The Omega-3 Pig
April 4th, 2006Posted by: Roger Pielke, Jr.
Autumn Fiester, from the University of Pennsylvania Center for Bioethics, has a provocative essay on genetically modified pigs at AJOB. Here is an excerpt:
The new omega-3 pig is the perfect example of what is terribly wrong with American animal biotech research: scientists pursue whatever interests them, and then they try to find a problem for which their results can be hailed as the solution. Instead of having the animal biotech agenda driven by the public’s true needs and values, we have an agenda-less agenda, with individual research teams expending vast resources on frivolous projects the public doesn’t want or need. The backdrop here is that Americans are, at this point, overwhelmingly opposed to this science, and much of this research is federally funded, so the American people actually pay for the research through their tax dollars. We need a biotech strategy that serves the public’s collective interests and conforms to their values.
Dr. Fiester concludes,
All of this is not to say that animal biotechnology can never be morally justified. There may be great good that can be accomplished with a reflective, cautious approach to this science. But instead of the default position being “anything goes,” it ought to be “proceed only with extreme caution.”
This does sound to me a lot like the objections that some have to stem cell research. How should we decide, whether it is genetic modification of animals or human stem cell research, what research is to be allowed and which is not?
April 4th, 2006 at 11:28 am
Dr. Fiester is missing the mark entirely with this essay for the following reasons:
1. This transgenic pig was not produced with the intent of having it turned into pork chops and sausage. It was made in order to study the cardiovascular effects of increased levels of omega-3 fatty acids. A diet high in such fats does not have the same effect on the body as when the organisms own tissue produces them. The purpose of the genetic insertion was inquiry and not utility.
2. Understanding the functioning of a pig heart (an excellent model for the human heart) can shed some light on the causes and mechansism of development of heart disease.
3. While the principle purpose of the transgenic pig is scientific, certainly such animals could become a dietary source for healthy fats. It is true that omega-3 fatty acids are pletiful at the grocery store, but some people are allergic to peanuts; some people don’t like fish, nuts and avacados. Most importantly, many people like bacon and wish that it weren’t so unhealthy.
4. Dr. F. says that the public doesn’t want such a genetically modified (GM) food. But they just might. New technology is often met with skepticism at first only to be embraced whole-heartedly with time.
5. The public really does love GM technology-they just don’t know it. BT corn and roundup ready soybeans are two examples of GM foods which are prevelent in our grocery stores. Would people prefer to eat food products made from conventional corn and soybeans? Maybe, but I doubt they would like the higher prices that accompany them.
April 4th, 2006 at 4:22 pm
On the other hand, I remember very clearly the story an engineering professor told me in my undergrad days at UC Davis (a big ag school). Davis had become infamous as the school that genetically engineered a “square tomato.” This was done in direct response to a request/need: the tomato havesting business — more squarish tomatoes being easier for the harvester to pick.
The prof had gone to Italy for a conference and said his Italian peers there shook their heads and said, “Only Americans decide to change the tomato instead of the harvester.”
April 4th, 2006 at 6:23 pm
Ben’s 1-3 look pretty good to me. I think you could have a serious discussion about 4, (clearly false in most of Europe for example) and given the popularity of farmers markets with real fruit and veg where I live, I think 5 is seriously up for grabs.
In any case, it is clear that Fiester set up a strawman.
April 4th, 2006 at 9:27 pm
“How should we decide, whether it is genetic modification of animals or human stem cell research, what research is to be allowed and which is not?”
Why is it any of our business?
If researchers develop an omega-3 pig for eating, and people decide they don’t want to eat pork with omega-3, they won’t. Then no farmers will raise omega-3 pigs.
Conversely, if people do want to eat omega-3 pigs, they will. And farmers will raise omega-3 pigs to meet the demand.
How is anyone harmed either way?
April 4th, 2006 at 11:36 pm
For the reason MB points out, pigs are fine, but this is only raised as an illustrative issue. When you get into things like BT corn and wind-borne cross pollination, then you’re talking about the actions of some affecting the crops of others and/or the general ecology, etc. Nobody should be allowed to profit by dumping into the commons and thereby affecting the quality of life of others. If government’s primary role is in protecting the citizenry, certainly part of this protection is seeing to it that common resources essential to survival like air, water and ecological services are also protected.
