The following formed the basis of a study prepared by Robert Anderson at the request of
Pesticide Action Network Aotearoa New Zealand
Old MacDonald had a (GE) Farm
© Robert Anderson BSc (Hons) PhD
4 February 1942 to 5 December 2008
What is Genetic Engineering? Genetic engineering is a technology for manipulating the hereditary substance. This substance consists mainly of DNA, found in the nucleus of every cell in an organism. A small part of DNA, less than five percent, consists of genes. Genetic engineering was invented at a time when it was believed that each gene is responsible for a specific property. So it was believed that by extracting a specific gene from one species, one could transfer that property to another species. The dream was that this would make it possible to “tailor” organisms, creating, for example, crops with “desired” properties. Unfortunately, this has not been the case.
GE = Genetically Engineered is exactly the same as GM = Genetically Modified, GMO = Genetically Modified Organism and LMO = Living Modified Organism.
The biotechnology corporations want the term “genetically modified” or “genetic modification” (GM) to be used as their PR experts think it sounds less threatening. We do not accept this propaganda trick and use “genetically engineered” (GE) because it gives a more adequate idea of what it is about - an unnatural manipulation of genes.1
1. Adopted from the Physicians and Scientists for Responsible Application of Technology (PSRAST) www.psrast.org.
12 February 2005
N.B. Throughout this paper genetic engineering or (GE) has been used.
The changing face of Asian agriculture
The frighteningly rapid commercialisation of agriculture in developing countries poses a serious threat to farmers, established agricultural systems that have sustained communities over millennia, and food and environmental safety. Into the equation comes the flawed technology of genetic engineering (GE); the benefits of which are speculative and the risks unknown. There are now sufficient studies to show that early promises made about biotechnology are not being met. Indeed, Norwegian molecular biologist, Professor Terje Traavik, commenting on these benefits to the British government, said that GE may be “a BSE in Technicolour.” (Source Parliamentary Briefing to UK Government, 10-11 February 2000.)
Roughly fifty percent of the world’s meat production is factory-farmed by a few, mostly First-World-based companies. Governments see factory farming as a supply solution and legislation facilitates its domination. Violations of environmental and animal welfare regulations are often ignored. Commitments made under the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade/World Trade Organization (GATT/WTO) lock countries into importing cheap, factory-farmed meat, sold at lower prices than locally produced meat. It is a Catch-22 situation.
Factory farming has been adopted in the Philippines, China, India, Pakistan, Taiwan and Thailand. The United Nation’s Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) claims that Asia has the world’s fastest-developing livestock sector. Assisting this development, many people across Asia are adopting the higher protein, First World diet. The consumption of meat is seen to equate to wealth. Transnational fast food chains have moved into most countries in the region.
Genetic engineering
At a Dairy Board Expo in Hamilton, New Zealand, Dr Robert Mann, retired senior lecturer in ecology, University in Auckland, said: “The hazards of genetic engineering rival those of nuclear war.” Dairy Board scientists dismissed his claims as “absolute nonsense,” adding, “We cannot afford to ignore GE advances which will boost production and income.”
Animals may be genetically manipulated and fed antibiotics, hormones and other chemicals produced using GE technology. Luke Anderson, author of Genetic Engineering, Food and our Environment, said: “The many failures of genetic engineering read like something out of a horror novel. Pigs born with a human growth hormone were arthritic, ulcerous, partially blind and impotent. Others given the bovine (cow) growth hormone were grossly deformed and at just two years old were crippled with arthritis. Despite this they could still breed and their meat was highly desirable being low in fat, so low in fact, that they were in danger of dying from the cold. Pigs given a human growth hormone suffered agonising arthritis and were able only to crawl around on their knees. Lambs have suffered similarly. In America, transgenic lambs developed a lethal form of diabetes which led to liver, kidney and heart disorders. All the lambs died of their diseases before they were 12 months old. Even transgenic chickens, implanted with the bovine growth hormone have been developed.”
It has been called the ‘Livestock Revolution.’
Genetics and genomics in China
China’s efforts in genetic engineering lead much of Asia in a broad spectrum of activities. In 2003, scientists at the Shanghai Second Medical University successfully fused human cells with rabbit eggs; the embryos reportedly the first human-animal chimeras successfully created. Scientists at the China Agricultural University have created transgenic sheep by integrating human genes with a sheep embryo. In June 2000, they announced the birth of four sheep (one later died) and claimed that, by using transgenosis technology, valuable protein and medicine could be obtained from the milk of the transgenic sheep.[i] China’s Institute of Oceanology under its Academy of Sciences was reportedly the first to obtain transgenosis kelp and prawn.[ii] China claims a lead in genomics,[iii] projects reportedly including pig, rice and Chinese human genomes.[iv] Much of this research will be directed towards factory farming development.[v]
Squeezing farmers out
Traditional farming livelihoods are threatened by low-labour industrial farming. Food security is jeopardized as grain-hungry factory farms increase their harvest share. In the Philippines, reports claim that imported grain for human consumption has already been used as animal feed.
Factory farming began in the 1920s when vitamins A and D were discovered. With these vitamins added to feed, animals no longer required exercise and sunlight for growth. Large numbers could be raised indoors all year round. The subsequent increased spread of disease was combated in the 1940s with the introduction of antibiotics. Now transnationals see GE as a further yield-increasing tool. It is applied in aquaculture, and animal and crop production. Farm animals are also engineered to be ‘bioreactors’ to produce pharmaceutical proteins and other chemicals.
