Egg Therapy

"Would you like a side of bacon with your therapeutic proteins this morning?" Huh? That's science-speak for, "Do you want bacon with your eggs?" We are well into a new age. Many of us these days are aware of advances in biopharming, and how scientists are producing pharmaceuticals by growing them in plants, but did you know that scientists are also adding a twist or two to the genetic makeup of common chickens, enabling them to lay eggs which come pre-loaded with antibodies and other proteins for treating such plagues to humanity as cancer and arthritis? According to LiveScience.com, the hope is that such avian alterations will make it possible to produce treatments faster and cheaper than traditional drug production methods--not to mention how much tastier this approach is than anything doctors have prescribed up till now. "Take two eggs, and call me in the morning," has a nice ring to it, don't you think? These eggs are even okay for the cholesterol-wary patient, since the desired proteins reside in the egg white, making them just right for that oh-so-yummy egg-whites-only omelet. Combine them with some fluorescent green ham from genetically modified porkers, and you add new meaning to the term "health food." Do you think Dr. Seuss would approve?

Green Leafy Vegetables And Other Dangerous Foods

It looks like November is food safety month here at the Meow. Last week, after regaling you with tales of the family poultry farm where my husband learned the fine art of chicken catching as a boy (I didn't tell you that he knows how to hypnotize chickens--honestly, he does), I sent you to an article about the Kentucky Colonel's favorite bird and the diseases that roost in poultry, slipping past government inspectors on the way to your kitchen. Disease, you see, cannot always be detected via visual inspection, and many of the birds that grace your dinner table could make you sick if you don't make sure they are thoroughly cooked. You just can't tell by looking at a chicken what microorganisms have found a home there. One of the ways the article's author, John Stossel, proposed we address the problem of poultry contamination is irradiation, designed to kill even the bacteria that escapes detection, before the bird gets packed off to the supermarket. Stossel explains that for a variety of reasons, irradiation isn't common. Important safety changes are slow in coming to this industry, so chicken really needs to be cooked to death, after it has been butchered, for safety's sake. Let's put chicken on the scary but tasty list for now.

Joining chicken these days in warranting "Caution: Severe Potential Body Damage" warnings is spinach. We're just starting to be able to find Popeye's secret weapon in the stores again after an E. coli outbreak, which started a couple of months ago, was traced to fresh bagged spinach, which infected about two hundred people, causing three deaths. Revealing my own ignorance here, I've always thought of E. coli as a meat-borne illness, undercooked burgers and all that. I really didn't know you could get it from the plant kingdom, but I sure do now. Spinach salad is a staple in Meowville, and we've been particularly aware of the unavailability of this extremely important member of the food chain. Until this week, our green leafy vegetable of choice was nowhere to be found. That made us sit up and take notice.

We are glad to have our favorite back, but I'm not ready to just return to my pre-spinach-drought state of ignorance. I have wanted to know how the infection got to the plants in the first place, how it spread, and why all the washing, that is the primary reason for buying bagged spinach, didn't do its job and cleanse away the germs. Some answers are coming out now; it's starting to look like the infection invaded spinach crops in California because wild hogs found their way onto farms in Salinas Valley. Okay, that answers how the plants got "defiled." (It's the best word I can think of to describe the ruination of perfectly good spinach.) So, how did the E. coli make it past the packaging plant?

Dr. Henry I. Miller, of TCS Daily, says that washing sometimes simply can't do the job of ridding produce of disease, because the germs aren't on the surface of the produce, they're inside it. Miller says, "Exposure to E. coli or other microorganisms at key stages of the growing process may allow them to be taken into the plant and actually incorporated into cells." Even the irradiation, which Stossel recommends for meat, and Miller agrees is an important tool, can't deal with all the complications from infection, because some bacteria secrete toxins which remain even after irradiation has eliminated the germs themselves. These toxins can make you sick no matter how dead their germy progenitors are. What's Miller's solution? Biotechnology.