April 5th, 2006 at 10:33 am
Yes, absolutely, part of the government’s responsibility is protecting common resources. But the threat Bt corn and roundup-ready crops pose to air, water and ecologies is grossly overstated by some environmentalists who rely on a small part of scientific opinion. Cross pollination is an insignificant concern since the crops are grown in comercial fields with primarily the same crop. What’s more, Montsanto has engineered their crops to produce only sterile seeds. They do this to make the farmer dependent on them for the purchase of seeds, but they say that their objective is to ensure that any seeds resulting from cross polination will also be sterile. There are some significant concerns regarding Bt corn. Monarch butterflies who use the corn pollen for food are harmed, but no less than when the entire fields are dusted with B. thurigiensis spores. The Bt gene is less damaging to ecosystems than broad spectrum synthetic pesticides. Roundup-ready crops are even more benign. Horizontal gene transfer can occur, but is very rare. The risk that the roundup-ready gene will create “super weeds” when DNA from discarded plant cells is acquired by other plants is overwhelmed by the risk that basic selection principles will create weeds resistant to conventional herbicides.
I agree that investigation is required to determine potential environmental and health impacts of GMOs and I agree that the market should be the primary means of controlling the extent of distribution. Government regulation should be keep to its limitted role “to protect the citezenry” including common resources.
April 5th, 2006 at 1:35 pm
Ben, sterile seeds have nothing to do with gene flow. The Mexican maize germplasm is polluted with GMO genes. And poor farmers can’t save part of the crop to plant for next year, an additional burden.
When the Bt gene confers resistance to most pests, organic farmers will be without one of their most important tools, which is a great coincidence and I’m sure an opportunity for a chemical company to step in.
The folks here have seen these pro-market/ecosystem concerns pooh-poohing arguments before.
Best,
D
April 5th, 2006 at 4:25 pm
Ben – you miss my point. Sure, safety margins can be engineered into anything. The question at hand (indeed, the point of the original post and article) is whether some scientific activities should be controlled/forbidden or whether we should live in a truly free market science system where scientists are free to create anything and then do whatever they want with their creations. Some say that some science should be forbidden on moral grounds (stem cells/cloning) and I was giving an example of why some would argue for forbidding science on commons-protection grounds.
April 5th, 2006 at 9:34 pm
Kevin,
After re-reading your post, I see where I misinterpreted it, and I agree with your principle point that some might object to implementing a particular technology on the basis that it could effect general populations.
D,
I never said that Bt was harmless, I just said that it is likely less harmful that the conventional alternatives. As far as burdening poor farmers the cost of seeds, most farmers are happy to pay such a price to avoid corn borers. Those who would rather not buy seed are under no obligation to do so. With regards to the mexican maize germplasm, if you are referring to the article from Nature, Nov. 29, 2001, you should be aware that that paper was withdrawn by the editor.
As far as transferring Bt resistance to pests with Bt corn, no Bt-resistant pests have been identified in field where Bt corn is used. Bt-resistant pests have been found, however, in fields of organically grown corn where Bt spores were liberally dusted (see reference).
Pro-market does not mean incorrect and calling these arguments “pooh-poohing” may play well as rhetoric, but it does nothing to validate contrary claims.
http://www.nature.com/nbt/journal/v20/n6/pdf/nbt0602-567.pdf
Ben
April 7th, 2006 at 7:56 am
To Ben and Rabbet, on the charge that I am “missing the mark entirely” and have set up a “strawman:”
In Ben’s first point, he says, “The transgenic pig was not produced with the intent of having it turned into pork chops and sausage. It was made in order to study the cardiovascular effects of increased levels of omega-3 fatty acids.” Maybe. But that’s not the story that Drs. Kang, Dai, and Prather told NPR, when they recounted the history of this project. From NPR:
“Jing Kang, a scientist at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston, found that mice who got this gene converted significant amounts of their omega-6 fatty acids into healthy omega 3s.
When University of Pittsburgh scientist Yifan Dai learned about Kang’s work, he immediately sought to make it work in bigger animals. The idea of rewriting the rules of a healthy diet appealed to him. ‘I realized we wouldn’t need to only eat fish any more,’ he says. If the gene worked, ‘we can eat livestock, pork or maybe beef.’
