Coming: altered meats
Publication:
Date: Sunday, October 05, 2008
Via: AgBios
One day in the not-too-distant future, you may be able to
tuck into a juicy steak knowing that all risk of mad cow disease has been
eliminated. You may be able to enjoy a pork chop knowing that it's loaded with
heart-friendly omega-3 fatty acids.
You'll be consuming meat from a genetically engineered
animal. Scientists would splice a gene containing certain traits, such as
resistance to mad cow disease, into the DNA of an animal. Voila: a safer steak.
The Food and Drug Administration recently unveiled how it
will approve the entry of genetically altered animals into the food supply.
Genetically altered animals will be regulated the same way that drugs for
animals that enter the food supply are treated. Companies that wish to bring
genetically altered meat to the market would have to prove that the alteration
isn't dangerous to the health of the animal or the consumer.
"Historically for animal drugs that has been a pretty
rigorous process. If they do what they've done historically, and if they do a
good job, those issues should be covered," said Greg Jaffe, biotechnology
project director at the Center for Science in the Public Interest in
Meat that has altered nutritional content would be labeled
to reflect the change. Otherwise, genetically altered meat would require no
special labeling. That's in line with the way food from genetically altered
crops such as corn and soybeans is treated.
There are some problems the FDA should address. One is a
lack of transparency. The FDA won't inform the public that an application is
pending. And when it approves a certain type of genetically altered meat, it
won't release any of the data used as the basis for the decision. It would help
to ease consumer concerns if the FDA were more open about the approval process.
The FDA should maintain the right to deny any proposal when
the environmental risks are too high. For instance, super-size salmon grown in
oceanic fish pens could pose a danger to the local aquatic ecosystem if the
pens break and the altered salmon mate with wild salmon. If a company can't
show that a process is environmentally safe, FDA should require it to mitigate
the danger.
Many people have an aversion to new technology in food
production. For instance, pasteurization of milk faced stiff resistance when
the process was introduced—even though there was solid evidence showing that
pasteurization reduced milk-borne illness and death. There will be some
resistance to genetically altered food from animals. But if the FDA conducts a
stringent and transparent oversight, that resistance will likely melt away.
SOURCE:
agbios.com