I realize it's been a while since I've posted anything, so I apologize if you've been waiting patiently for my next post. In any event, I was reading the New York Times online when I came across an Op-Ed piece: "End Animal Pain on Factory Farms" by Adam Shriver, a doctoral student from Washington University.
To briefly summarize some of the key points in the article:
- In the past 35 years, American red-meat consumption per capita has stayed at 100 pounds per year.
- Increased demand for meat has lead to "factory farms" (i.e. animals packed into very tiny areas and fed diets that are not healthy, but cause them to become meat more efficiently).
- The factory farms cause painful conditions and health problems in the farm animals.
- In response to this, neuroscience offers a solution: using genetic modification to farm animals that reduces their ability feel pain.
- The process is considered safe for human consumers because "animals have specific proteins removed, rather than new ones inserted, so there’s no reason to think that their meat would pose more health risks for humans than ordinary meat does."
Naturally, in the spirit of academic debate, I would like to question a few of these assumptions. I shall start with the last bullet point before discussing the first four in aggregate. As a note to the reader, I am beginning with what I perceive to be the area of my lesser expertise and moving toward that of my greater expertise.
GMO 2.0: the Pain-Resistant Pig
At this point, I have no reason to doubt the quoted text in the last bullet point. That is to say that the text itself does not give me pause. Instead, I am concerned by what is not said.
By drawing attention to the most direct and obvious concern of the average reader, their own health or perhaps that of their friends and family, the author has (perhaps inadvertently) drawn attention away from the other concerns raised by genetic engineering. I am not referring to wild science fiction fantasies of runaway mutations, zombie-esque plagues, or anything of that nature, so do not mistake my meaning in that way. Rather I refer to realistic concerns that have already been raised surrounding genetic engineering.
The issues that spring to my mind most immediately are that of viability and liability. The latter issue, legal liability, has been discussed at length following the Monsanto patent infringement law suits, and is the focus of an article in the Washburn Law Journal (McEowen 2004), so I will not discuss it further here. However, the former issue, viability, is something that I would like to focus on briefly. Ignoring for the moment the animal rights issues, I want to consider the practical issue of a species viability once a pain-resistant strain of DNA has been introduced.
In one paragraph of the article it is stated that the mice, which have been used to test the genetic engineering, "do not avoid situations where they experience such pain". However, the following paragraph states that, using the same methods, in cows and pigs "the sensory dimension of the animals’ pain would be preserved, [so] they would still be able to recognize and avoid, when possible, situations where they might be bruised or otherwise injured."
To me this seems contradictory, so I may be missing some crucial information. However, it begs the question, will the pain-resistant farm animals avoid being injured or not? Also, despite the similarities in neural structures, would a translation from mice to pigs produce the same behavioral results? And in the end would engineered pigs, and their offspring that may or may not be interbred with non-engineered pigs, be able to survive in current condition?.
Or just as importantly, would they be able to survive in conditions outside of factory farms where the issue may not be crowding but predators or other dangers? These sorts of issues would become paramount if the US ever decided (or was forced) to shift away from factory farms. They would also become an issue if despite any regulations or obstacles these farm animals would find their way onto farms in undeveloped countries. While I must concede that pain-resistant farm animals may be more robust than my imagination leads me to believe, it seems like a legitimate concern to me.
Mitigation for Consumption
I want to make it clear that my intention is not pick on all of those people who are simply doing they're jobs. I am also not saying that they aren't complicate. Instead I would like to question what the "choices" are. To do this, I am going to focus a little bit more attention on my first four bullet points above.
In the article the increase in meat consumption was offered as an unavoidable situation. Therefore it follows that since the meat consumption (and therefore the factory farm scenario) cannot be avoided, it is logical to try to mitigate the pain of the animals while they are alive and, as alluded to in the article, the unnecessary, premature loss of animals (meat) and the subsequent loss of revenue to the factory farms. If all of these stipulations are assumed conditions (and GMO concerns are more or less irrelevant as indicated by the last bullet point), then I would likely come to the same conclusion as the author.
To summarize this line of thoughts into one, pain-resistant farm animals are an ethical and financial means of mitigation for the current levels of meat consumption in the US (and will be/are for all other countries whose consumption patterns are emulating those of the US).
Thus, I must put it to the reader as to whether this is ethically or financially appropriate. To help with the decision, I'll offer some further clarifications.
Assuming the statistics in the article are true (i.e. red-meat consumption in the US has stayed at about 100 pounds (about 45 kg) per capita per year) and the population has grown from just over 200 million to just over 300 million in the US, the US consumes about 100 billion pounds more red-meat per year than it did in 1975! If these sorts of figures were extrapolated to the rest of the world or even just population growth in the rest of the world, such a figure would be astronomically larger.
Of course, 100 billion pounds is just a really big number, so let us bring this figure into focus. This is not just saying that the average American is eating 100 pounds of red-meat per year (translation: 400 quarter pound burgers per year... or more than one quarter pound burger per day!). The word "average" in the previous sentence means that even considering that many Americans (vegetarians and infants and many others) are not eating multiple portions of red-meat per day in addition to all of the other meats, fruits, vegetables, grains, dairy products, and sweets, Americans on aggregate are eating a lot of red-meat. However, I suspect few of them would even think twice about a day where they had red-meat as part of breakfast, lunch, and dinner.
Based on the description in the article, it would seem that meeting increased consumption with factory farms is an ugly business, and pain-resistant engineering is an acceptable (or even morally superior) cosmetic fix. Perhaps the author even recognizes this poetic justice in the opening paragraph wherein he refers to a reduction in cosmetics testing on animals over the past 35 years.
I find the implications of this poetic justice particularly intriguing in that it implies that US society takes more issue with mistreating animals by applying cosmetics than it does with altering animal DNA. And even more intriguing in that it is perceived to be more socially acceptable to do this than ask people to question, change, and/or make them aware of their choices in food consumption.
In conclusion, I would like to ask the reader whether it is better to attempt to mitigate the side effects of such consumption patterns or instead alter the perceived need such patterns of consumption. Personally, moderating red-meat consumption does not seem like too much to ask, but then again I am not everybody else.
I hope you have enjoyed my analysis and musings. I look forward to reading yours in the comments below.
Sincerely,
Sean Diamond