Factory-farmed animals are viewed as food and/or chemical producing machines, frequently confined in small cages under artificial or no lighting, and breathing ammonia-filled air. They may be mutilated: their beaks clipped, tails removed, ears cut and/or castrated. Producers often resist even the most minimal humane standards. Unfortunately, Asian countries adopting factory farming may have even less regulation than First World states.
Abusing animal welfare compromises food safety[vi], and has consequences for public health, the environment and rural livelihoods. Bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE or Mad Cow Disease) resulted from feeding cattle – natural herbivores - meat and bone meal. The connection made, contaminated feed was simply exported to Africa. A variant, vCJD, attacked humans; over 100 people having contracted it in the UK[vii]. By 1996, it was estimated that BSE had cost Britain £288 million over the previous decade.
Food poisoning epidemics, such as salmonella and campylobacter in eggs and poultry meat, cost Britain £350 million/pa, starting from about 1980. Livestock farming in the US is generally more intensive; food poisoning four times more common. Transporting animals greatly exacerbates disease problems through poor welfare and the mixing of animals: e.g. recently, swine fever, and foot-and-mouth disease[viii]. In monetary terms, foot-and-mouth clean-up costs to Britain are estimated at US$30-60 billion[ix] over a period of a decade; the human cost is in lost farms, livelihoods and health, and suicides.
Factory farming creates the ideal environment for pathogens to spread rapidly, increasing food safety risks if animals become contaminated with food-borne pathogens. This in turn increases the use of veterinary drugs and antibiotics, and further threatens public health.[x] There is a high risk that pathogens will jump to other species, including humans. The following two recent, naturally occurring examples of the potency of pathogens and their ability to mutate should be a warning.
*In 2004, avian flu caused the slaughter of thousands of birds at poultry farms in 35 Thai provinces. It killed 12 humans in Thailand and 20 Vietnamese. Thai health authorities sent virus samples to the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in Atlanta, US, and it is hoped that a vaccine may be ready by 2007. Vaccine production will almost certainly involve GE technology.
There were concerns about the bird flu becoming a local disease, re-emerging annually, but as William Aldis, Thailand’s World Health Organization (WHO) representative, said: “The condition does not respect national boundaries, therefore any approach to control of avian influenza must be multinational.” SOURCE Avian Influenza/Bird Flu news, November 2004, http://poultry.information.in.th/bird-flu-archive-2004-november.html
At the outbreak, Malaysia extended a ban on the passage of poultry along its border with Thailand and poultry in Pulau Besar village, Kelantan, were culled after the virus was found in a random sample.
This avian flu has been isolated as the H5N1 strain, passing from chickens to humans and now claimed to pass human-human. The WHO and CDC say it may be the single biggest health threat the world is currently facing.[xi] At a 2004 WHO conference in Bangkok, to develop strategies to contain the flu and other infectious diseases, Dr Klaus Stohr, head of WHO’s Global Influenza Programme, illustrated how a new, deadly human flu could affect the world: “The number of people affected would go beyond the billions.” He said a major flu pandemic is overdue. The 1918 flu pandemic killed an estimated 20+ million people, its cause an animal flu virus similar to the H5N1.
SOURCE Khaleej Times, Bird flu likely source of next pandemic, WHO (Reuters), 25 November 2004
*In 1998, when the previously unidentified Hendra-like ‘Nipah’ virus was identified, Malaysian authorities slaughtered over half a million pigs as containment measures. Pig farms were quarantined. Despite this, the virus was reported detected in the Malaysian state of Sarawak on the Island of Borneo. It had crossed the South China Sea. Dogs and cats are confirmed ‘Nipah’ carriers,[xii] and rats fed pig carcasses and leftover feed are thought capable of carrying the virus. Nipah was passed from pigs to humans and killed over a hundred of the around 250 people it infected.[xiii]
Dr Stohr warns: “There’s no doubt there will be another pandemic whether it is going to be happening this year or next year, we don’t know. Whether it is going to be H5N1 or another one, we don’t know.” WHO’s advice “to stock up on antiviral medications” is no idle warning. SOURCE http://poultry.information.in.th/bird-flu-archive-2004-november.html, Avian Influenza/Bird Flu news, November 2004
Aiding and abetting infection
Unfortunately, the ability of such viruses to ‘jump’ species to humans is heightened by techniques used in factory farming and genetically manipulating animals; e.g. the multi-billion-dollar market to develop animals, especially pigs, for human donor organs. Animals host endogenous viruses that have no known adverse effect on the animal, but which could be infectious in humans. For example, a male patient in the US received a baboon’s liver, but died two months after the transplant[xiv] having contracted a virus thought only to affect baboons. Post mortem tests revealed that cytomegalovirus (CMV), present in wild baboons, had crossed the species barrier.
The practice of transplanting live cells, tissues or organs across species barriers, e.g. from animals to humans or vice versa, by artificial means - xenotransplantation - is expanding in a virtual regulatory vacuum. New Zealand is currently considering it; Britain, Canada and Australia have done so. These governments have – broadly - declared a cautionary approach, but have made statements. (See the NZ bioethics site.)
Farming animals to provide ‘spare parts’ for human recipients is being researched. When the appalling methodology being used by Imutran Limited was exposed, the UK-based company simply moved its operation overseas. Comprehensive international legislation is needed.
In 2005, a dietary supplement to aid digestion was withdrawn from the New Zealand market because it contained ground-up pancreatic enzymes obtained from pigs. There was a perceived danger of trans-species infection. Xenotransplantation itself, and the research required to perfect techniques, increases the likelihood of cross-species infection. While the procedure does not involve genetic engineering per se, there are many parallels with biosafety issues around GE organisms, and it does not exclude genetic manipulation(s) of the transplanted material, animal or human.
