Genetically modified animals. Any issues?

Hoke: You pro-cloning types always gloss over the Army of Hitlers problem. Please face that issue head on; what will you do to prevent cloning from being used to produce an Army of Hitlers? Huh? HUH?

You mean Heidler don't you? Pretty damn good wines if you ask me.

Of course, the French go down to ignominious defeat, being a bunch of cheese-eating surrender monkeys, but that goes without saying, eh?

Hey, you said it was a fiction novel, so it is possible the French emerge victorious.......naaaah.

"I'm less than confident that the corporate sector has consumer interests - or even health and safety - as its priority when it fools around in the lab. Remember, these are the people who brought us Prozac, Vioxx and winter tomatoes ..."

I don't know, Robin, I must be too close to all three of your examples. On the winter tomato front, the choices seem to be between green tomatoes ripened enroute and/or with the help of a gas or the Flavr Savr which was found safe by the FDA but hasn't been commercialized as far as I know or waiting for spring.

The darn things just don't travel well when ripe -- or do you know more about that story than I do?

Regards, Bob

[Robin Garr]

The darn things just don't travel well when ripe -- or do you know more about that story than I do?

Bob, mainly, you're taking an offhand wisecrack a little too seriously.

But my reference, really, was to the development of the industrial tomato, which doesn't merely travel while unripe but that, if you can judge by its flavor, is a genetically modified clone based on a tomato with cotton genes inserted ...

Or slightly more to the serious point, the industry would rather sell us hard, pale-pink little balls of flavorless cellulose than not sell us anything at all.

"Or slightly more to the serious point, the industry would rather sell us hard, pale-pink little balls of flavorless cellulose than not sell us anything at all."

Maybe a mild jest on your part, Robin, but winter tomatoes present a major biological problem -- I just wondered if you had an insight into a good solution that's been surpressed by the big guys. I know Monsanto is a small player in the tomato seed business; the big guy (a fairly small company with funding from Campbell) has spent millions and really hasn't come up with a winner for whatever reason.

Sorry to take you seriously, my boy, but getting a delicious tomato in the depth of winter would be heaven. I'll stick to canned for the nonce.

Thanks.

Perhaps I'm missing something here. Are there degrees of GM? For instance, cattle that produce more marbled meat quicker vs, say one that is some sort of cattle x antelope Frankenstein that produces meat that tastes like chicken? As an aside, while not related to GM directly, I read recently that in Yellowstone they're trying to repopulate the American Bison population with genetically pure bison. It seems that something like over 90% of the bison population have cattle genes.

Howie, I found the LA Times article reporting on the steak dinner. link here

The reporter's human interest story appears here

As I understand it, there are at least two ways of producing "cloned beef": in this case the meat itself was from a steer, a castrated bull, which was fathered by a cloned bull.

[My understanding is that it is possible to clone a bull from frozen semen from a bull that is very popular, or from tissue taken from that bull; I'm not sure what considerations are involved in making that choice. I'm sure one factor is where the supply of semen from a popular bull is running low and the bull is dead; there is an extraordinary range of prices per unit -- see this typical pricelist for example. I remember reading about a bull cloned through this method when his semen was selling for $700 a unit, 30 times the typical price in this list.]

Another technique involves taking a tissue sample from a piece of meat that tastes delicious and creating a clone of that animal. The tissue sample has to be taken within 48 hours of the death of the animal. In this case, the cloned animal itself would be eaten.

There may be other methods, but these are the two that I've been following.

Regards, Bob

I'm not buying the argument that latter-day industrial genetic modification is no different from natural selection or even accelerated natural selection through breeding.

While I don't have any particular moral scruples about GM or cloning, I'm less than confident that the corporate sector has consumer interests - or even health and safety - as its priority when it fools around in the lab. Remember, these are the people who brought us Prozac, Vioxx and winter tomatoes ...

It is different- it's far quicker and more precise, less susceptible to unintended consequences, and much less wasteful of resources.

Regarding your second paragraph, how does that distinguish two techniques? If someone doesn't care about safety or flavor or whatever, it doesn't matter what method they use, or so it seems to me.

Stuart:

You know, you scientific types are really irritating. Constantly looking at things rationally...pointing out logical fallacies...all the time questioning, questioning, questioning...flip-flopping without any shame at all if you're proved wrong, and not even getting upset about it.

