More Fun with Frankenfoods or Does that Make Us Cannibals?

My friend and adviser, Emilie Bush, sent along a provocative article titled, “Human Genes in Your Food” (Sky News 3/7/2007) with a challenge to “do something” with it. Well, Emilie, this one’s for you…

The Ventria Corporation is at it again. This California-based biotech company just got permission from the US Department of Agriculture to grow more than 3,000 acres of genetically modified (GM) rice in Kansas. Ventria’s rice is special because contains human genes. The company somehow managed to isolate and patent two proteins that occur naturally in human breast milk and splice them into rice. Then they did a research study in Peru that demonstrated that children suffering from diarrhea recovered more than a day sooner using their product than with conventional treatment. That’s important because diarrhea is the number one cause of death for small children, especially in poor countries, and shortening the course of the disease can mean the difference between recovery and death. Read more at http://ventria.com/

Health professionals observed many years ago that breast-fed babies recover from diarrhea faster than babies who drink formula. There are many possible reasons for this, such as:
Formula is sometimes mixed with dirty water (because that’s the only kind of water available).

1. Formula is sometimes mixed with dirty water (because that’s the only kind of water available).
2. Mother’s milk contains friendly antibodies that colonize the baby’s gut.
3. The mother’s body acts as a “filter” so that even though Mom has to drink dirty water, her baby gets clean milk.
4. Mother’s milk contains proteins that are easily digested, making the baby healthier and better able to fight off disease.

In short, nobody knows any single reason that breast-fed babies are healthier. It could be one or more of many reasons. Moms who breastfeed are healthier, too. It seems pretty obvious that the answer to childhood diarrhea has more to do with making a cleaner, safer environment and encouraging Moms to breastfeed. But why do that when there is money to be made from their misery?

Ventria wants to add its human protein genes to baby formula, protein bars, yogurts and beverages. Company spokesmen claim that rice is the perfect crop for growing human genes because the genes only turn up in the grain, as opposed to the stem, leaves and roots and rice is self-pollinating, lessening the chance of “genetic drift”—once a novel gene enters the gene pool, it can change the course of evolution. This has happened with other species, including GM cotton and soybeans.

The company has been trying to get a large-scale crop going for several years, and has met a lot of resistance in the process. First, they tried to grow it in their home state of California. but their bid was denied. So they moved to smaller states with weaker economies. Ventria now has a 75-acre test farm going in North Carolina, not a big rice-growing state. Then they tried to plant a 450-acre field in Missouri in conjunction with land grant university that is seeking ways to make money from a new bio-tech center.

Unfortunately for Ventria, the biggest rice purchaser in the US -- Anheuser-Busch -- is located in St. Louis, Missouri. Just because beer is like mother’s milk to some people, it doesn’t mean they want mother’s milk protein in their beer. Anheuser-Busch made it clear that they would not buy any rice grown in Missouri if GM rice was grown anywhere in the state. Ouch. Missouri said “no, thanks” to Ventria.

Which leads me back to my original question. If you eat rice that contains human protein, does that make you a cannibal? It’s a juicy anthropological question. Cannibals take cannibalism seriously. They eat people because they’ve run out of other food sources or for ritual purposes, such as eating one’s vanquished enemy to take his strength. Either way, it’s a complicated procedure, fraught with real or perceived danger. Cannibals that have taken to eating their own as a regular source of protein have sometimes suffered for it, as diseased human meat is not a healthy food choice.

Cows and chickens, normally vegetarian creatures, have been forced into cannibalism through feed that contains ground-up cows or chickens. Personally, I think it’s monstrous that anyone even thought up such a thing, but it’s a widespread practice – and detrimental to the health of cows, chickens and humans.

So what are the implications of splicing human genes into crop plants? Does that make the plant sorta human? If it’s being grown as a medicine for babies because it mimics mother’s milk, then yes, the rice is sorta human. Ventria claims to be taking all kinds of steps to keep the human genes out of everyone else’s rice, but farmers are skeptical, because they’ve seen it happen before. One of the concerns in Kansas has to do with wild ducks, which feed on rice crops. How will Ventria’s rice affect the ducks? Ventria’s scientists did a study where they fed their rice to baby chicks. The chicks grew a little bigger and stronger than the control group. Will it make ducks bigger and more aggressive? Will the ducks spread the rice to other fields? Then what? Ventria claims it will keep the ducks away, but they are going to be growing rice on 3,000 acres – that’s a lot of acreage to control. In my experience, a great way to see wild life is to meander around on a big farm. Those big fields provide food, shelter, and water for all kinds of animals.

If people unwittingly eat GM rice, how will it affect them (us)? Maybe it will be easy to digest – wow! It could be the next Nexxium! -- but some drugs affect children and adults differently. Maybe it will cause diarrhea in adults. Then, of course, the “C” word, for cancer, is never far from our thoughts. Who knows?

I don’t know the answer, but it makes me nervous. I’d like to get a dialog going to learn other points of view. So, what do you think of Frankenrice? Of putting human genes in food crops? Any other related thoughts or opinions? Let me know.