Cloning – also not genetic engineering per se – is a far from perfected allied technology. ‘Dolly’ the cloned sheep required over 270 attempts before a viable animal was produced. Experiments to clone monkeys have, to date, failed. Cloned pigs arrived in 2000.[xv] The Australian-based BresaGen Limited claimed to have created gene-altered (transgenic) pig clones, maintaining: “It is anticipated that the new cloning technology will have a major impact in guarding against the outbreak of animal disease and in the area of xenotransplantation.”
SOURCE http://www.adelaide.edu.au/news/news227.html, 9 May 2001, University of Adelaide
Pigs are perceived as compatible with humans, but virologists warn of the dangers inherent in using pig organs,
[xvi] of the transmission of latent viruses to human transplant recipients. Professor Grahame Bulfield, director of the Roslin Institute in Edinburgh, where Dolly was cloned, said: “It’s possible there could be viruses we don’t know about that could be released into the human population.” And “I think the concern is mainly unknown viruses . . . If you know what the disease is, you know how to look for it. It’s possible there could be viruses we don’t know about that could be released into the human population.” Source 'Dolly scientists target biomedical research,' BBC News, UK, 24 September 2001 http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/sci/tech/newsid_1560000/1560870.stm
[xvi] of the transmission of latent viruses to human transplant recipients. Professor Grahame Bulfield, director of the Roslin Institute in Edinburgh, where Dolly was cloned, said: “It’s possible there could be viruses we don’t know about that could be released into the human population.” And “I think the concern is mainly unknown viruses . . . If you know what the disease is, you know how to look for it. It’s possible there could be viruses we don’t know about that could be released into the human population.” Source 'Dolly scientists target biomedical research,' BBC News, UK, 24 September 2001 http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/sci/tech/newsid_1560000/1560870.stmAfter eight years as Professor of Animal Breeding and Genetics at Massey University, New Zealand, Dr Dorian Garrick’s parting message was: “Transgenic modification of livestock, DNA parentage testing, marker assisted selection, cloning and even simple recording practices are unlikely to be of much help to the future of New Zealand sheep and beef industries.” SOURCE Rural News, 2 June 2002, Genetic technology unlikely to produce new animals
More significant: “The most effective strategies to change or improve livestock are selection and crossbreeding. Improved performance is 90 percent feeding and 10 percent breeding.” Dr Garrick explained to a meeting of sheep and beef producers that: “Future transgenic modification of large animals is likely to be limited to niche market products such as pharmaceuticals rather than to deliver new animals for national flocks and herds.”[xvii] Such sound advice needs to be recognized by the transnational corporations keen to extend their R&D to Asia. The promise of potential profits from producing plentiful, cheap food by cloning and similar genetic manipulations, and from donor animals for xenotransplantation, will inspire investment.
Antibiotics threatened
Antibiotics were developed in the mid-20th century and the antibiotic arsenal has remained fairly constant with few new drugs appearing. US statistics reveal that almost 50 percent of production is now administered to farm animals. Factory-farmed animals may also be fed recombinant growth-promoting hormones. Fertilizers, herbicides and aflatoxins potentially present in animal feed collect in animal tissue and milk, leaving a toxic residue ingested by consumers.
The overuse of antibiotics and feeding animals GE crops that contain antibiotic resistant marker genes[xviii] poses potential reduced efficacy for use in animals and humans. Although insufficient studies have researched the latter risk, an example can be taken from bees. For 40 years, beekeepers in the Americas used the antibiotic tetracycline to combat outbreaks of American foulbrood. In 1996, the year the US started commercial GE crop plantings, resistance to tetracycline appeared in bee bacteria in Argentina, the US and Canada. These countries were growing 98 percent of the world’s transgenic crops and bees had collected pollen from crops using, as a marker, a gene for tetracycline resistance in bacteria. Tetracycline subsequently became ineffective against American foulbrood. Professor Hans-Hinrich Kaatz, of the Institut fur Bienenkunde (bee research) at the University of Jena in Germany, later identified a rapeseed gene, engineered to resist the herbicide glufosinate, that had transferred to bacteria and fungi in the gut of honeybees. This is how the bees’ resistance to tetracycline could have occurred.
Human health
The US sees an annual increase in cases of salmonella poisoning coming from contaminated eggs, meat and milk, often the product of factory farms. These strains are difficult to treat because they have become antibiotic resistant. In fact, we are seeing a general reduction in the efficacy of antibiotics. Bacterial infections have arisen in humans that are resistant to virtually all antibiotics; these ‘super’ bugs being reported in New Zealand, Japan, Scotland and elsewhere. In September 1999, a Japanese child acquired a bacterial infection resistant even to the ‘last resort’ antibiotic, vancomycin. The causative organism, Staphylococcus aureus, is one of the most common bacteria in the human environment. In 2004/2005 it caused the deaths of premature babies at Wellington Hospital, New Zealand.
Human health problems related to ingesting antibiotics and growth hormones used in intensive farming methods, and the irradiation of meat for food ‘safety,’ have not been adequately researched. Virtually no real tests on the human consumption of GE crops or animals have been carried out. There is evidence to show that human allergic reactions have increased markedly in countries where GE foods are now commonly consumed: the UK, Ireland, Canada and the US. And it has been shown that transgenes can cross to the human gut.
