Letters to the Editor
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CParis1
Swine ponds are huge environmental problem. Especially when they breach and spill a few million gallons of the sludge.
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Silly comment but...
Christian Slater doesn't really have a monkey heart in the movie "Untamed Heart." That was just a story that the nuns at his orphanage told him to explain why he was too weak to play with other children. He actually just has a heart defect.
Otherwise, great article.
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Swine ponds
Of course they are a big problem! So why is the solution to attempt to reduce the phosphorus in the pig waste, so that when the million gallon pond overflows it won't be so deadly? Why not reduce the SIZE of the damn ponds, or figure out ways to contain the waste better?
Does anyone believe that making a genetic change in the digestive system of pigs is not going to have some other terrible consequence further down the line? We've already seen the impact of feeding herbivores animal bi-products (Mad Cow disease) or forcing cows to eat massive amounts of grain (antibiotic resistince).
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CParis1
Again is there any actual evidence of this? After all in 1830 it was commonly believed that rail travel would kill people. Of course it would, people would die if they traveled at 50mph. So again, when there is actual evidence of this I will worry about it. In the meantime incremental engineering is precisely the kind of practical non revolutionary 'let's all go solar and green leafy moss' kind of nonstarter solution we need.
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Actually, the railroads were terrible for the environment
Ask a buffalo. If you can find one.
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Two cents.
I guess I'm just not seeing the problem. I'm reading a lot of "go green, buy organic" etc. but not reading the reason for it. If it's just a thing that you've got that you want to buy the most "natural" product you can get your hands on, then that's your prerogative and that's cool. If you've got a thing about messing with God and what nature created, etc., then that's cool too. But I don't see a reason not to eat the stuff, ONLY because somebody messed with it's genes. Fear, for fear's sake, is useless. Just my two cents.
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known and unknown
A billion angry bees: There is not so much evidence of what terrible things will happen if we eat GE animals. But there are a lot of unknowns that are just...unknown. The biotech companies are pretending that they have it all under control, when they don't even know what they don't know. Like another poster said, well, we can make pig organs without sugars that our bodies will attack...but what piggy diseases do we not even know about that are okay for the piggies but not for us? Or, so we can make pigs that break down phosphorous compounds...but what do we really know about the consequences for the pigs' health? There are innumerable unknowns and risks that the companies are simply pretending don't exist.
Furthermore, we know a lot about how genetic diversity helps keep populations healthy. Decimating the genetic diversity of a food animal is introducing a *huge* instability into our food supply.
CParis1: I agree--there's nothing at all noble or green about the enviropigs. They're only designed to further enable factory farming, to make it harder to hold manufacturers meaningfully accountable for raising food animals in healthier circumstances. It's a band-aid on a bullet wound, not ecological progress of any kind.
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As opposed to what?
Genetic modification happens every day. All you're distinguishing is the speed at which it occurs. Again, unless and until someone can actually point to something, the 'risk' such as it's been articulated is founded on fear and maybes.
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"transgenic animal". How about Frankenfood? They are just cute ways of saying Chimera
Transgenic Animal. What a cute modern buzzword for Freak of Nature Chimeras.
Because that is what these animals are. They are Chimeras, and in no way is it "natural" to pound Genes from Bacteria into the genetic code of a Pig or a Cow, and the interactions of the bacterial genes in the food reacting with the bacteria in the gut is in no way "natural", nor does it appear healthy. And lets not forget papa Bush was pimping for Biotech so GM foods got help from Monsanto lobbyist turned Bush I appointed head of the FDA turned future VP of Monsanto.
And there is already documentation about how these bacterial gene sequences interact with the bacteria in the human gut. A lot of it comes from the hard work of Jeffery M. Smith and his books about GM foods (Frankenfood):
Seeds of Deception: Exposing Industry and Government Lies About the Safety of the Genetically Engineered Foods You're Eating
http://www.amazon.com/Seeds-Deception-Government-Genetically-Engineered/dp/0972966587/ref=pd_sim_b_title_6
and his website:
http://www.seedsofdeception.com/
Then there is the latest studies potentially finding a link (one of many possible combinations of factors) between the disappearance of Bees (Colony Collapse Disorder, CCD) and GM crops, and it again comes down to the bacteria in the gut of the bees getting zapped by BT and the bacterial genes from the frankenfoods:
http://www.helium.com/tm/285740/albert-einstein-disappeared-surface
A number of earlier studies investigated whether or not GM crops were having a negative impact on bees. One such study took place at the University of Jenna from 2001 to 2004. The researchers used a GM maize variant named "BT corn" that includes a gene from a soil bacterium in order to make it insect-proof. At first the study seemed entirely positive. No discernible negative effects were detected in the bees from the BT corn. Then researchers discovered that when the bees were attacked by a parasite, the portion of the colony exposed to the BT corn had a much lower ability to fight off infection and showed much more rapid levels of decline.
Genetically Modified Foods: Are They a Risk to Human/Animal Health?
http://www.actionbioscience.org/biotech/pusztai.html
Too much to post on that page about the unacceptable level of testing that is performed before a GM rop is railroaded into the food supply. Test animals won't even eat the shit.
And GM sugar is next on the list.
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Required reading
Oryx and Crake, by Margaret Atwood.
OK, it's fiction, but not hard to follow how we could go there. It's Atwood's "Handmaid's Tale" applied to genetic engineering.