I've often discussed Miller's TCS articles here, and frequently the focus of his writing has been the ever-expanding and much-debated field of biotechnology, or gene-splicing, as it is more descriptively labelled. Repeatedly he has come down on the side of the safety and efficacy of gene-splicing to introduce desirable traits into plants. He's explored the concept of biopharming, altering plants so that you can, in effect, grow drugs to meet pharmaceutical needs. It's basically programming plants. (If you want to find more post and links to Dr. Miller and biopharming, just do a search at the top of this page. Blogger will list for you the four or five other posts I've done on Dr. Miller's articles.) Miller describes the benefit to be found in addressing the problem of infected food with biotech, but, as usual, also acknowledges the objections that inevitably go hand in hand with such an approach:

There is technology available today that can inhibit microorganisms' ability to grow within plant cells and block the synthesis of the bacterial toxins. This same technology can be employed to produce antibodies that can be administered to infected patients to neutralize the toxins, and can even be used to produce therapeutic proteins that are safe and effective treatments for diarrhea, the primary symptom of food poisoning.

But don't expect your favorite organic producer to embrace this triple-threat technology, even if it would keep his customers from getting sick. Why? The technology in question is biotechnology, or gene-splicing -- an advance the organic lobby has vilified and rejected at every turn.

Read Dr. Miller's article for more about this current spinach situation and its implications, and more of the posts here if you want to follow up further on what he has to say about gene-splicing. He comes down very firmly on the side of pro-biotech, but does address in some detail the issues and problems that others raise with ongoing development in this burgeoning industry. He's gradually been winning me over to the idea that manipulating genes to introduce desirable outcomes can be safe and effective, if proper care is given to how the technology is used, and a firm set of precautions is in place. I wasn't always this sanguine about it, thinking, basically, that God knew what He was doing when He made things, and who are we to mess with them, but I've really come, over time, to see these genes they are manipulating as God-made building blocks, that get shifted around all the time in nature. Shifting them is not inherently dangerous or wrong, but it does require a great deal of wisdom to know what's appropriate and what's not. It's interesting to me watching where the science is heading. I still say they need to keep their hands off people, but making spinach safer so I don't ever have to face another spinach fast? I think there I'm cautiously in favor of ongoing research.

The Growth Of Peace

Ronald Bailey, at Opinion Journal, has a really interesting piece on a man who won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1970 for, are you ready for this?--improvements in wheat. Honest. Norman Borlaug is an agricultural innovator, who helped forestall the massive starvation once predicted for billions of the world's teaming masses. The Nobel Committee decided that not starving was as good an incentive toward peace as any that year, and growing more productive grain helped with the whole not starving thing. Mind you, Borlaug improved grain production a lot. I can see the Committee's point. A full belly does tend to make people a little more satisfied with their lot in life. At 92, Borlaug is still working to improve world food supplies. He's also on board with one of my favorite topics of exploration, biotech. He's for more research, and less regulation, just what we like here at the Meow.

Hat tip: Instapundit

More Biotech Breakthroughs

Dr. Henry I. Miller is schooling us again on the benefits of biotech, and they are many--some of the most impressive being environmental. As usual, he's also pointing out some of the hindrances, and illustrating why activists against biotech might want to change sides in the debate. Dr. Miller is one of the Meow's favorite authors at TCS Daily, and once again, I think this piece is worth your time. Go ahead. Get an education.

Milk It

Dr. Henry I. Miller at TCS Daily is, as ever, keeping an eye on advances in medicine and agriculture, and pointing to a potentially life-saving treatment coming out of biopharming--and the inevitable objections coming out of the woodwork. According to Miller, two million children a year die in the developing world due to diarrhea, which presents little real threat to people in more advanced countries, but is a serious danger in places without ready access to the clean water and the many medical advantages that most of us with easy access to the Internet enjoy. Moreover, this illness, which can lead to death by dehydration, can also become chronic, with damage to the digestive system making victims more vulnerable to further attacks, leading to malnutrition and anemia, among other conditions. However, this scourge can be lessened in duration and intensity by an innovative twist on nature developed by a California company called Ventria Bioscience, and pursued in cooperation with "...researchers at the University of California, Davis, and at a leading children's hospital and a nutrition institute in Lima, Peru." The twist is the introduction of two human proteins into rice, which is then used to produce an oral rehydration solution.