Meanwhile, although anecdotal, local communities around factory farms tell the story of their negative health impacts. In the Philippines, skin rashes and other health problems associated with drinking contaminated water supplies are reported. Taiwan acknowledges environmental issues from factory-farm emissions: water pollution, untreated sewage and contaminated drinking water. Such health effects are substantiated by recent research at the Departments of Psychiatry and Medicine, Duke University Medical Centre, Durham, North Carolina. Emissions were extracted from a confined pig facility, diluted to a level that would occur naturally downwind, and delivered to an “environmental exposure chamber.” Forty-eight volunteers were exposed for one hour to the diluted swine air and for a second hour to clean air. Mean levels of airborne constituents in the swine ‘air’ included hydrogen sulphide, ammonia, endotoxin units, and odour. Subjects reported headaches, eye irritation, and nausea after exposure to the swine air and the researchers said the results indicated “that short-term exposure in an environmental chamber to malodorous emissions from a swine house at levels expected downwind can induce clinically important symptoms in healthy human volunteers.”[xix]
Animal health
Feeding GE crops to farm animals involves other potential risks. Pigs fed GE corn on several US farms developed false pregnancies or reduced fertility. Research at Baylor University, Texas, discovered similar problems in rats exposed to bedding made from Bt corncobs. Five cows fed GE corn in Germany died mysteriously.[xx] One was examined at the pathology institute at Giessen. A Greenpeace report said additional tissue samples sent to the University of Göttingen, vanished “in unexplained circumstances.” The primary suspect for the cow deaths was the Bt protein contained in Bt 176 genetically engineered corn. In one study, twice the number of chickens died when fed GE corn compared to those fed natural corn.[xxi] Though anecdotal, farmers say, given a choice, domestic and wild animals choose conventional crops over transgenic ones every time.
Why factory farming?
Only 24 percent of Taiwan’s land is arable, yet it has a population of around 21 million. Such population density, coupled with the scarcity of agricultural land encourages factory farming to meet food needs. Annually, Philippine factory farms rear over 23 percent of 17 million pigs, and Taiwanese factory farms over 14 million pigs[xxii] for slaughter at about 110 kg live weight. To attain that weight quickly, they are fed growth hormones and antibiotics. Particularly concerning is the potential increase for pathogens to transmit animal-to-human, e.g. pneumonia, cholera, dysentery and trichinosis, and that outbreaks, like the Nipah swine virus and the ‘chicken’ flu, will originate from such factory farms. Animal waste creates dust, dirt and toxic gases, creating unsanitary growing conditions, with manure disposal a major problem.
Scientists at the University of Guelph, Canada, are using GE technology to try to ameliorate the problem of vast quantities of pig manure, by engineering pigs to produce roughly a quarter of the phosphorus found in conventional pig manure.[xxiii] Lead researcher, Dr John Phillips, claimed that spreading pig manure on farms had become a serious problem for fish and the environment: “This phosphorus, when the manure is applied as fertiliser, actually is too high to be utilised by the crops. It therefore is left behind to leach into waterways, lakes, rivers, and streams, becoming a pollutant which promotes the growth of algae and bacteria and which consequently chokes out the growth of fish and other aquatic organisms.” The team utilised a transgene that enables pigs to digest phosphorus in a way normal pigs cannot, hoping the transgenic pigs will be approved for human consumption by the Canadian government. This technological ‘fix’ may correct one problem, but does not solve the multitude of other problems associated with such intensive production methods.
Recently, Dr Akira Iritani, at Kinki University in western Japan, engineered spinach genes into pigs;[xxiv]
claimed as the first successful engineering of a plant gene into an animal. Using the FAD2 gene, which converts saturated fat into an unsaturated fat called linoleic acid, Dr Iritani claims pigs would contain 20 percent less saturated fat than normal pigs and be healthier to eat, and that the modification has been confirmed in three generations of pigs. He said: “I know genetically-modified food has met with poor public acceptance, but I hope safety tests will be conducted to make people feel like eating the pork for the sake of their health.”
Vested interest
Mainly First World-based companies factory farm pigs The example given is of pig farming, but this is a general statement. Companies factory farm other animals and birds, even dogs in Asia. For example, the German-based Pig Improvement Company (PIC) and associated companies operate in 30 countries including China, Japan, South Korea, the Philippines, Thailand, New Zealand and Australia. PIC sells breeding stock, and gives breed selection, veterinary, disease control and husbandry advice. On 2 May 2003, it launched its Bardfield Gene Transfer Centre (GTC) in the South Island of New Zealand. PIC Australia claims that, “PIC is the world leader in the genetic improvement of pigs…” The company claims that Asia Pacific countries “account for 57 percent and 59 percent of the total production (of pigs) and consumption respectively. It is ‘big’ business. What advice PIC offers on genetically “improving” pigs is not immediately available.
Worldwide, the record for engineering animals and its regulation is dismal. Attempts to engineer a pig in the UK produced a creature that was blind, impotent and could hardly stand up. Research in the US and Canada saw transgenic animals enter the food chain. Some claim that, in the US, engineered animals have ended up in the meat processing industry for a decade or more.
Bio-reactors
GE technology is being used to produce pharmaceutical and other chemical components by engineering plants, sheep, cows, goats, almost any organism, to attract investment dollars. In 2004, researchers gained approval to create sheep engineered to contract Huntington's disease[xxv] in order to “understand” Huntington’s disease in humans. New Zealand lost the research opportunity because regulatory control entailed high costs. Instead, the flock will be reared in Adelaide at the state-owned South Australian Research and Development Institute. However, once established, the brain of an infected sheep and that of a normal sheep will be analysed quarterly at Auckland University under Professor Richard Faull. Any cruelty aspects were not highlighted. Huntingdon’s disease destroys cells in the part of the brain that controls movement, symptoms rarely noticed until the condition is at an advanced stage.
