Deformed piglet resulted from Chinese efforts to resist viral infection. (From WSJ, Dec. 15-16, p. C3)
Crispr - let's reference - stands for "clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats" - serves as the immune system of bacteria, and has been used to fend off viral attacks. RNA or ribonucleic acid is a molecule found in all cells. Like DNA, RNA is a polymer, but much simpler. This is because the latter’s ribose sugar molecules are smaller than DNA’s deoxyribose sugar molecules. So there are fewer monomer units in all to make polymer chains. At the same time, while there is only one type of DNA, there are three types of RNA:
- Messenger RNA or mRNA: really a complementary copy of a DNA segment that conveys information from cell nucleus to cytoplasm. Once there it acts as a template for synthesis of a protein molecule.
- Transfer RNA or tRNA: as the name implies, it couples information in the nucleic acid base sequence to the amino acid base sequence in synthesized proteins.
- Ribosomal RNA or rRNA: forms the ribosomes of cells, from which proteins are made.
The diagram below summarizes the process:
Back in October, 2017, we learned that scientists had created a new Crispr- based system to edit RNA instead of DNA in human cells,. This offered a way around some of the ethical and scientific challenges to do with editing the human genome. This was first reported in the popular press (WSJ Technology section, Oct. 26, 2017) and referenced a paper published in Science the day before in which the research was described. The new RNA -editing system was dubbed "Repair" by the researchers (based at the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard) and was designed to correct a common mutation known to play a role in a number of diseases.
This came on the heels of attempts by Junjiu Huang and colleagues to use CRISPR/Cas9 to fix a gene known as HBB, which
causes the blood disorder beta-thalassemia.
The work was done on 86 very early embryos that weren't viable, in order to minimize some of the ethical concerns. Only 71 of the embryos survived, and just 28 were successfully edited. But the process also frequently created unintended mutations in the embryos' DNA.
Subsequently, Marcy Darnovsky of the Center for Genetics and Society, a watchdog group, wrote in an email :
"This paper demonstrates the enormous safety risks that any such attempt would entail, and underlines the urgency of working to forestall other such efforts. The social dangers of creating genetically modified human beings cannot be overstated. No researcher should have the moral warrant to flout the globally widespread policy agreement against modifying the human germline,"
George Daley, a stem cell researcher at Harvard, agreed, asserting:
"Their data reinforces the wisdom of the calls for a moratorium on any clinical practice of embryo gene editing, because current methods are too inefficient and unsafe," he wrote in an email. "Further, there needs to be careful consideration not only of the safety but also of the social and ethical implications of applying this technology to alter our germ lines."
These concerns have not been proffered without justification, as we've since learned of other misfires in the gene editing arena - most of which concern deformed animals unexpectedly generated by the work. (cf. 'Deformities Shadow Gene-Editing Research', WSJ, Dec, 15-16)
What were some of these misfires? As reported in the WSJ piece:
- When Chinese researchers deleted a gene that limits muscle growth in mammals the creations exhibited enlarged tongues.
- Similar experiments on Chinese pigs led a number of them to develop additional vertebrae.
- Gene-edited calves died prematurely in Brazil and New Zealand.
- Merino sheep edited to try to generate new coat colors came out spotted like typical Pandas.
In the case of the deformed piglet highlighted in the image the Chinese scientist - Dr. Kui Li- didn't even use CRISPR (preferred because it's more economical than older techniques) but an older editing method. That involved deleting a gene called MSTN from Chinese pigs in the embryonic stage. The edited cells were then infused into eggs, chemically fertilized in a lab an implanted into the womb of a surrogate.
The experiment did produce leaner pork (up to 12 percent leaner if both copies of the MSTN gene were deleted) but also 1 in 5 pigs that developed an extra thoracic vertebra. According to Dr. Li, lab tests showed that the meat of the deformed animals was still safe to eat. Maybe, but I'd warrant you'd have a hard time convincing my Bajan biologist friend John Phillips of that! E.g.
He will not even touch any genetically modified plant-based foods especially those which include glyphosate. John still cites a particular paragraph in the Bulletin of the Food & Water Watch, from 2016:
"Very little is known of the long term effects of what GMOs can do to your health because they've not been properly tested. But what facts we do have are alarming. Real lab rats fed GMOs have suffered kidney and liver damage, cancerous tumors and even premature death."
So there's no doubt he wouldn't look twice at genetically modified pork, especially coming from deformed animals.