It's really un-American, and I for one am just disgusted by it.

I am apparently on Big Biotech's payroll. There's a Wanted poster hanging up at Bonterra.

[Robin Garr]

Regarding your second paragraph, how does that distinguish two techniques? If someone doesn't care about safety or flavor or whatever, it doesn't matter what method they use, or so it seems to me.

I'm not sure I understand your question, Stuart. There's a clear difference between the natural process of selective breeding as opposed to the laboratory process of tinkering with DNA. That seems obvious on the face of it to me. Are you arguing that it's exactly the same thing?

Also, don't leap to the conclusion that I'm supporting a ban. In fact, I don't. But I do think appropriate regulation - preferably by a body more objective than the Bush administration - is probably a good idea for consumer protection. "Let the market sort it out" may be an effective rough-and-ready approach, but it gives us an awful lot of Thalidomide babies.

"Also, don't leap to the conclusion that I'm supporting a ban. In fact, I don't. But I do think appropriate regulation - preferably by a body more objective than the Bush administration - is probably a good idea for consumer protection."

A recent FDA assessment concluded that milk and meat from cloned cows, pigs and goats is virtually indistinguishable from conventional milk and meat and is “as safe to eat as the food we eat every day,” Stephen F. Sundlof, the F.D.A.’s chief of veterinary medicine, said in a telephone news conference with reporters. New York Times opinion piece.

The full FDA report can be found here.

The Thalidomide tragedy occurred because there were inadequate studies to support the launch of the drug. Are you arguing that the FDA reports and studies on cloned animals are inadequate? Politically motivated? Something else?

Just to be clear: I think the evidence is that eating meat from the offspring of cloned animals or drinking milk from the offspring of cloned animals is safe for humans just as the FDA concludes.

Regards, Bob

[Robin Garr]

Just to be clear: I think the evidence is that eating meat from the offspring of cloned animals or drinking milk from the offspring of cloned animals is safe for humans just as the FDA concludes -- the cloned animals themselves are too expensive to provide either meat or milk as an economic matter.

Bob, my understanding is that we're not talking only about cloning here (I'm inclined to agree with you about that), but also about genetic manipulation in animals used in the food supply. I'm not even against that, subject to appropriate regulation to ensure that profit-making doesn't trump the public safety.

Are you arguing that the FDA reports and studies on cloned animals are inadequate? Politically motivated? Something else?

With religious-right fundamentalists exerting powerful influence on the Bush administration, Bob, I just don't think that political motivation is unlikely.

Here, from the Union of Concerned Scientists, is just one among gazillions of articles on this:
FDA Scientists Pressured to Exclude, Alter Findings; Scientists Fear Retaliation for Voicing Safety Concerns

The Union makes serious and troubling charges, Robin, but I am not persuaded by their arguments on the cloning of animal issue which is really the point of this thread. Their specific position on the animal cloning issue appears here.

I don't see any charges that politics is informing the FDA position on this issue. Instead there's a "slippery slope" argument that cloning animals may lead to cloning people.

And they have to admit that inbreeding in traditional ways has led to many weaknesses in animals with absolutely no controls by the FDA or anyone else -- except free market forces.

Shouldn't any breeder who attempts to increase fat layering or reduce fat thickness in meat cattle through traditional methods -- buying the sperm from a particularly popular bull -- increase the already incredibly detailed record keeping done for market reasons.

That's really what the Union is advocating:

"If cloned animals are allowed in the food system, the FDA should develop a system for registering and monitoring the production and use of cloned food animals. FDA should also develop a system for labeling milk and meat from clones and their offspring."

But, in fact, breeders are going to insist those sorts of records anyway.

Regards, Bob

[Robin Garr]

Bob, I don't think we have any serious disagreement here, and again, in the drifting spirit of the thread, I was really talking more about genetic manipulation in the lab than cloning. My knee-jerk sense is that much of the opposition to cloning is based on nothing more than ignorant "It ain't natural" thinking.

In general, though, I'm skeptical about the current administration's ability, or desire, to rein in the corporate sector on anything, even when public health and safety or the state of the natural environment are at stake.

We are in pretty close agreement, Robin, on the general thrust of your argument -- cautious pessimism, maybe?

