Satya has ceased publication. This website is maintained for informational purposes only.

January 1998 Genetically Engineered Foods and Medicines: Good News for Vegetarians? By Emanuel Goldman

The "new age" and "natural foods" movements have reacted very negatively to the prospect of genetically engineered foods. While I fully agree with the desirability of labeling and the need for thorough testing of genetically engineered products, there's a point generally overlooked by ethical vegetarians when considering genetically engineered foods or medicines. These processes hold the promise of freeing society of its reliance on many animal-derived products, which would further the ethical goal of not having to slaughter or mistreat animals to derive products from them.

     The genetic information for all proteins in all known organisms resides in the form of genes in the DNA of each organism. DNA is a long series of four individual chemicals, used repeatedly, one after the other, in specific sequences. Think of these four individual chemicals in DNA as an alphabet consisting of four letters. Protein is made when these letters are "read" by cellular machinery as a series of "triplets"--that is, different sets of three letters in sequence which designate one or another of 20 amino acids in the intended protein. The arrangement of those four letters in groups of three at a time constitutes the entire dictionary of words of the language; a gene is a collection of those words in sequence, much like this article is a collection of words in sequence. Just as this article can be reprinted in another publication, a sequence of DNA containing a gene from one source can be cut out by molecular "scissors" (which are enzymes) and pasted by molecular "glue" (which are other enzymes) into the DNA of another source. This is what recombinant DNA and genetic engineering accomplishes. When the information of a gene in DNA from an animal is copied and placed in the DNA of bacteria, often those bacteria will be able to produce the animal protein. Similarly, when a foreign gene is inserted into the DNA of a plant, that plant may produce the foreign protein, which is the case in some genetically engineered crops.

Benefits Now and To Come

Insulin used to be derived from pig intestines. This is, however, no longer a problem for ethical vegetarians, since the gene for insulin has been inserted into bacteria. The bacteria grow and make insulin, which is purified from the bacterial culture and used medically. The same is true of the thyroid hormone which, until recently, was derived only from animals. Once again, genetic engineering enabled this hormone to be made in bacteria. A real possibility, which has yet to happen, is the genetic engineering of Premarin, a hormone replacement drug made from pregnant mares' urine. The creation of Premarin leads to around 75,000 unwanted foals each year, many of whom are slaughtered. It would be relatively straightforward to clone the relevant gene or genes responsible for the synthesis of Premarin in horses, so it could be produced in bacteria or yeast or tissue culture. While there is a synthetic form of Premarin available, it is not profitable to produce, so drug companies continue to promote the "natural" form, generating those unwanted foals. However, if drug companies were to produce Premarin in bacterial culture by genetic engineering, the profitability and the foal issue would likely be resolved.

    Many vegetarians in transition to veganism miss cheese. Many non-dairy cheeses, however, contain a milk-derived protein called casein. Enter genetic engineering. It is entirely possible to manufacture casein in bacteria (just like the insulin example above), by putting the gene for this protein into a bacterial organism. Casein purified this way would not involve any passage through, or exploitation of, an animal. This genetically engineered casein could now be used in substitute cheeses, and would meet vegan ethical standards and provide a tastier product. The same could be achieved with albumen, a protein usually derived from eggs, and with gelatin (from the animal protein collagen). While many of these are hypothetical situations for now, genetically engineered "cheese-making enzymes" have been introduced to replace rennet, which is derived from animal intestines and used in traditional cheese-making. Because genetically engineered rennet, produced in bacteria, no longer comes from animal intestines, this need no longer be an issue for lacto-vegetarians.

When Is a Fish a Fish?

There are obvious concerns about the genetic engineering of crops. The genetically altered tomato which has a fish gene inserted into it raises apart from safety and labeling issues, the philosophical question as to whether this makes the engineered tomato ethically unsuitable for vegetarians. In my view, the "fish gene" is simply a sequence of chemical information specifying a protein, which in nature happens to be found in a fish. When the DNA sequence has been determined and this information is placed in another species (in this case, the tomato) which now makes copies of the same protein that was found in the fish, no fish is killed to get the protein. It is the information that is taken, and one single protein that happens to be a copy of a protein in a fish does not a fish make.

Labeling of such foods should be mandatory and each genetically engineered food product needs to be carefully evaluated and tested on a case-by-case basis. Some genetically altered foods may not turn out to be benign (for example, some inserted genes in foods may inadvertently lead to substances which cause allergic reactions in some individuals.) On the other hand, those who avoid caffeine should welcome the recently announced genetically engineered coffee without caffeine, so that the chemical treatments of coffee needed to make decaffeinated will no longer be needed.

Other genetically engineered crops have had genes which make them resistant to various insects introduced into them. These crops can be produced without use of chemical pesticides. While it can be argued that it benefits the environment and consumers to have products grown without pesticides, this application may be a double-edged sword because of the threat of fostering development of mutant insects resistant to various biological methods of control.

Despite the hysteria with which many vegetarians and animal advocates have responded to genetic engineering, there is as much promise to help our cause as to hurt it. We need to be vigilant in watching how the technology is applied. But that remains true of all technology. Genetic engineering could be our best shot at eliminating the misuse of animals by liberating society from its dependence on useful or needed products only derived from animals. Certainly, we must be cautious about the introduction of foreign proteins in foods, at a minimum, because of potential allergies, and careful testing for safety in each case must be performed. But we should keep an open mind until those tests are done, and not automatically condemn genetic engineering.

© 1997 by Emanuel Goldman

Emanuel Goldman, a vegetarian for 34 years, received his Ph.D. in Biochemistry from M.I.T., and is a Professor of Microbiology & Molecular Genetics at New Jersey Medical School.

Back

Next