Sunday, November 27, 2005
GE
This is a rough draft of my journalism assignment due this coming Tuesday. Unlike my other assignment posted here the details herein are not fabricated.
Nicholas D in tha House
Nov. 27, 2005
Genetic engineering
From tobacco plants becoming medicinal to goats milking silk Café Scientifique met Nov. 15th in Denver to discuss the possibilities that genetic engineering offers.
The discussion, held at the Wynkoop Brewing Company, also included how this technology is exploding to life faster than guidelines and regulations can be created to govern its use.
Genetic engineering makes it possible for scientists to introduce genes from one organism to another; recently tobacco plants have been combined with a gene which will enable it to produce the breast cancer treatment drug Herceptin.
John Cohen Café Scientifique’s organizer explained that the cost for Herceptin is $10,000-$20,000 to administer to one patient for a year.
Taking the production of Herceptin from the confines of the laboratory into the tobacco plant fields can save breast cancer patients thousands of dollars.
“So, if you don’t (genetically engineer Herceptin) there’s thousands of women who will die of breast cancer because they can’t afford the treatment”, Cohen said. “… that’s trying to provide a valuable drug that can only be made this way.”
Goats have also been genetically engineered so their milk will produce the protein found in spider’s silk.
Suzanne Wuerthele, a toxicologist and head of the Sierra club’s Rocky Mountain chapter in genetic engineering explained that there is a demand for large quantities of the spider’s silk to make bullet proof vests.
“Imagine milking the spiders,” Wuerthele said. “You just can’t do it.”
Farmer’s are embracing this science because it’s making their labor less intensive as new crops are being developed to be more self sustaining.
“In New Zealand there is some research in getting genes from the African clawed toad which has a toxin in its skin, into potatoes,” Wuerthele said. “So it can be expressed in the potato and it can make its own pesticide.”
“So you can see this is this is only limited by your imagination. This is a very powerful technology.”
The Food and Drug Administration labels genetically engineered foods as substantially equivalent foods and considers them to be safe.
This means that genetically engineered foods don’t have to be labeled and they don’t have to go through special long term toxicity testing.
This lack of regulation is what sparks the concerns in anti-biotechnology activists because little is known about these foods before they are released into the market and contaminations from genetically engineered farms to other farms is spreading.
Wuerthele explained that even though the U.S.D.A. passed something called the Organic Food Production Act in 1990 which asserts that if a food is going to be labeled organic it’s can’t be genetically engineered there is still no regulations formed to protect farms from cross contamination.
“About 7% of the organic farms in this country have contamination from other farms of genetically engineered variety,” Wuerthele said.
There is a concern for the unknown with this science still in its infant stage of development the process to create genetically engineered organisms is expensive, inefficient and done by trial-and-error procedures.
Cohen reiterated “the law of unintended consequences” which was a topic of discussion during the previous Café Scientifique.
Green Peace was sailing in the Philippines to protest the possible damage to corral reefs done by global climate change, Cohen said. As they approached the harbor their boat destroyed a patch of corral reef that they were trying to protect.
“They took out 100 square meter area of irreplaceable corral reef. So, that’s the law of unintentional consequences.”
###
This is a rough draft of my journalism assignment due this coming Tuesday. Unlike my other assignment posted here the details herein are not fabricated.
Nicholas D in tha House
Nov. 27, 2005
Genetic engineering
From tobacco plants becoming medicinal to goats milking silk Café Scientifique met Nov. 15th in Denver to discuss the possibilities that genetic engineering offers.
The discussion, held at the Wynkoop Brewing Company, also included how this technology is exploding to life faster than guidelines and regulations can be created to govern its use.
Genetic engineering makes it possible for scientists to introduce genes from one organism to another; recently tobacco plants have been combined with a gene which will enable it to produce the breast cancer treatment drug Herceptin.
John Cohen Café Scientifique’s organizer explained that the cost for Herceptin is $10,000-$20,000 to administer to one patient for a year.
Taking the production of Herceptin from the confines of the laboratory into the tobacco plant fields can save breast cancer patients thousands of dollars.
“So, if you don’t (genetically engineer Herceptin) there’s thousands of women who will die of breast cancer because they can’t afford the treatment”, Cohen said. “… that’s trying to provide a valuable drug that can only be made this way.”
Goats have also been genetically engineered so their milk will produce the protein found in spider’s silk.
Suzanne Wuerthele, a toxicologist and head of the Sierra club’s Rocky Mountain chapter in genetic engineering explained that there is a demand for large quantities of the spider’s silk to make bullet proof vests.
“Imagine milking the spiders,” Wuerthele said. “You just can’t do it.”
Farmer’s are embracing this science because it’s making their labor less intensive as new crops are being developed to be more self sustaining.
“In New Zealand there is some research in getting genes from the African clawed toad which has a toxin in its skin, into potatoes,” Wuerthele said. “So it can be expressed in the potato and it can make its own pesticide.”
“So you can see this is this is only limited by your imagination. This is a very powerful technology.”
The Food and Drug Administration labels genetically engineered foods as substantially equivalent foods and considers them to be safe.
This means that genetically engineered foods don’t have to be labeled and they don’t have to go through special long term toxicity testing.
This lack of regulation is what sparks the concerns in anti-biotechnology activists because little is known about these foods before they are released into the market and contaminations from genetically engineered farms to other farms is spreading.
Wuerthele explained that even though the U.S.D.A. passed something called the Organic Food Production Act in 1990 which asserts that if a food is going to be labeled organic it’s can’t be genetically engineered there is still no regulations formed to protect farms from cross contamination.
“About 7% of the organic farms in this country have contamination from other farms of genetically engineered variety,” Wuerthele said.
There is a concern for the unknown with this science still in its infant stage of development the process to create genetically engineered organisms is expensive, inefficient and done by trial-and-error procedures.
Cohen reiterated “the law of unintended consequences” which was a topic of discussion during the previous Café Scientifique.
Green Peace was sailing in the Philippines to protest the possible damage to corral reefs done by global climate change, Cohen said. As they approached the harbor their boat destroyed a patch of corral reef that they were trying to protect.
“They took out 100 square meter area of irreplaceable corral reef. So, that’s the law of unintentional consequences.”
###
# posted by Nick D @ 5:00 PM 