Will this research advance understanding? Theoretical biologist, Dr Brian Goodwin, said: “The assumption is that a characteristic can be transferred from one species to another simply by moving genes. A gene in a mouse that produces a hormone regulating growth will have one effect in the mouse; but in a human being will have a very different effect.” This is factory farming in the highest technological sense of the term.
SOURCE GenEthics News, Issue 11, March/April 1996, http://members.tripod.com/~ngin/article8.htm
Will the research also share the same fate as the ‘cystic fibrosis’ sheep research carried out by PPL Therapeutics Pty in New Zealand? PPL went into liquidation when parent company, Bayer, withdrew its financial support. Many scientists claim it unlikely that a “genetic fix” will be found for monogenic diseases – diseases caused by one gene - like Huntington’s chorea or cystic fibrosis. Such research on animals is seen as unnecessary brutalism, especially as we can now screen (using amniocentesis) for Huntington’s and other diseases.[xxvi]
The assurance was that PPL’s transgenic sheep research would assist in alleviating suffering from emphysema and cystic fibrosis. When German drug giant, Bayer[xxvii] pulled its funding, it had decided that there was no prospect of medicine eventuating, something predicted by scientists at the application for approval stage. PPL went into liquidation with little to show for the multi-million dollar investment.
The request of Dr Peter Wills, theoretical biologist at the University of Auckland, that “samples of the liver, blood, lung, and brain of every sheep should be preserved for future investigation”[xxviii] was ignored. As he said: “It is doubtful whether there will be another opportunity in the next decade to obtain samples from such a large sample of individuals from the same transgenic population.” Their destruction demonstrates that money, not scientific commitment, was the driving force behind the experiments.
New Zealand’s state-owned company, AgResearch is engineering human genes into cows to produce myelin protein for multiple sclerosis sufferers. Laurence Steinmann, professor of neurology at Stanford University, and an expert in multiple sclerosis, claims it unnecessary as it can easily be made in the laboratory.[xxix] Nevertheless, this costly study continues, despite such animal research generally proving itself virtually ineffective.
GE biotechnology is the ultimate expression of scientific reductionism. It views a gene as an isolated unit, assuming that a gene will express itself in exactly the same way no matter where, or in what species, it is put. Science cannot accurately predict the effect of gene splicing. To date, GE has not even come close to living up to its PR claims. Medical gene-therapy is admitted to be an almost complete failure so far.[xxx] Because animals share the same DNA, does not mean they react like humans. These pseudo-scientific projects are an appalling waste of taxpayers’ and investors’ money.
GE technology is a dangerous and untested technology, but as ‘flavour-of-the-month’, and with major corporate interests backing it, it attracts funding; researchers are often forced to look to GE rather than conventional methods. In many countries, funding comes from companies with vested interests; e.g. approximately 80 percent of university research in the UK comes from businesses with a vested interest in its outcome. New Zealand has a funding mix, with much coming from the taxpayer. China’s heavy investment in GE is an exception, funding there claimed to come solely from its government.
Mutant pathogens
Scientists acknowledge that pigs are a carrier species, that viruses and other organisms can exchange genetic material, and that flu viruses mutate prolifically and frequently. GE encourages these risks. For example, the cauliflower mosaic virus (CaMV) in an engineered ‘cassette’ of genetic material is not the harmless CaMV found commonly in broccoli. Stripped of its protein coat, it is no longer ‘host specific’ and therefore more virulent. After all, it is engineered to help the genetic material enter and be accepted by a new host. This is why a virus is used, rather like a Trojan horse. However, science cannot predict how introduced DNA will react in a new host, be it plant or animal. We cannot always be certain that other fragments of DNA are not being introduced as well, and there are often pleiotropic (unforeseen) effects.
The transmission of pathogens from animal to human is not confined to the donor animal and humans; pathogens may be passed to a second animal and potentially from there to humans. For example, pigs have been found to be carriers of the avian ‘chicken’ flu virus, and also found to be vulnerable to both bird and human flu. Factory farming, whether or not genetic manipulation of the animals has taken place, provides a greater opportunity for pathogens to escape and infect humans and other animal species. Scientists fear that a virus could mutate, say in pigs, and become a ‘super’ strain like the 1918 influenza epidemic[xxxi] which killed tens of millions of people worldwide, and which is believed to have been a mutation of an influenza virus spread from pigs by US troops during World War I. Today, air travel could spread it world-wide in hours.[xxxii]
The 1918 flu strain was labelled H1N1. Four decades later, a new type A was found, labelled H2N2, that caused thousands of deaths in the US alone. Further mutation resulted in strain H3N2 that appeared in 1968. In 1976, the H1N1 was re-located at a US military base, this H1N1 slightly different due to antigenic drift. Viruses are experts at mutating.
In 1997, Keiji Fukuda from the US Centres for Disease Control and Prevention, one of several experts looking for the source of the H5NI Hong Kong bird flu virus outbreak, told CNN that the longer the virus persisted among humans, “the greater the chances that it will become adapted to humans.” SOURCE CNN News, 27 December 1997, http://www.cnn.com/HEALTH/9712/27/hk.flu/
H5N1 has the potential to create a flu virus that could kill millions.
