Washington, DC.—George W. Bush dropped by for lunch yesterday at the Bio 2003 confab. Some 8,000 participants sat in the vast new Washington Convention Center to listen to what the president had to say about biotechnology.
In the first third of his speech, Bush made it clear that biotech, like all other sectors of society, should shoulder part of the burden for fighting the War on Terror. He urged the assembled biotechnologists to lobby Congress on behalf of his Project BioShield legislation, which would pump $6 billion "over the next 10 years to speed the research, production and availability of effective vaccines and treatments against small pox and anthrax, botulin toxin, E-bola plague and other possible agents of bioterror." Once we got through the war section, he moved on to the much more edifying (at least to me) War on Hunger.
"America and other wealthy nations have a special responsibility to combat hunger and disease in desperate lands," Bush declared. My favorite lines were when the president battered the Europeans for banning biotech crops. "Acting on unfounded, unscientific fears, many European governments have blocked the import of all new biotech crops. Because of these artificial obstacles many African nations avoid investing in biotechnology, worried that their products will be shut out of important European markets," Bush correctly argued. He then thundered: "For the sake of a continent threatened by famine I urge the European governments to end their opposition to biotechnology." Amen, brother!
Most disappointing was Bush's self-praise for pandering to American senior citizens by pushing Congress to adopt a Medicare prescription drug benefit that will end up becoming a federally administered price control system guaranteed to choke off much pharmaceutical research.
Also revealing was his oblique reference to the thorny issue of human embryonic stem cells and research cloning. "As men and women of science you have accepted a moral calling to improve lives and to save lives," he said. "That calling also requires a deep respect for the value of every life. Because even the most noble ends do not justify any means." Translation: Bush believes that embryos consisting of a hundred cells or so are babies, so researchers can't use cells taken from them to cure people of illnesses such as diabetes and Alzheimer's.
Anti-Infectives
Besides big plenary talks with speeches from dignitaries, the BIO conference consists of panels that consider topics ranging from boring (but absurdly important) things like how to get a new drug through the regulatory process, to vital discoveries about how our lives and health are affected by abstruse gene variants lurking in the genomes of living creatures.
My first panel of the day focused on ways to protect food animals and meats from contamination with dangerous pathogens like salmonella and E. coli. One of the long-running issues under discussion is the use of antibiotics as growth promoters in animal feed. Stephen DeVincent, a veterinarian and director of the Alliance for the Prudent Use of Antibiotics, pointed out that 100 percent of chickens and turkeys, 90 percent of swine, 90 percent of veal, and 60 percent of beef cattle receive medicated feed at some point in their lives. The concern is that using antibiotics will create strong and selective evolutionary pressure on bacteria to develop resistance, making them a direct threat to human health because of our inability to control them. As evidence of this growing concern, DeVincent and other panelists cited the decision by McDonald's last week to force their meat suppliers to stop using antibiotics. This carries clout, since McDonald's purchases 2.5 billion pounds of beef, pork and chicken each year.
DeVincent did point out that eliminating the use of antibiotics as growth promoters would raise the price of meats by $1.2 billion to $2.5 billion annually, costing Americans between $5 and $10 per capita. Farmers' profit margins, already slim, would be shaved by a further $0.79 per hog.
Finally, DeVincent pointed out that a recent New York Times editorial opining that antibiotics would not be needed if animals were raised in a healthier way, was a bit off the mark. He cited European research showing that free-range/organically raised animals had a higher prevalence of salmonella, toxoplasmas, and intestinal parasites. Europeans have also found that eliminating antibiotics from animal feed results in the increase of disease bacteria such as campylobacter in meat.
But why does feeding antibiotics to animals promote faster weight gain? Kirk Klasing from the University of California at Davis eliminated the early theories that antibiotics were nutrient-sparing, or that they decreased microbial toxins. The favored theory today is that antibiotics basically prevent flare-ups of the animals' normal gut bacteria, which otherwise divert energy to immune systems rather than producing muscle. They prevent the proliferative ability of all bacteria.
But if we get rid of all antibiotics in animal feed are the farmers out of luck? No, according to Klasing, whose research focuses on a naturally produced protein called lactoferrin and an enzyme called lysozyme, both of which fight bacteria in ways that don't encourage resistance. Lactoferrin is found in breast milk and tears, and is produced by nearly all of our mucus membranes as an initial defense against infection. Klasing fed chickens with rice genetically engineered to express lactoferrin and lysozyme, and their growth rates were comparable to those fed the usual antibiotics.
It turns out that lactoferrin can also be used in post-slaughter applications. A.S. Naidu's company, Activated Lactoferrin, has developed a form of the protein that can be washed over carcasses in a dilute solution for 10 seconds. This process eliminates virtually all bacteria on the meat surface. He claimed that meat treated with his activated lactoferrin would not spoil for nearly 90 days.
Out of such steps is human progress forged.
Splicing Genes
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