Um… so there has to be a breeding stock for this new variety, right? Could there be side effects for the pigs that have to live with fish oil in their systems?
I’m not sure what to think, but this is creepy. I think it’s better, when in doubt, to forbid massive frankenfooding, rather than to say any given thing is okay until it demonstrates a problem.
All food is “frankenfood”; the only real difference is that genetic engineering allows more planning and fewer side effects. Do you know how plant breeders created new plant breeds before GE ( and may still, for all I know ) ? They exposed seeds to gamma rays, producing mutants and kept the ones they liked. Not to mention, retroviruses swap genes between species all the time. Last I heard, something like 1% of our own genome is foreign.
You won’t find “genetically pure” food anywhere; GE just allows for better control, that’s all.
What’s creepy about it? Der Trihs is largely right–most food, unless otherwise marked (and even then, sometimes it’s largely modified), is screwed with in some way–antibiotics, irradiation, selective breeding, genetic engineering, what have you. The beauty of genetics is that it is, to perhaps misapply a software term, “plug-and-play.” Genes that make proteins in us will make those same proteins in E. coli. Usually. Given a reasonable testing interval for new products, I don’t see why people should be more frightened about genetic engineering than they are about, say, prescription drugs. Frankly, I’d be more concerned about the latter.
I don’t mean to pick on you, foolsguinea but most people I talk to who are opposed to this sort of thing can only toss out catchphrases like “Frankenfood,” or “playing God.” What, specifically, do you forsee as the unintended consequences of this manipulation? Perhaps I and others can allay your fears.
I’d be all for it. Omega 3s are tied into various mental and cardiac problems and we don’t really augment any of our foods with them except for baby formula.
Its understandable to be wary about this kind of technology but I personally don’t see much difference between this and implanting a gene into E. Coli to cause it to start producing Insulin. A single enzyme that converts Omega 6s into 3s probably wouldn’t cause any problems. Even if it is still in the pig meat after the pig is killed it would be destroyed by cooking the pork or by stomach acids after eating it.
I’m not against it, but I think this first attempt might just result in a lot of pigs dying.
Any living organism is an incredibly complex system of chemical interdependencies. Fish create omega-3 fatty acids because they serve some purpose in fish biology. Fish are very different from pigs.
If you just put the ‘create omega-3 fats’ gene into a pig without considering the chain of interactions that omega-3 fats could have in a pig, things aren’t going to go too well for the pig I think.
Large Corporation A copyrights their BetterThanPig, because one can currently copyright an even unaltered genetic sequence. They then license it to Large Corporation B, who owns a number of popular fast food brands. B uses exclusively BetterThanPig in its product chain, frowning upon the now unfashionable BetaPork we’re currently familiar with. Two large corporations then end up controlling a broad swath of our food supply. What if:
A demands unreasonable fees for use of its product, ensuring that no one can afford to distribute pork.
B sees an avenue for profit in suing farmers of 1st gen pigs for raising an unauthorized variation of a copyrighted genetic line?
A makes the pigs sterile, forcing seasonal purchased of lab-grown pork? (Monsanto has already toyed with the idea in plant seeds.)
I trust the science involved. I do not and will not trust the professed goodwill of a corporation.
It will certainly be interesting to hear the full story on the health of these pigs, once there’s been enough time to study them thoroughly. This is at best an imprecise observation, and, depending on genetic background, might not mean a thing, but the piglet on the left looks a little bigger than the two transgenic pigs.
Call me evil, but the first question that popped into my head was “Will the bacon taste the same?”
To lend another voice in support of sentiments expressed above, practically everything we eat these days is the product of human alteration of one form or another. It’s a much more abrubt and radical a step to introduce a foreign gene than to selectively breed. However, very little that we consume for food closely resembles the ancestral organism.
At least in this case, that would be very difficult to do. The fat-1 gene they used comes from C. elegans. Mammals completely lack a comparable sequence, so there’s no porcine equivalent on which one might base a claim for IP protection. This modification gives them no new exlusive rights that I can see to the genome of the pig breed they altered, nor any other breed imaginable.
