. (The FDA sets the 0.1% criteria. With modern analytical equipment and techniques, that’s still enough material to characterize, and most pharmaceutical companies set lower thresholds for impurities).
They should[/] have caught this problem very early in the process. The only way to prevent (well, minimize) this is to follow good laboratory practices and regulations. Unfortunately, the manufacture of nutritional supplements are not bound by these regulations.
HPLC: $35,000
Mass Spectrometer: $250,000
Chemist: $70,000
Lawsuits filed on behalf of survivors: >$2,000,000,000
my contention is that while a GMO was involved, the “Tryptophan Incident” was a cock-up due to process issues, and in no way demonstrates the dangers of modified bacteria.
You want an example of dangerous GMOs? How about the creation of antibiotic-resistant bacteria (such as TB) due to over-prescription of antibiotics?