The latest GMO some will freak out about
Scientists in China created genetically modified low- fat pigs ( yes, low-fat pigs), and the results are good for more than skinny bacon jokes. They are an example of how Genetically Modified Organisms (GMOs) hold promise for improving the lives of both animals and humans.
Though they may look warm and cosy cuddled up in their hay beds, it turns out that pigs lack a gene — common in other mammals — that helps the body keep its temperature up in chilly conditions by burning fat. As a result, pigs ( especially young ones who haven’ t built up their fat stores) experience significant suffering in the cold, and sometimes can’t survive it.
By inserting a mouse form of the missing gene into embryonic pig cells, then inducing embryo clones, the Chinese researchers were able to create 12 slim piglets that were better able to regulate their body temperatures than their fellow swine.
According to NPR’s All Things Considered, pigs like these could save farmers millions of dollars on heating and food. ( The genetically modified animals had 24 per cent less body fat than regular pigs, and fat pigs are expensive!)
In addition, pigs like these would produce leaner pork products ( including bacon, of course), which would delight healthconscious consumers. Or at least, health- conscious consumers not following a high- fat Paleo diet. ( You can’t please all of the dieters all of the time.)
As animal sciences professor and editor of the researchers’ paper R. Michael Roberts noted of the work, “It demonstrates a way that you can improve the welfare of animals at the same (time) as also improving the product from those animals — the meat.”
This is a win/ win situation ... except for one thing. Paranoia about GMOs is so strong in the West that slender pigs — and similar innovations that could better the lives of people and other creatures — would probably never be approved in North America or Europe.
Which means we could be missing out on a lot of opportunities to use technology for humanitarian purposes.
The instinct for caution around genetic modification is a healthy one, especially now that a new technique called CRISPR — which the Chinese scientists used on their pigs — makes editing genomes vastly easier, cheaper, quicker, and more accurate than it has ever been before.
Scientists could poten- tially use CRISPR on the human genome to create eternal changes to our species — changes that would be passed down from generation to generation, eventually eliminating certain traits or conditions entirely. It’s not a power to be taken lightly, and vigilance is certainly called for.
But everything is relative, and the ethical and health risks of genetic modification depend on what’s being genetically modified and how. When it comes to impeding well- tested genetically modified food and medications ( and perhaps soon livestock) that can efficiently cut through much human ( and animal) misery and hardship, the vigilance is being taken too far.
There is no scientific evidence that current GM crops have caused a single health problem in humans or animals. Yet they are heavily vilified, especially by environmentalists, and their production and import are even banned in some developed jurisdictions. Instead of harnessing the power GM crops offer to help the millions of malnourished people in the world, we spend our time denouncing them for being unnatural and profit-driven.
That’s a short- sighted and illogical approach. And it does not bode at all well for future innovations — if we’re still squabbling about the safety of GM corn after all these years, what are the chances we’ll open our regulatory arms to low- fat pigs, even after significant testing?
It’ s possible that few people would even want to eat pork from an animal that’ s had mouse genes foisted upon it by humans, regardless of its legality. This is what Professor Roberts thinks, and judging by the prevailing public sentiment about GMOs he could be right. But after reasonable safety testing, it should at least be consumers’ decision to make.
The advantages of bacon that is less fatty, less expensive, and less cruel to livestock might ultimately be too tempting for grocery shoppers to resist, even if Greenpeace tells them it’s a big- bio conspiracy and a sin against Mother Nature.
In other words, t here is a call for prudence, but prudence needn’t prevent progress; and genetic modification offers so many possibilities for progress that low- fat pigs may soon seem mundane when it comes to positively transforming people’s lives.
As a 2016 letter written by 110 Nobel Laureates in support of GMOs said, “Opposition based on emotion and dogma contradicted by data must be stopped.”
It’s time to start make scientifically sound decisions about GMOs and putting them to their highest uses, be that feeding the hungry or giving the animals we raise for food a more comfortable and healthy existence.