I was under the impression that the low omega-3 levels in farm animals are due to their eating grains instead of grasses that they would eat in the wild. If that’s the case, then the only worry might be if the enzyme that produces them causes problems itself.
That’s debatable. True, GE can implant a much more foreign gene than would likely appear due to selective breeding; however, it only changes one or a few genes. Selective breeding changes a major portion of them. Look at all the health problems in highly bred animals for the results of that.
There’s merit to that comparison, in some ways. I’m thinking more in terms of small generational time-frames, like the two or so it took to get a pig with a completely different, heritable ability that no other mammal posesses. Selective breeding takes a lot longer, typically; and one might wait forever for a mutant pig that can convert omega-6’s to omega-3’s.
Well, I think there is a difference between this and simply using selective breeding to create a hardier strain of pig or whatever. They want to introduce the omega-3 to create certain health benefits in humans, not in pigs. Putting aside the fact that they are manipulating the pigs in a way I’m not comfortable with, they are purposefully “dosing” the human population with a chemical designed to have certain health benefits. While the risk for side effects from omega-3 might be slight (if there are any), they are still foisting a chemical onto people who might not be all that hot about accepting it into their bodies. It’s like we’re telling people what chemicals are good for them, and making them take it whether they want to or not. Much like the problem of fluorine in tap water (which I also oppose, btw, even though I do drink tap water), it’s a form of invasion. This is less of an issue than with the tap water since you have a choice about whether to buy and eat this pork or not, but I still think it’s wrong. If they can replace a “bad” fat with a “good” fat, then why can’t they just take out the bad fat in the first place and leave it at that? I don’t want to take a supplement that I don’t purposefully select just because some genetic engineer thinks it will be good for my health.
If things like this become standard, that’s a good time for me to consider vegetarianism.
What we really need to do is to cobble together one single edible beast. Make its blood liquid multivitamins, and give it buffalo wings, chicken legs, lamb shanks, shark fins, pig ribs, the rump of a steer, a cow’s udders, and a lobster’s tail. Mmmmm!
You can’t copyright a genetic sequence. You might be able to patent one; I’m not entirely sure what the law is on that. The solution to the problem is not to ban GE foods but to fix the patent system.
1980 Diamond v. Chakrabarty
Prior to 1980, life forms were considered a part of nature and were not patentable. Diamond v. Chakrabarty changed this with the 5 to 4 U.S. Supreme Court decision that genetically engineered (modified) bacteria were patentable because they did not occur naturally in nature. In this case, Chakrabarty had modified a bacteria to create an oil-dissolving bioengineered microbe.
Since Diamond v. Chakrabarty, patents have been issued on whole genes whose function is known. More recently, inventors began to seek patents on sequences of DNA that were less than a whole gene. The Patent Office has developed guidelines on how to deal with these fragments since they often do not have a known function.
Some patents have been granted for fragments of DNA. That presents the problem of someone trying to patent a larger fragment or gene that contains the already patented sequence. Questions have been raised as to whether the second inventor will need to obtain a license from the first or whether he can obtain the patent without the first patent holder’s permission. These types of questions are likely to arise in the near future and will most likely be resolved in courts designated to hear patent actions.
Patents have been prohibited by Congress in only a few cases where the issuance of a patent was contrary to the public interest. An example of this was the prohibition of patents on nuclear weapons. The American Medical Association has made a similar request against the patenting of medical and surgical procedures.
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Most of the patent claims on parts of the human and animal genomes remain claims, due to the murky nature of patent law on this issue. James Watson’s book DNA references patents on findings from the Human Genome Project, but sadly, Amazon won’t let me search the book to verify that.
Point being, Diamond v. Chakrabarty gives a neat workaround to the “no patents on nature” rule to cede ultimate control of living organisms to corporations.
