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News :: Globalization
FDA Investigates UIUC's Sale Of Biotech Pigs--Should Have Been Destroyed Current rating: 0
06 Feb 2003
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 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.

See also:
http://www.ifg.org
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