This then goes to the other effort, conducted at Nanjing Agricultural University - to use CRISPR to edit MSTN out of rabbits to make them meatier. The unexpected result? 14 of the 34 engineered offspring were born with enlarged tongues. Would John Phillips eat any of these? "No way, not now or ever!"
The bizarre result led the participating scientists to warn of "abnormalities" from gene editing in a 2016 research paper on their project as cited in the WSJ piece. As the authors wrote:
"Safety issues need to be addressed in future studies before the technology can be utilized."
To be sure, these Chinese scientists weren't worried about humans getting enlarged tongues if they ate the rabbits. But rather the potential effects from consuming meat from an animal that had been "genetically messed up" to use Mr. Phillip's parlance. As Phillips put it in a recent email:
"Would you eat a flying fish I produced from Crispr/Cas9 gene editing that had two heads, two stomachs, and no scales? How about just one head, but no dorsal fin and crossed eyes? No, I didn't think so! So why eat pork from a genetically-edited deformed pig, never mind it's just one additional vertebra?"
Still, the beat goes on, and the WSJ article reports that globally "at least a dozen gene -edited livestock projects are aiming to reach consumer markets."
There is also a very good chance we won't know exactly what the condition of the animals was (in terms of deformities) when their meat is offered for the markets. After all, in the piglet experiment that went awry the Chinese scientist (Dr. Li) insisted it "was safe to eat". But what does that mean? Safe in terms of not causing kidney or liver disease, say like glyphosates in GMO foods? What about the precautionary principle? Is that embraced? (I.e. it is the responsibility of the creators to prove their meat is safe, not for consumers to prove it isn't.)
So I guess we should just take his word for it, being a geneticist and all. As for me, I believe I will stick to the non-gene edited meats, originating from non-deformed pigs, chickens, beef etc. - which I am sure will disappoint the Neoliberal market mavens. The same lot who assert Americans need to have many more babies, never mind they can't afford them.
John Phillips: Barbadian Bio-geneticist and nutrition specialist, links the glyphosate in cereals to GMO -based foods.
Barely four years ago,
a much publicized letter was put out by dozens of worried scientists, physicians. The letter began by stating:
"We the undersigned scientists, medical professionals, and researchers are writing to urge the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency not to register a double herbicide mix of 2,4- D and glyphosate - the 'Enlist DUO weed killer"
In the letter all the probable health risks were detailed, as noted in the first paragraph. In terms of the horrors of glyphosate and how it wreaks havoc on foods, I already discussed this in a previous post, including how consumption of glyphosate not only led to cancers by Alzheimer's disease (thanks to research by long time bio-geneticist John Phillips) See e.g. http://brane-space.blogspot.com/2014/03/alzheimers-epidemic-fro-eating-gmo.html
In that post I quoted Mr. Phillips:
"Among other toxins and other health-disrupting contaminants, GMO foods contain glyphosate, a horrifically destructive chemical that saps nutrients from foods and quite literally makes them toxic to consume."
To the(then) FDA's credit it withdrew approval of 'Enlist DUO' in November, 2015. However the use of Roundup and glyphosate has continued unrelentingly and we know::
- Seventy to Eighty percent of the foods we eat today contain GMOs.
- There are 1.1 billion pounds of pesticides used per year, primarily on GMO crops - because those crops are designed to survive the poisons.
According to the January 2016 issue of the Bulletin from 'Food & Water Watch' :
"GMO ingredients are hidden in 70 percent of processed food in this country. This is only a 'best guess' because no one knows for sure as they are not labeled. Also, very little is known of the long term effects of what GMOs can do to your health because they've not been properly tested. But what facts we do have are alarming."
The Bulletin then references:
"Real lab rats fed GMOs have suffered kidney and liver damage, cancerous tumors and even premature death."
Wonder why so many people are now needing kidney and liver transplants? These hidden GMOs may be one huge contributing factor.
This is now germane as the new food scare concerning excessive glyphosate found in a number of cereals has materialized. But the corporate media failed to note the cereals were only a subset of the popular foods affected, all of them traced to GMOs or to excessive application of glyphosate on conventional crops. . Independent testing on an array of popular American food products by the San Francisco-based Anresco lab found
many samples contained residue levels of the weed killer glyphosate far in excess of safe thresholds.
