Apart from the specious supposition that we should be making an animal whose flesh is naturally high in saturated fat and cholesterol allegedly more heart-healthy by altering it to provide omega 3s galore, there are grave concerns about manipulating animals in this regard, and none of the articles dealt with it at all (being that the majority of them are AP plants), until I finally read the Nat'l Geo piece.
It seemed as if the AP source was more or less written from a press release, an all-too common news article writing tactic these days, along with many news outlets filling up their pieces with AP and Reuters stories, regardless of how they came to be. One piece goes so far as to allow the suggestion that these types of pigs would benefit all mankind, what with their potential for studying heart disease, and feeding an ever-growing population.
Talk about faulty foundational assumptions... Animals are an inefficient way to feed an ever-growing population, considering we could divert resources away from animals and toward those that need it for far less.
But back to the National Geographic's look at this story. It is unique among these in that it looks at the animal concerns raised by this research:
[Jing] Kang's research has prompted concerns from some experts about food safety and animal welfare, while others have questioned the secretive nature of the approval process.Why can't anyone else make as much sense as Mellon does here, especially in the last quote of hers? We always seem to find a way to profit from our over-exploitation of natural resources by moving to schemes that make Mary Shelley's Frankenstein look more than prescient; they make it look tame.
"The application process is confidential, and the FDA needs to have a transparent process that addresses the public's moral and ethical concerns towards animal cloning," said Michael Fernandez, executive director of the Pew Initiative on Food and Biotechnology in Washington, D.C.
According to Margaret Mellon, who heads the Food and Environment Program at the Boston-based nonprofit Union of Concerned Scientists, Kang's work "raises serious questions about interfering with fatty acid metabolism."
"We don't know about the fat levels in adults and in future generations. There has been no study on the effect it might have," Mellon said.
Responding to Kang's point about declining fish stocks, Mellon added, "We need to solve the ocean crisis and not push it as an excuse for introducing genetically modified food."
Categories: genetic modification | GMO | genetic engineering | animal cloning | animal ethics | animal welfare