I will be interested to see how the meat cloning issue comes out, though, especially since there doesn't seem to be a health issue. I can see political and moral issues driving the decision, or perhaps even consumer resistance.

That seems obvious on the face of it to me. Are you arguing that it's exactly the same thing?

Yes, but in the sense that (as with everything else technological) the tools to do so are now much more precise and much less likely to have unintended side effects. I'd compare it to the difference between old-fashioned knife-and-stitches surgery and arthroscopic. The latter is far less invasive, far less likely to cause collateral damage, far quicker, and much more effective.

Remember, selective breeding is moving chunks of genes around (including ones that we have no intention or desire to move) and selective preservation of mutations. We grow monsters. How is that qualitatively different or "better" in any sense than moving around just the specific genes that control the attribute we're after?

[Robin Garr]

Remember, selective breeding is moving chunks of genes around (including ones that we have no intention or desire to move) and selective preservation of mutations. We grow monsters. How is that qualitatively different or "better" in any sense than moving around just the specific genes that control the attribute we're after?

I don't know why I'm having such a hard time communicating this effectively. Can we just acknowledge that we <I>agree</I> about this, but move on to my argument, which accepts this point but goes on to assert that the corporate sector can't be trusted not to abuse the process in the pursuit of the quarterly bottom line, absent appropriate regulation?

Restated, I agree that it would be absurd to halt scientific inquiry into genetic manipulation just because it isn't mentioned in Genesis. But I'd also like to have some reasonable assurance (other than, "the free market would damp out bad behavior") that I'm not going to have to chow down on carcinogens just so Monsanto can please the analysts.

So, you're more worried about what companies will do with a good tool than with a blunt, clumsy tool? That's the part I'm having difficulty understanding.

I have even more difficulty understanding why, given your justified scorn for the way the government handles technological decisions (and this is absolutely not unique or new, 'twas ever thus), that you'd entrust them to regulate this. I sure as hell wouldn't.

[Robin Garr]

So, you're more worried about what companies will do with a good tool than with a blunt, clumsy tool? That's the part I'm having difficulty understanding.

Because in the wrong hands, used for the wrong reasons, a good tool can do a whole lot more damage a whole lot more quickly than a blunt, clumsy one?

I have even more difficulty understanding why, given your justified scorn for the way the government handles technological decisions (and this is absolutely not unique or new, 'twas ever thus), that you'd entrust them to regulate this. I sure as hell wouldn't.

I already stipulated earlier in this thread that I would prefer this situation (and a lot of others, including our adventures in Iraq and elsewhere) occur in an administration less malevolent than the incumbent one. In the sausage-making world of real-life politics, it's probably better to have government and the corporate sector skeptical of each other and acting as a check on each other rather than lying down in bed together.

Hey Robin, I found this little bit from Mark Twain a few minutes ago. If we could figure out which hypothesis is correct, maybe we could decide whether to have the government cooperate or fuss with corporations:

"Sometimes I wonder whether the world is being run by smart people who are putting us on, or by imbeciles who really mean it."

Robin, your belief that Government Is Good but only if We run it is charming, but I think ignores experience to the contrary. Independent of whether Rs or Ds are in control, laws governing biotech will be drafted by people who know as much about biology as Ted Stevens knows about the Internet.

[Robin Garr]

Robin, your belief that Government Is Good but only if We run it is charming, but I think ignores experience to the contrary. Independent of whether Rs or Ds are in control, laws governing biotech will be drafted by people who know as much about biology as Ted Stevens knows about the Internet.

Probably true, but we've had 27 years or more or less unfettered access to the henhouse by the corporate foxes, and things are even worse than they were during the <i>last</i> robber-baron era. No matter how we run things, frail, fallible humans are in charge, and that's a problem. But I'm still more comfortable with checks and balances, and you should be, too.

27 years? I think you underestimate. 127 years, that I'll buy.

Checks and balances. Hmmm, why does that make me think of a particular episode of South Park?

"Let's get out and vote!
Let's make our voices heard!
We've been given the right to choose
Between a douche and a turd
It's democracy in action,
Put your freedom to the test,
A big fat turd or a stupid douche,
Which do you like best"

http://www.southparkstuff.com/season_8/episode_808/