Dai decided to start with pigs, and put the modified gene into pig cells in his lab at Pittsburgh. But to get the gene into real live porkers, he turned to Randall Prather of the pig cloning center at the University of Missouri. Prather also liked the idea of a healthy breakfast: ‘I would like to get up in the morning and have some omega-3 bacon that was good for me,’ he says.” [http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5300300]
On Ben’s second point — that using the pig as a model for coronary disease is an important scientific endeavor — I couldn’t agree more. Let’s say that this really was the main motivation for the project. Then, given the level of opposition in the country to this type of research, we need to ask tough questions: how important is this study to human health? How necessary is it to genetically engineer an omega-3 pig to combat heart disease, rather than simply create a pig model by more conventional means?
Dr. Prather says, “We could use these animals to see what happens to heart health if we increase the omega-3 levels in the body. It could allow us to see how that helps cardiovascular function” [http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/4841108.stm]. Yes we could, but is there any other way to evaluate the effect of omega-3 in the body, of a pig or human being? After all, we won’t be able to engineer human beings to achieve these levels, so why would it be advantageous to study a situation that cannot be analogized to human beings? There might be an excellent scientific answer to this question, but the lay folks haven’t heard it yet. In fact, the debate still rages about whether omega-3 actually has the health benefits in human beings that it has been claimed to have. Last week the BMJ published a study that calls previous claims into question [Risks and benefits of omega 3 fats for mortality, cardiovascular disease, and cancer: systematic review,” BMJ, Apr 2006; 332: 752 - 760]. Against the backdrop of the public’s strong moral opposition to this work, a clear justification for the research is needed
This project brings into sharp relief questions about the public’s role and rights in shaping the direction of science. There’s no strawman here.
April 7th, 2006 at 8:18 am
Autumn- Thanks for these thoughtful comments!!
April 7th, 2006 at 2:36 pm
I am not sure that “the public” does have “strong moral opposition” to this work. I doubt that more than a handful of people outside the scientific community had ever heard of the omega-3 pigs before Dr. Fiester’s article was published.
If she means that the public is opposed to transgenic experiments in general, it’s clear that some parts of the public are opposed, but it seems equally clear that many, probably most people are not. There was widespread amused commentary at the various reports of bioluminescence genes transfected into multiple species (including recent heavy coverage of so-called “glowing pigs”), but very little reported opposition. There has been similar public interest in news-medial reports of goats engineered to produce spider silk in their milk, and of low-lactose cows. No wave of outrage has been seen. There is organized opposition to genetically-engineered food crops, but there otherwise seems to be little public ferment over transgenic animals.
What is clear is that Dr. Fiester is not allying herself with environmentalists who oppose BT foods on grounds of potential health or environmental hazards, but rather with traditionalists who oppose genomic engineering – especially on humans or in ways that affect human welfare – on emotional or religious grounds. (Roger is close to the mark when he says that her article “sound . . . a lot like the objections that some have to stem cell research.”)
Fiester gives consequentialist arguments for opposing the omega-3-pig project – it may not be very important compared to other uses of research funds; it may not address a real need; and it harms the animals used as subjects – but she concludes her article in this way:
“Finally, and for many people, most worrisome: There is something profoundly amiss in our unreflective stampede down the biotech path. . . . We need to ask fundamental questions: who are we becoming, and how are we changing the world we inhabit? It is naïve to think that this research, unbridled, will have only a trivial impact. Will we still recognize ourselves or our world if we stay on this path, if we allow any and all modification of animal life for any and all reasons? . . . We are altering the genome of animal to enable Americans to continue in their reckless, self-destructive ways. What kind of people are we that this seems reason enough to manipulate sentient life?”
Again, I am not sure that “many” people have such worries, but I know that some do, and I know who they are: religious anti-technology advocates of the Leon Kass/Wesley Smith school. Nowhere in the above paragraph is there a reasoned argument against genetic engineering, or even the omega-3 experiment. There is merely rhetorical hand-wringing (“profoundly amiss”, “unreflective stampede”, “who are we becoming?”, “will we still recognize ourselves?”, “what kind of people are we?”) that identifies personal queasiness, not factually predictable consequences, as the grounds for objection. Fiester’s concerns about pig engineering are couched in exactly the same language as Kass’s concerns about “trans-humanism”, or Francis Fukuyama’s about “our post-human future”. They are expressions of personal reactions, not arguments from premises that most others are likely to share. But the fact that any one individual – or several, or “many” – personally disapproves of a technology says nothing about its actual moral worth, or the possible dangers inherent in it.