This led the nonprofit organization behind the testing to call for corporate and
regulatory action to address consumer safety concerns. (Though the FDA routinely tests foods for other pesticide residues, it
never tested for glyphosate until this year. The testing for glyphosate
residues was
recently suspended, however, under the orders of resident Trumpies committed to deregulation, i.e. removal of citizen protections.
To conduct its test Anresco Lab used liquid chromatography tandem mass spectrometry (LC-MS/MS),
a method widely considered by the scientific community and regulators as the
most reliable for analyzing glyphosate residues. The findings were shocking and as Mr. Phillips told me in an email, ought to "scare the socks off any American that consumes them". Mainly because of possible liver and kidney issues, including cancers.
The Anresco Lab tests were done on 29 foods commonly found on grocery store shelves.
Excess glyphosate residues were found in General Mills’ Cheerios at 1,125.3 parts per
billion (ppb), in Kashi soft-baked oatmeal dark chocolate cookies at 275.57
ppb, and in Ritz Crackers at 270.24 ppb, according to the report. Different
levels were found in Kellogg’s Special K cereal, Triscuit Crackers (a Janice favorite) and several
other products.
The nonprofit behind the report noted that concerns about glyphosate
comes as research shows that Roundup can
cause liver and kidney damage in rats at only 0.05 ppb, and additional studies
have found that levels as low as 10 ppb can
have toxic effects on the livers of fish. The groups criticized U.S. regulators for
setting an acceptable daily intake (ADI) at for glyphosate at much higher
levels than other countries consider safe. The United States has set the ADI
for glyphosate at 1.75 milligrams per kilogram of bodyweight per day
(mg/kg/bw/day) while the European Union has set it at 0.3 mg per kg/ bw/day.
Question: Why is the European threshold nearly SIX times lower than that set by the U.S.? Well, because European states care more about the health, welfare of their citizens! Thus they are more likely to adhere to the precautionary principle so that it is not anti-GMO activists who must prove the toxicity of the suspect culprit food, but rather the GMO producers (like Monsanto) to prove their products are safe.
Meanwhile, Monsanto has said repeatedly that there are no legitimate safety
concerns regarding glyphosate when it is used as intended, and that
toxicological studies in animals have demonstrated that glyphosate does not
cause cancer, birth defects, DNA damage, nervous system effects etc. But let us make it clear here that a multinational corporation can say anything for PR sake. That does not meet the standard of proof.
Glyphosate is under particular scrutiny now because last year the World
Health Organization’s International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC)
classified it as a
probable human carcinogen. Glyphosate is the world’s most widely used
herbicide and is the key ingredient in Monsanto Co.’s branded Roundup. The trick mastered by the GMO crop producers has been to make them "Roundup ready" so that the pesticide and now its glyphosate component are integrated into the very crops and hence the cereals from which they are obtained. Further, these GMO crops can also be additionally treated, sprayed with the offending chemical making them even more toxic to humans.
Beyond the usual GMO offenders (corn, soybeans, sugar beets, canola) we also know glyphosate is sprayed on many conventional crops such as wheat, oats and barley. In all glyphosate is used in some form on nearly 70 food crops, and all of them with levels far in excess of what the EU allows for its own citizens.
A further warning shot for Monsanto transpired last week with an award of $289 m to a terminally ill school groundskeeper (Dwayne Johnson) . With this award the miscreants at Monsanto ought ot be very worried given another 475 cases are pending against them. See e, g.
https://usrtk.org/pesticides/mdl-monsanto-glyphosate-cancer-case-key-documents-analysis/
Again, we know Monsanto's protestations and those of their hired gun whore "scientists" don't add up to diddly or squat. We know this because the PR playbook to make poisons, toxic crap look good was exposed over 23 years ago, e.g.
Toxic Sludge Is Good For You | PR Watch
Other points Mr. Phillips wished to have pointed out for emphasis:
· Independent research links glyphosate to cancer (sources: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5) and it has been deemed a probable human carcinogen by the World Health Organization’s team of international cancer experts. The childhood cancer rate is steadily rising and experts say that they don’t know why. Why are they not taking a closer look at these facts?
It binds with vital nutrients in the soil (like iron, calcium, manganese, zinc) and prevents plants for taking them up. Glyphosate is thereby making food less nutritious.
As Mr. Phillips put it: Tell your readers they consume these foods at their own risk. If they don't wish to get kidney or liver cancer - such as struck down your youngest brother - they had best avoid them. NO matter what the FDA, the EPA or your government says.
See also:
15 Health Problems Linked to Monsanto's Roundup - EcoWatch
