BioPharming - H5N1
Keep following the trail of crumbs, this follows Soylent Green Chimeras, where patents have been issued on human animal hybrids.
Then, You Are What You Eat, where MODIFIED genes jumped species, and BioPharming, where drugs or vaccines can be engineered into the food chain.
Here we see how a pig vaccine contaminated food crops in the U.S. and then we tie it all together with the latest from the Sichuan H5N1 outbreak...
U.S. authorities, shaken by a case in which food crops were contaminated with an experimental pig vaccine, are preparing to impose stringent guidelines on a new generation of experimental GM crops.
The department of agriculture and the environmental protection agency are encountering growing disquiet from a coalition of farmers and food manufacturers about the potential dangers of the next phase of GM products -- "biopharming," or the implanting of genes in food crops to grow drugs and industrial chemicals.
The idea of tightening regulations on GM products represents something of a revolution in thinking in the U.S., where about 70 percent of the processed food on supermarket shelves contains genetically engineered ingredients.
But concerns have risen after a small biotech firm in Texas was fined $3 million for tainting half a million bushels of soya bean with a trial vaccine used to prevent stomach upsets in piglets.
Under a settlement reached this month, the first of its kind against any biotech company in the U.S., a firm called Prodigene agreed to pay a fine of $250,000 and to repay the government for the cost of incinerating the soya bean that had been contaminated with genetically altered corn.
U.S. authorities said the corn did not reach food crops or animal feed. But the episode has drawn unwelcome attention to an as yet experimental area of GM farming.
The premise behind biopharming, or "pharming" for short, is that genetic tinkering can turn an ordinary-looking corn or barley field into a potential drug factory, producing insulin, chemotherapy drugs, and other products for much less than it would cost to set up an industrial plant.
UK Guardian
Then, You Are What You Eat, where MODIFIED genes jumped species, and BioPharming, where drugs or vaccines can be engineered into the food chain.
Here we see how a pig vaccine contaminated food crops in the U.S. and then we tie it all together with the latest from the Sichuan H5N1 outbreak...
U.S. authorities, shaken by a case in which food crops were contaminated with an experimental pig vaccine, are preparing to impose stringent guidelines on a new generation of experimental GM crops.
The department of agriculture and the environmental protection agency are encountering growing disquiet from a coalition of farmers and food manufacturers about the potential dangers of the next phase of GM products -- "biopharming," or the implanting of genes in food crops to grow drugs and industrial chemicals.
The idea of tightening regulations on GM products represents something of a revolution in thinking in the U.S., where about 70 percent of the processed food on supermarket shelves contains genetically engineered ingredients.
But concerns have risen after a small biotech firm in Texas was fined $3 million for tainting half a million bushels of soya bean with a trial vaccine used to prevent stomach upsets in piglets.
Under a settlement reached this month, the first of its kind against any biotech company in the U.S., a firm called Prodigene agreed to pay a fine of $250,000 and to repay the government for the cost of incinerating the soya bean that had been contaminated with genetically altered corn.
U.S. authorities said the corn did not reach food crops or animal feed. But the episode has drawn unwelcome attention to an as yet experimental area of GM farming.
The premise behind biopharming, or "pharming" for short, is that genetic tinkering can turn an ordinary-looking corn or barley field into a potential drug factory, producing insulin, chemotherapy drugs, and other products for much less than it would cost to set up an industrial plant.
UK Guardian
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