- A recent symposium on the legal and social implications
of genetic engineering held at Virginia Tech underscores the need for more
public debate about transgenic animal research and bio-pharming.
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- A common misconception is that most genetic engineering
in the world involves large Western corporations and their use of genetically
modified organisms, or GMO, in the production of big agriculture. Such
a belief obscures two important trends in the biotechnology industry concerning
the genetic manipulation of organisms.
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- First, a majority of the GMO in development are being
designed for industrial, rather than agricultural, purposes. Most biotechnology
research focuses on the creation of enzymes for industrial processes. Many
companies have started to genetically enhance trees to produce better paper,
modify oilseed rape to construct better detergents and lubricants, and
use maize and sugar to make bio-fuel and bio-plastics.
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- Second, a significant number of biotechnology firms are
not traditionally "Western." China already produces 7.2 million
hectares of genetically modified cotton, and almost a quarter of manufacturing
in India involves the use of GMO.
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- Moreover, the Australian government has begun using genetically
modified grass to make better golf courses, and New Zealand, Chile and
Japan recently used carrot genes to help produce pest-resistant pine trees
that can flourish in acidic soil.
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- One type of industrial biotechnology frequently overlooked
in discussions about the dangers of genetic engineering is bio-pharming,
or the genetic altering of plants and animals to produce pharmaceuticals.
For example, early in 2004 regulators at the European Medicines Agency
agreed to consider a new drug, ATryn, to treat hereditary antithrombin
deficiency, a condition that causes deep-vein thrombosis.
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- ATryn, manufactured by inserting a human gene for protein
into a goat's egg alongside a beta-caseine promoter, uses a therapeutic
protein derived from the milk of a transgenic goat. When extracted from
the milk, the transgenic protein is indistinguishable from the antithrombin
produced in healthy humans. This is not the only transgenic pharmaceutical
under development. Biotheraptuetics, the Framingham, Mass., firm responsible
for producing ATryn, has 65 other transgenic drugs in research and development.
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- The act of using transgenic animals to produce human
proteins, antibodies and hormones is rapidly becoming the new trend in
industrial biotechnology. Nexia, in Montreal, breeds transgenic goats to
provide vaccines against chemical weapons. TransOva, in Iowa, uses transgenic
cows to produce proteins capable of treating anthrax, the plague and smallpox.
Pharming, a company based in the Netherlands, uses rabbits to create therapeutic
proteins to fight Alzheimer's. Minos Biosystems, in Greece, is researching
the drug-making potential of fruit flies.
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- Yet such projects may be extremely irresponsible and
dangerous. Ethically, the use of transgenic animal research, by attempting
to create a cheap, easy and quick production line for needed pharmaceuticals,
functionally turns animals into "biofactories." Like slaughterhouses
and chicken farms that use massive industrial complexes to produce products,
bio-pharming facilities raise serious questions about animal welfare.
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- Medically, many types of transgenic research are commercially
untested for safety. Combining human and nonhuman proteins is believed
to be responsible for the creation of mad cow disease, which spreads through
prions. One researcher recently admitted to the Economist, "With goat
and cow milk, especially, I worry about the risk of animal viruses and
prions being transferred in some minute way." The chance of inadvertently
creating new strains of diseases is exceptionally high.
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- Environmentally, both Greenpeace and the Union of Concerned
Scientists are concerned that transgenic animals could substantially alter
the genetic composition of many other species. A transgenic animal could
easily escape into the wild, mate with an indigenous animal and contaminate
the gene pool, triggering all types of unintended consequences.
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- In reverse, an animal from the wild could find its way
into one of the pens where transgenic animals are located, make contact
and then escape to expose other animals in the wild.
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- Despite these concerns, the United States Food and Drug
Administration has issued more than 40 permits this year for bio-pharming
field trials involving the use of tomatoes, potatoes, alfalfa, maize, rice,
lupin, rats, goats and flies. The list of potential products is vast and
includes human albumin and hemoglobin, interferon and vaccines for hepatitis-B,
anthrax, cholera and dysentery.
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- The rapid rise of transgenic animal research suggests
there is a growing need for more balanced discussions about genetic research.
Because many people believe that human cloning and GMO agriculture represent
significant threats to human health and the welfare of the environment,
other pressing issues connected to genetic engineering are frequently disregarded.
Bio-pharming should be added as one of the important concerns being raised
by the advancement of GMO research, and should not proceed without intense
scrutiny, debate and regulation.
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- Copyright © 2003
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