As for me, I’m sure I would have no trouble recognizing myself after eating omega-3 bacon. And I suspect that the answer to the question “What kind of people are we that this seems reason enough to manipulate sentient life?” is simply “the kind who want omega-3 bacon enough to do the research necessary to get it” – which doesn’t seem so very shocking to me. (We are, after all, the kind of people for whom tasty, crisp, sizzling bacon is reason enough to raise sentient life on farms, deliberately fatten them up, cut their throats with a big knife, butcher the corpse, and fry up the belly rashers in a hot, delicious-smelling skillet. It’s not like adding one gene to the pig and then doing all that is “the tipping point” into moral horror. If you’re willing to do what it takes to eat bacon at all, you ought to be willing to do it to an omega-3 pig, too.)
This emotivist display over “playing God” is nothing more than the expression of personal opinion, ungrounded by any facts or argument that should compel any other rational person to take the same point of view. The fact that we are “altering the genome to allow Americans to continue their reckless, destructive ways” is not an argument against doing so – it’s merely a (heavily biased) description of what is being done. The moral question has to do with what values – preservation of pristine porcine genomes, lower cardiac risk from bacon-eating, discouraging “recklessness”, etc. – should be prioritized. Fiester has hitched her wagon to values clearly deriving from a revulsion at altering genomes – for her the fact that genomes are being altered is by itself a point against the research in question. She is entitled to this position, but she offers no reasons why it is a relevant worry; she offers it as a personal preference of hers, not the conclusion to a rational argument about the value of unaltered genomes, and as such there is no reason for anyone to agree with her. I suspect if you gave most bacon-eaters a choice: keep your standard risk of heart disease from bacon with an unaltered genome, or eat otherwise-identical genetically-engineered bacon with a lower net cardiac disease risk, they would not exhibit the same idiosyncratic value preferences as Fiester. And normally that would be no problem (“de porcibus non disputandum”). But Fiester seems to think that anyone who does not share her revulsion at pigs with an extra gene – or worse, might actually eat them and like them – is simply wrong, and in some way morally perverted as well.
That’s a bit too much.
Fiester’s consequentialist objections are not unreasonable, whether or not they are compelling, and the question what kinds of research should be allowed is certainly of grave moral importance. But her answer to that question, given only in terms of her personal likes and dislikes, is not one anyone else is required to take seriously.
April 7th, 2006 at 8:20 pm
Autumn Fiester writes, “Against the backdrop of the public’s strong moral opposition to this work,…”
Last I checked, I’m a member of the public. I don’t object.
So please amend your statement to…”Against the backdrop of the public-minus-at-least-one’s strong moral opposition…”
Note: I haven’t polled my family and friends…yet…but offhand I can’t envision ANY of them having “moral opposition” to the research, let alone “strong moral opposition.” I mean, how is even the PIG being harmed…let alone any human being?
P.S. Also, how are you gauging the strength of the public-minus-at-least-one’s moral opposition? Have you seen any public demonstrations? Massive letter-writing campaigns? If not, I’ll assume that by “the public’s stong moral opposition,” you really mean, “my strong moral opposition.”
P.P.S. If I use Google News, and search for “Omega 3 pig,” I get 154 hits. If I search for “Omega 3 pig protest,” I get 0 hits. Hmmmm…I think something fishy is going on here.
April 7th, 2006 at 9:53 pm
This is a fascinating debate although no one may be tuning in anymore. The question of the public’s role in shaping our national science portfolio is an extremely important one. We could indeed have a purely market-driven science agenda where consumer preferences drive scientific research and technological development. If a pig engineered to produce omega-3 captures a market, then it should thrive. If not, then it should perish. This kind of biotech intervention is interesting because there is very little risk of hybridization or horizontal gene flow, so the normal questions of environmental risk don’t seem as important to me. So if the public really has no opposition to this research and if it yields a marketable product (and perhaps some fundamental understanding of physiology) and there is little physical risk involved then why not go ahead with it?