The UN’s FAO (Food and Agriculture Organization) representative in Vietnam reported that pigs in Hanoi and Vietnam tested positive for the H5N1 chicken flu virus in nasal swabs. WHO says that finding the virus in nasal cavities simply means the pigs may be contaminated but not infected, the animal’s immune system not yet breached. Even so, there is an obvious danger in that the virus is present. H5N1 has also been detected in two tigers and a domestic cat in Thailand; the first time it has been confirmed in the cat family.[xxxiii] Because viruses mutate, often rapidly, flu vaccines generally offer little protection. This is where GE technology was seen as a breakthrough. However, the Hong Kong bird flu outbreak was almost a decade ago, and scientists still have no solution. SOURCE A UN organization (FAO), 2 June 2004, Vietnamese pigs test positive for deadly bird flu, Agence France-Presse, http://quote.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=10000087&sid=akY9vAMozQNg &refer=home#
Pigs
Factory-farmed breeding sows spend multiple pregnancies in narrow stalls, farrowing in small crates. Pigs for fattening occupy barren pens and breeding boars are isolated in small individual pens. Such conditions are a recipe for disaster.
Pigs can catch bird flu and human influenza, and pigs could potentially provide the opportunity for the avian and human strains to genetically rearrange themselves into one highly pathogenic (disease-causing) virus, combining extraordinary virulence and easy transmissibility. The current bird flu strain has killed 70 percent of those infected, including young fit individuals. Flu viruses are also known to have poor replicating machinery: each copy increases the odds of a dangerous virus emerging.
Chickens
High antibiotics use allows factory-farmed chickens to survive overcrowded conditions. If a chicken flu virus survived antibiotics in such unsanitary conditions, it could emerge as a ‘super’ bug. Given that the current avian flu strain is in the wild, carried by migrating birds, infecting wild animals and pigs, it could potentially trade a gene with a human flu virus, become airborne, and its human-created-virulence follow a vector back through the animal populations.
Globally, poultry production has expanded dramatically in the last five years: chicken meat production increasing15 percent and hens’ egg production 13 percent. This is most marked in Asia, especially China, India, Pakistan and Malaysia, where poultry meat production has increased by 17 percent over the same period and egg output 22 percent. Currently, one sixth of world cereal production is consumed by poultry, 274 million tonnes in 1999.[xxxiv] Even where people are starving, crops are grown for livestock feed. During the Ethiopian famine in the 1980s, where millions died, grains were growing nearby destined for First World livestock.
The US-based company AviGenics has transgenic cockerels creating new generations of GE birds. Chickens are being selectively bred and engineered to grow bigger thighs and breasts, the parts in most demand, creating birds so heavy their bones cannot support their weight. They are bred to reach market weight in a few weeks. Chickens are raised in overcrowded broiler houses rather than cages to prevent flesh bruising making their meat undesirable. Beaks and toes are cut off and broiler houses left unlit to prevent fighting. Such conditions are neither sanitary nor risk-free.
The factory farming of birds to produce eggs containing pharmaceutical products is expanding.[xxxv] For example, it is being advanced by US companies AviGenics and GeneWorks. Genes are spliced into the birds using neutered, “harmless” viruses claimed not to replicate, but viruses are adept at recombining and mutating. Guarantees of non-replication are of little value to anyone.
Researchers use the avian leukosis virus as a gene shuttle, microinject it into the pronucleus in the egg yolk, and the gene is then expressed in all the chicken’s cells. The potential for these birds to contaminate standard flocks is dismissed. AviGenics says it plans to contract out production and protein purification to companies already producing vaccines. It can already harvest the proteins from hens that have been injected and plans to open a production plant capable of making “metric tonnes” of protein. Cheaper labour in Asian countries would be attractive to such ventures.
Dairy Cows
The claim is that dairy cows suit factory-farming practices. Fifty percent of US cows are raised this way: fed and watered, their waste removed mechanically, allowed out twice daily for milking by machines, socially deprived and denied natural behaviour. The method is spreading to Asia, e.g. China, where food output is a premium.
Cows produce milk for about 10 months after calving and are impregnated continuously to keep milk flowing. Monsanto’s recombinant bovine growth hormone (rBGH) – known to be used in the US, Mexico and Brazil but refused in New Zealand and elsewhere - forces nature to yield more. Injected cows may suffer birth defects, reproductive disorders, a high incidence of mastitis,[xxxvi] pus in their milk, and a reduced lifespan. It is associated strongly with prostate and breast cancer in humans consuming rBGH-contaminated milk.[xxxvii]
Cats, dogs and other animals
In parts of Asia, intensive farming methods supply a number of smaller animals as food: rabbits, cats and kittens for meat and pelts, and meat dogs. In China, raising dogs, once a cottage industry, has turned into burgeoning factory-farming production. Around 20 million dogs are slaughtered annually. They breed the Mongolian Chinese Meat Dog with imported St Bernard dogs. The Chow breed was a meat dog; chow means food. These “meat dogs” are ready for slaughter at four months. Increasing yields by genetic engineering or cloning is attractive. No information on GE growth hormones or antibiotics is immediately available, but factory farm conditions would warrant their use.