Oral hydration as a treatment for diarrhea is nothing new. In fact, Miller says that an orally administered glucose-based, high sodium liquid has become, "the standard of care for childhood diarrhea in the developing world," and has saved countless lives. He points out, though, that this treatment does nothing to address the problem of shortening the length of illness, nor reduce its severity. That's where the modified rice comes in. You might ask what adding human proteins to a hydration solution could do to put the clamps on a bout of the revenge. Miller explains that these proteins, lactoferrin and lysozyme, are present in breast milk, and breastfed children, "...get sick with diarrhea and other infections less often than those fed with formula. " Lysozyme has an anti-microbial effect, and lactoferrin "...promotes repair of the cells of the intestinal mucosa damaged by diarrhea," thus reducing recurrence.

So, the proteins help heal kids quicker, and have the long term effect of making them more resistant to future infection. I guess this could make one draw the conclusion that children should be weaned at high school graduation, but this is hardly practical, eh? What Ventria has done is make the protein easy to incorporate into an oral treatment solution:

What makes this approach feasible is Ventria's invention of a method to produce human lactoferrin and lysozyme in genetically modified rice, a process dubbed "biopharming." This is an inexpensive and ingenious way to synthesize the huge quantities of the proteins that will be necessary. (In effect, the rice plants' inputs are carbon dioxide, water and the sun's energy.)

If the proteins are grown in the rice, which is then used to grow more rice, a lot of the chemistry is done up front, with the rest being a matter of farming. The rice is then used as the base for the hydrating solution--another example where scientists are basically "growing medicine". This is where the objections are raised. Opponents cite fears that the modified rice will contaminate other rice fields, cross-pollinating and spreading the modification. Miller points out, however, that because rice is self-pollinating, this is unlikely, but even if it were to happen, it's hard to conceive of actual danger, because the proteins in question are already in us anyway, not just in breast milk, but in our tears and saliva as well. It's interesting to note that the people objecting, at least the ones Miller references, are mostly rival rice producers. It looks to me like that might be more fear of competition than a real concern about the dangers of modified rice. I don't mean to belittle legitimate concerns about biopharming, and the need for caution and safeguards, but, at least judging by Miller's article, the objections seem weak in this case.

I continue to be amazed at the ways that scientific ingenuity is taking the blocks that God created and building with them. I suspect there are limits beyond which God will not let us pass, but who knows where those limits are? Until we find out for sure, I'm getting more and more comfortable with the notion that searching for answers to the common problems that plague mankind, by utilizing the elements He used in our creation, is a good use of resources, and part of the stewardship with which He entrusted us. I don't want to see people start to tinker with other people, but rice? Grow forth and multiply.

Biopharming

At TCS Daily, Dr. Henry Miller has a piece on biopharming and the effects of over-regulation on this promising scientific industry. Biopharming, for those of you who, like me, had never heard of the term, is "the programming of plants to produce pharmaceuticals that can be purified, or that might even be delivered by eating the plant material itself." He describes one woman's efforts to introduce genes into bananas so that they essentially "grow" vaccines for typhoid fever, rabies and the HIV virus. She's trying to make vaccine that's deliverable by banana chip. It's a fascinating article, that looks at the possibilities for amazing medical advances, the potential risks and abuses of the field, and the roadblocks to further progress. Have a look. It's educational.

A Growing Problem

I linked yesterday to a TCS Daily article by Dr. Henry I. Miller calling for a Manhattan Project for the bird flu, saying that government regulation and lack of financial profitability are hindering scientific progress that could help stop an Avian flu pandemic. There is another piece today at TCS that looks at a similar quelling effect on advances in biotechnology, caused by disregard and disrespect for intellectual property rights. Miles D. White writes that there are "a dizzying array of advances made possible by biotech investment." It's possible to increase the nutritional value of crops, enable plants to grow on land previously unsuitable for farming, grow crops with a higher resistance to drought and cold, and help plants resist pests without the use of pesticide. All of this, of course, would help feed the 800 million or so people that Mr. White says are chronically undernourished in the world.

With so much potential in biotech it's no wonder that White is frustrated by the growing trend to violate intellectual property rights. His complaint is similar to Dr. Miller's; when financial incentive is stripped from an enterprise, investment lags, and progress is slowed. Regardless of one's opinion of genetically engineered foods, it's worth considering the consequences of any violation of intellectual property, and the long-term damage it may do in order to garner some short-term gains.