Bigger Faster PIGs

[Akiva Werbalowsky]

Well,
I know that it's traditional to "live large" during the holiday season, 
though the article below seems extreme.
Peace,
Akiva

Remember, "If you think it's butter, but itsnot...who knows what the heck it 
is these days."

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DECEMBER 07, 16:52 EST

Gene Therapy Yields Bigger Pigs

By PHILIP BRASHER
AP Farm Writer

WASHINGTON (AP) — Here come the super pigs. Medical researchers using gene 
therapy have figured out a way to make young hogs grow 40 percent larger and 
faster.

Scientists say the technique, which stimulates production of the pigs' 
growth hormones, would be a boon for livestock farmers — and eventually 
could even be used to treat children with growth
problems and to prevent muscle deterioration in AIDS and cancer patients.

``We think that over the long term this is going to be a defining technology 
that will change the face of how agriculture is done,'' said the lead 
scientist, Robert J. Schwartz, a professor of molecular and cellular biology 
at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston.

The prospect of biotech hogs also is likely to raise new questions in a 
growing worldwide controversy over genetically engineered food. The United 
States already is locked in a trade war with the European Union over the 
EU's ban on beef from cattle injected with hormones.

``I don't think most consumers are very interested in eating hormone-treated 
meats,'' Rebecca Goldburg, senior scientist for the Environmental Defense 
Fund, said Tuesday.

Livestock and poultry have been getting steadily bigger, leaner and 
faster-growing for years because of improvements in genetics, nutrition and 
housing and the use of hormones in cattle.

But the results reported by Schwartz's team, which are published in the 
December issue of Nature Biotechnology, are especially dramatic. All the 
improvements made in hog production over the past two decades have pigs 
maturing only 10 percent faster than they used to.

The key to the new technology is a synthetic chemical that's inserted into a 
biodegradable piece of DNA, then injected into the leg of a 2-week-old pig. 
The chemical in turn causes the pig's pituitary
gland to secrete higher than normal levels of growth hormone.

Two months after the injection, treated pigs weighed 92 pounds, compared 
with 65 pounds for an untreated hog. The treated pigs eat 25 percent less 
feed, which would amount to huge savings for the farmer, and they are ready 
for slaughter two weeks earlier, Schwartz said in an interview Tuesday. The 
price of feed alone accounts for half the cost of raising a hog.

The pigs also are expected to produce less manure, he said. Hog waste is a 
growing environmental
concern in many states.

Additional research will have to be done to show that the meat is safe for 
human consumption, and
the treatment has no negative long-term impact on animals. The treatment 
would have to be
approved by the Food and Drug Administration before it could be used 
commercially.

The technology could be used in humans as a less-expensive, more natural 
alternative to injecting
AIDS patients with growth hormones, a treatment that costs as much as 
$20,000 a year, Schwartz
said. A drug could be administered to switch patients' hormone secretion off 
and on.

``This is extremely interesting work, but it has some problems with how the 
consumer will receive
it,'' said Max Rothschild of Iowa State University, one of the nation's 
leading authorities on pig
genetics.

``Will consumers eat animals that are treated in such a fashion. The jury is 
still out. ... In Europe,
the answer is absolutely not.''

It would be far less controversial to continue improving pigs by identifying 
genes that control growth
and other traits, he said.

Goldburg said it will take considerable more research to prove the 
technology is safe for both pigs and
humans.

``I'm not confident that these pigs will be as healthy as pigs without the 
hormone,'' she said.
``Animals as a whole are less plastic than plants. When their systems are 
disturbed by genetic
engineering, their whole system can go out of whack.''

The study was financed by the Baylor College of Medicine, the Agriculture 
Department's Children's
Nutrition Research Center, the National Space Biomedical Research Institute 
and private sources.

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