I would like to suggest one reason that has not seemed to pop up in the debate yet, and that is this: genetically altering animals in order to satisfy our consumer preferences or desire for knowledge fundamentally violates the natural integrity of species. The last commentator wrote “I mean, how is even the PIG being harmed…let alone any human being?” This assumes the only ethical issue at stake is the physical well-being and safety of individual organisms. But genetic engineering is a metaphysical issue at its core. The deliberate introduction of genes across species boundaries is a fundamentally new relationship with nature that elicits gut reactions that something sacred is being violated.
Of course I am well aware of the many ways in which our modern culture dismisses such “irrational” concerns. One way, for example, is the claim that species boundaries are culturally constructed and fuzzy. Another way is the claim that we have been altering nature from time immemorial. Yes, both true of course. But I maintain there is something qualitatively unique about genetic engineering that forces us to reconsider the meaning of nature and the natural and whether these do not, after all, maintain some prescriptive power that would have us restrain our quest to control nature in order to satisfy our desires and curiosities. Jeremy Rifkin called this new mind-set “algeny” to denote the complete transformation of our understanding of nature. Nature will no longer be that which is given and which we are born into. Genetic engineering is shifting our understanding of nature as that which is “in potentia”—something that we can program and re-program ad infinitum.
Thus, the ultimate question of whether some forms of knowledge ought to be forbidden, I believe, drives us to such deep considerations of metaphysics and the ethical standing of nature. If nature is nothing more than raw material to be worked over by human agency – if it is really just fodder for techne, then we should have no qualms with omega 3 pigs as long as they can turn a profit or boost our knowledge. But if there is something to our sense of nature as proscribing taboos, then we ought to include this kind of discourse in our science policy discussions.
April 7th, 2006 at 10:09 pm
In other words…the claims about “playing God” are not necessarily irrational and mere expressions of personal preference. They can be fleshed out in rational arguments about the metaphysical and ethical standing of nature. Yet there may be something at its core that remains an unarticulable moral sentiment. This is indeed a crucial, fundamental aspect of the “conservative” vs. “liberal” war in bioethics right now. What is at stake is whether or not nature is antecedent to convetion and whether or not nature can offer ethical guidance. Killing and eating a pig may well be an ethical act. It also may well be unethical despite the fact that most of society is alright with it. I don’t see, however, how any conclusion about these actions dismiss the need to think seriously about the ethical and metaphysical questions raised by genetic engineering.
April 8th, 2006 at 6:45 am
“The deliberate introduction of genes across species boundaries is a fundamentally new relationship with nature that elicits gut reactions that something sacred is being violated.”
No wonder I don’t have that gut reaction. I’m agnostic. Nothing is a priori sacred to me.
April 8th, 2006 at 7:00 am
“This is indeed a crucial, fundamental aspect of the “conservative” vs. “liberal” war in bioethics right now.”
Virginia Postrel thinks the “war” (hopefully “debate”) can more accurately be described as being between “stasists” (those who urge control of the future, and maintenance of the status quo, which includes BOTH conservative reactionaries and liberal planners) and “dynamists” (those who don’t worry about controlling the future, or maintaining the status quo):
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0684862697/002-7830853-2848855?v=glance&n=283155
April 8th, 2006 at 10:52 pm
Transgenic animals designed as models for biomedical experiments are a hell of a cottage industry and very few people object.
April 11th, 2006 at 1:27 pm
“[T]he claims about “playing God” are not necessarily irrational and mere expressions of personal preference. They can be fleshed out in rational arguments about the metaphysical and ethical standing of nature.”
Well, let’s hear it.
Bear in mind that your arguments cannot include premises of the kind: “Humans are inherently of greater moral worth than animals”, “‘Human dignity’ requires [whatever]“, “Interference with naturally occurring biological patterns violates the moral rule against [whatever]“, or the like. Those are the metaphysical and ethical conclusions you must argue for – beginning with reproducible observations of natural facts, and with widely-accepted principles of ethics.
Such arguments are notoriously difficult to make, but feel free to try. Dr. Fiester does not make any such arguments in her piece – she merely asserts personal disapproval as moral fact, or perhaps as the conclusion of these elusive rational arguments she did not make explicit. In this she is like so many conservative commentators who are aghast at various aspects of scientific progress, but cannot say why for any reasons that those who do not already share their emotional states or religious beliefs might hold.