Generally, meat dogs sell for about US$30, the meat at around $4.30/kg. In 2003, it was estimated that 13-16 million cats and dogs are butchered annually for human consumption in Asia;[xxxviii] in the Philippines, an estimated 290 000 dogs annually, Vietnam 4-5 million and South Korea 1.3 million.[xxxix]
In April 2000, 17 Kazakhstanis became infected with Trichinellosis after eating dog meat.[xl] Ironically, dog meat is considered a health food in Korea. Medical experts have now agreed that the SARS virus outbreak was a direct result of human consumption of civet cats: over 5327 cases were reported in China in 2003, including 349 deaths. The disease broke out in China’s Guangdong province in November 2002 and was not under control until August 2003.[xli] In 2003, the China News Agency claimed 235 civet cats at a Beijing farm were isolated after the SARS virus was detected in the animals.[xlii]
Virologists are convinced that - with deadly diseases like Ebola, AIDS, and now SARS, all suspected of originating from people eating or handling animals – factory farming, and farms where people live in very close proximity to animals, are fertile breeding grounds for diseases and viruses.
China annually factory-farms over one million mink and fox skins respectively, and also processes and manufactures these and other furs. Hong Kong fur manufacturers have processing plants in mainland China.
Asiatic black bears are factory-farmed in China, in cages too small to allow standing or lying down, for their five-ten years lifespan. They have open stomach wounds where bile is extracted twice daily for use in traditional medicine, cosmetics, wine and shampoo. Exported bile breaks International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora regulations.
There are officially 247 bear farms, with an estimated 7000-9000 bears, while an international movement aims to ban this practice.[xliii]
Fish
Aquaculture is big business in many Asian countries; for example, sea cages for fish rearing are situated on the coast of Heng Chung, Taiwan. Trout farming is common.
To date around 30 different fish types have been engineered for a variety of traits; e.g. increasing growth rates; and to glow in the presence of toxins in water, now sold as GloFish pets.[xliv]
Massachusetts-based Aqua Bounty Farms wants approval to sell Atlantic salmon engineered to grow at twice their normal rate, but studies have shown that escaped transgenic fish can potentially breed with and damage populations of natural fish varieties. Developers claim these impacts can be avoided by making the novel fish sterile and growing them in isolated tanks. The sterilisation process, triploidisation, is around 99.8 percent effective, but triploids can be ‘leaky,’ fertile forms can emerge. (Triploid fish have three sets of chromosomes per cell rather than the usual two sets and triploid females do not lay eggs.) In Mississippi and Arkansas, catfish farmers imported non-native triploid carp as ‘cleaners’ in commercial breeder tanks. Extensive flooding in the area swamped the tanks, triploids escaped into the Mississippi River and now seriously threaten the Great Lakes .
In 1999,[xlv] transgenic fish in New Zealand escaped into the wild; a fact exposed by Green Party Co-leader, Jeannette Fitzsimons. King Salmon, owned by the Malaysian-based transnational Tiong Group, had bred the fish in the Marlborough Sounds, thinking fine netting would prevent escapes. A leaked document, written by the PR firm, Communications Trumps, urged King Salmon to keep the GE research secret, saying: “Issues such as deformities, lumps on heads, etc., should not be mentioned at any point to anyone outside.”
[xlv] transgenic fish in New Zealand escaped into the wild; a fact exposed by Green Party Co-leader, Jeannette Fitzsimons. King Salmon, owned by the Malaysian-based transnational Tiong Group, had bred the fish in the Marlborough Sounds, thinking fine netting would prevent escapes. A leaked document, written by the PR firm, Communications Trumps, urged King Salmon to keep the GE research secret, saying: “Issues such as deformities, lumps on heads, etc., should not be mentioned at any point to anyone outside.” (SOURCE King Salmon must stop its GE programme, Green Party media release, 13 August 1999.)
Studies have revealed that farmed fish contain more PCBs and other harmful contaminants than wild fish and the environmental hazards of fish-farming practices.[xlvi] Wild salmon become pink by eating sea creatures such as krill, which contain a carotenoid called astaxanthin. In the US, farmed salmon, an unappetizing grey colour, are fed synthesized astaxanthin, produced by Igene Biotechnology, to turn them pink.[xlvii]
In conclusion
Control of Asia’s agriculture and food is passing into the hands of First World transnational corporations. Virtual monopoly control over plant and animal genes, and the exploitation of patents and GE technology, threaten biodiversity and food security. Corporations ignore the basic rights of Asian farmers who have developed 140 000 rice varieties over millennia, and of Iraqi farmers who have nurtured important domesticated crops such as wheat, barley, dates and pulses. The 1970s “Green Revolution” ensured the disappearance of thousands of traditional food varieties. Now we face the threat of transgenic contamination. The US invasion of Iraq has ensured not only control over its oil supply, but also transnational capture of the seed market; new US-style patent laws make it illegal for Iraqi farmers to re-use seeds harvested from new varieties registered under the law, and establish monopoly rights over seeds, genetically engineered or not.
The value of biodiversity of our world cannot be reduced to mere economics. It provides humanity with the essential ingredients for survival: air, water, soil and plant life. Factory farming is a further attempt to control nature for the profit of the few. Aided and abetted by novel technologies, it has the potential to breed new animal diseases, new sources of cancer, and even a global pandemic. The biotechnology vision embraces a view of the world characterized by a belief that nature should be dominated, exploited, privately owned and forced to yield more. Unless our view of food production changes radically in favour of a more sustainable approach, we could face a moderate to large-scale global ecological catastrophe.
Robert Anderson BSc (Hons), PhD
(4 February 1942 to 5 December 2008)
Robert Anderson (Bob) was a Trustee of Physicians and Scientists for Global Responsibility (formerly Physicians and Scientists for Responsible Genetics); www.psgr.org.nz. He authored The Final Pollution: Genetic Apocalypse, Exploding the Myth of Genetic Engineering and several other publications on environmental, scientific, health and social justice issues.
View his lectures on this website.
