[Imc-radio] Re: [Imc] UIUC's GMO pigs in food supply

[Sascha Meinrath]

has anyone pitched this to FSRN?  it's a local issue of national
importance.

--sascha

On Thu, 6 Feb 2003, Sehvilla Mann wrote:

>
>
>
> FDA Investigates University's Sale of Pigs From Biotech Experiment; Pigs Should
> Have Been Destroyed
>
> The Associated Press
>
> WASHINGTON Feb. 5 —
> Pigs that were supposed to be destroyed after a genetic engineering study may
> have entered the nation's food supply, federal health officials said Wednesday
> although they insisted the incident posed no risk to people's health.
>
> The Food and Drug Administration said it was investigating whether scientists
> at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign violated regulations
> requiring them to destroy all pigs involved in the research. Instead, the
> university may have sent 386 of the animals to a livestock dealer who in turn
> may have sent them to slaughter, the FDA said.
>
> "We do not believe that there is a public health risk," said FDA Deputy
> Commissioner Lester Crawford.
>
> The research involved increasing pigs' natural levels of some growth proteins
> present in meat anyway, Crawford explained. Also, none of the pigs originally
> genetically manipulated were sold; it was their offspring, which purportedly
> passed multiple tests verifying the piglets hadn't inherited changed genes,
> something FDA is trying to verify.
>
> While playing down concern about food safety, the FDA characterized the problem
> as a serious one of scientists possibly breaking rules necessary to ensure that
> bioengineering research is done properly. If the agency determines those rules
> were indeed broken, it could impose fines or suspend other university research.
>
> The University of Illinois called the FDA's investigation a surprise to
> researchers who thought they were following federal rules indeed, had openly
> discussed how they tested and sold the pigs and characterized it as a
> misunderstanding quickly rectified.
>
> "Whatever requirements the FDA says are now in place, we'll take it from here
> and we'll meet them. We've done our best to exceed them," said university
> spokesman Bill Murphy.
>
> The investigation was the third scare in recently years about potential food
> contamination from unapproved biotechnology products. Two years ago, the
> StarLink brand of genetically engineered corn, approved solely for animal feed,
> turned up in taco shells, prompting a massive recall. Last year, a Texas
> biotechnology company was ordered to burn 500,000 bushels of soybeans rather
> than sell them for food because they were contaminated with genetically
> engineered corn once grown in the same field.
>
> "It's another example where the United States government's system for dealing
> with this new technology has failed the public," said Carol Tucker Foreman,
> head of the Consumer Federation of America's Food Policy Institute.
>
> The Illinois experiment involved giving two genes, a cow gene and a synthetic
> one, to sows in hopes of increasing the mother's milk production and her
> piglets' ability to digest milk so they would grow faster, the university's
> Murphy explained.
>
> Shortly after new piglets are born, the university does extensive testing to
> see which of litter inherited that ability. In 2001, researchers told the FDA
> those pigs that multiple tests showed were not transgenic normal pigs that were
> the grandchildren or great-grandchildren of the originally engineered sows were
> being sent to market, while those that did inherit genetic changes were kept
> for study, Murphy said.
>
> The researchers reported their testing and market practice in scientific
> journals, he added. The university expressed surprise when FDA inspectors last
> week objected to the practice.
>
> FDA's Crawford said as a result of the incident, "we will be intensifying these
> inspections" of biotech researchers.
>
>
>
> ---------------------------------------------------------
> Sehvilla Mann
> smann at stu.parkland.edu
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>
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