Address enquiries for books written by Robert Anderson to naturesstar@xtra.co.nz.
Address enquiries for GE free health food products to naturesstar@xtra.co.nz
For further information see:
GE Free New Zealand in food and environment www.gefree.org.nz/
GE Free Northland in food and environment http://web.gefreenorthland.org.nz/
Physicians and Scientists for Global Responsibility www.psgr.org.nz
Sustainability Council of New Zealand http://www.sustainabilitynz.org/
The Soil & Health Association / Organic New Zealand http://organicnz.org.nz/
i] Sheep with human genes, Transgenic Sheep Born in Beijing Xinhuanet, 24 December 2000
[ii] Genome Study in China Extends to Sea, People's Daily, 11 September 2000.
[iii] ibid
[iv] New Genome Researchers Badly Needed in China, People’s Daily
[v] Development of Bioprocess Engineering in China, Biotechnology 4(1): 1-6, 2005.
[vi] O'Brien, T., 1997. Factory Farming & Human Health. Compassion In World Farming Trust: Petersfield.
[vii] FSA, 2000. Foodborne Disease: Developing a Strategy to Deliver the Agency's Targets. Food Standards Agency: London.
[viii] SCAHAW, 2002. The welfare of animals during transport (details for horses, pigs, sheep & cattle). Report of the Scientific Committee on Animal Health and Animal Welfare. March 2002. European Commission: Brussels
[ix] Roeder, P., 2001. The 'Hidden' Epidemic of Foot-and-Mouth Disease. Food & Agriculture Organisation (FAO). 21st May 2001.
[xi] Reuters, Hanoi, 6 April 2005; AnimalNet 6 April 2005; Reuters, 5 April 2005, Washington; http://archives.foodsafetynetwork.ca/animalnet-archives.htm
[xii] The Sun, 5 May 1999, Kuala Lumpur (Malaysia
[xiii] The Sun, 5 May 1999, Kuala Lumpur (Malaysia
[xiv] Baboon virus passed to transplant patient BBC Science News
[xv] Australian researchers clone pig BBC: Sci/Tech Wednesday, 9 May, 2001, BBC UK
[xvi] Pig research halt 'a commercial decision' BBC Monday, 14 August, 2000, UK
[xvii] New Zealand Rural News May 20th 2001
[xviii] Anderson G, “GE Crops Undermine Antibiotic Arsenal” NZ Family Physician Vol 26 Number 5 Oct 1999
[xix] http://ehp.niehs.nih.gov/members/2005/6814/6814.pdf; Symptomatic Effects of Exposure to Diluted Air Sampled from a Swine Confinement Atmosphere on Healthy Human Subjects, Susan S Schiffman et al.
[xxi] “GM Safety Tests Flawed” BBC News 27th April 2002
[xxii] DAF, 1997. Taiwan Agricultural Yearbook 1997 Edition. Department of Agriculture & Forestry, Taiwan Provincial Government. June 1997.
[xxiii] “GM pigs to produce cleaner manure” Nature Biotechnology. BBC Science News. August, 2001
[xxiv] “GM pigs are both meat and veg” New Scientist 25 January 2002
[xxv] Collins S., “GM sheep to be used in fight against cruel disease” NZ Herald 24.08.2004
[xxvi] “Prental Diagnosis” Vol.19 The Genetic Drift Newsletter. 2001 (Spring): http://www.mostgene.org/gd/gdvol19e.htm
[xxviii] From commentary By Dr Peter Wills on New GE legislation : "The government should act immediately to ensure that the unique scientific resource of GE sheep in the Waikato is not destroyed". Department of Physics, University of Auckland.
[xxix] Fitzsimons J., Debate Speech “Will GE cows help MS Sufferers?” 9 May 2001
[xxx] Nelson D.,”NIH Not Told of Deaths in Gene Studies” Washington Post, Nov 3 1999
[xxxi] M Day, Pigs caused Great War flu deaths, New Scientist, 29 March 1997: 20
[xxxii] Are pigs carrying flu superbug? By Anjana Ahuja http://www.awitness.org/journal/bid_flu_pig_cat.html
[xxxiii] Bird flu pounces on cat species, The Times, AFP February 21, 2004)
[xxxiv] Qureshi, A.A., 2001. Disparities in world poultry production in 1999. World Poultry-Elsevier, vol.
17, no.2.pp.22-23
[xxxv] “GM eggs could be future drug factories” November 13, 1999 New Scientist
[xxxvi] Shiv Chopra et al rBST (Nutrilac) “Gaps Analysis Report by International Review Team. Health Canada April 21 1998
[xxxvii] “Milk, rBGH and Cancer” Rachel’s Environmental and Health Weekly #593 April 9 1998
[xxxix] Paul Littlefair, RSPCA < plittlefair@rspca.org.uk>
[xl] Trichinellosis infection from dog meat – Kazakhstan Pro-MED mail post April 22 2000
[xliii] www.chai.org; Cats – Friend or Food? © 1999-2004, Sarah Hartwell; Traditional Chinese Medicine, Wine or Skin Toner - What Price do Bears Pay?; Real Life, UnBEARable Cruelty, The Bear Bile Farms of China; www.wspa.org.uk.
[xliv] <http://news.independent.co.uk> 4 May 2004.
[xlv] New Zealand Government Too Late Over Genetically Engineered Salmon. http://www.ecoglobe.org/nz/news1999/n249news.htm
[xlvi] New York Times April 10 2005
[xlvii] By fermentation process for the production of astaxanthin by the green microalga, Haematococcus pluvialis.