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the basic building block of life, the
DNA molecule. Biotechnology has
created pigs that bleed human hemoglobin,
bacteria that secrete cow hormones
and roses with a natural blue
tint. In the future, it could put summertime-fresh,
vine-ripened tomatoes
on supermarket shelves in February,
make bacon with the fat content
of chicken and cook up low-calorie
french fries.
Proponents call bioengineered
foods the most important agricultural
advance since the Green Revolution
of the 1950s and '60s.
Opponents call them Frankenfoods.
Cornell, where some 400 faculty
members work on bioengineering
projects, is in the eye of the tempest
because the possibility for practical
use of the most widely-known (some
would say notorious) recombinant
product, bovine somatropin (bST),
was first developed by animal science
Prof. Dale E. Bauman. And it was
horticulture Prof. John Sanford and
engineering Professor Emeritus
Edward Wolf who developed the
"gene gun," a device that introduces
foreign DNA into cells.
But as in any debate, you can find
Cornellians on all sides of the
bioengineered foods issue. The chief
spokesman for the Washington, DCbased
Union of Concerned Scientists
(UCS) is Jane Rissler, PhD 77. The
Cornell-affiliated Boyce Thompson
Institute is home base for the National
Agricultural Biotechnology
Council, which tries to keep open the
avenues of communication between
those who support the science and
those who fear it.
The debate has even found its
way into the classrooms of the Ag
college, where most of the Cornellbased
bioengineering research is
conducted. "A lot of students don't
like it," says plant pathology Prof.
Milton Zaitlin, associate director of
the university's biotechnology program.
"I tell them what my point of
view is, and they still don't like it."
Scientists believe that the fear of
genetic engineering is simply a misunderstanding.
Today's biotechnology,
they say, is no more than a hightech
spin on the ancient techniques
of selective breeding, the process
which brought us everything from
sweet corn to Secretariat.
"The beauty of the molecular
route is that it allows you to move
genes from any one organism to
another, it allows you to move them
in a very purified way," says Ralph
W. F. Hardy, president and CEO of
the 70-year-old Boyce Thompson
Institute for Plant Research (BTI).
"You're making a miniscule change
in the kind of genetic material in the
recipient organism, but you're giving
it some capability—better nutrition,
a longer shelf life, more tolerance
to cold, better color, better flavor—than
it had before. To me it
doesn't matter if that gene came from
a water buffalo, a fish or a bacteria."
But it does matter to others.
"I don't see that the
technology will bring the
benefits that many proponents
think it will," says UCS's Jane
Rissler. "To me the Flavr Savr tomato
[a tomato genetically engineered
to have a long shelf life] or a
potato that has more solids in it so it
takes up less oil when you fry it are
not things that strike me as critical
in the food supply. I would eat fewer
french fries if I wanted to get less fat."
Central to the debate is one biotechnology
product in particular: a
191 amino-acid protein hormone
called bovine somatotropin (bST),
also known as bovine growth hormone
(BGH). The hormone, which
occurs naturally in cows, helps the
animals convert feed into milk.
Supplemental injections of bST are
designed to boost milk production.
The product is marketed by its manufacturer,
the chemical giant Monsanto,
under the brand name Posilac,
and was approved for general use by
the U.S. Food and Drug Administra-
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tion in November 1993, after more
than 13 years of painstaking testing
and investigation. Although Monsanto
won't discuss how much it
spent developing bST, chemical industry
estimates of $300 million are
common.
Monsanto says that Posilac can
increase milk production in a wellmanaged
herd of dairy cows by 15
percent per cow (some put the figure
as high as 25 percent). Monsanto
says bST is safe for humans, will be
a boon to farmers and will improve
the environment because dairies will
be able to produce more milk with
fewer cows, which in turn will produce
less waste (an average dairy
cow produces about 100 pounds of
solid and liquid waste per day).
Monsanto says that with bST, farmers
can increase a cow's daily milk
production by about nine pounds,
giving the farmer an additional annual
$8,000 profit for a 75-animal
herd. The FDA estimates that 10 to
15 percent of U.S. dairy farmers will
be using bST by year's end.
The hormone has been publicly
endorsed by the American Medical
Association, the National Institutes
of Health and former Surgeon General
of the United States C. Everett
Koop, MD '41. Although the recombinant
protein differs from the natural
one by a single amino acid, authorities
say that this does not affect
the milk. They have declared milk
from bST-treated cows to be identical
to milk from untreated cows, and
safe for human consumption.
But despite official assurances,
some consumers say they believe the
product is healthy for neither cows
nor people nor the environment nor
the family farm. After all, scientists
and the government told them silicone
breast implants, DDT, DES and
thalidomide were safe, too. The mass
media has reflected the public fears
about bioengineered foods with everything
from segments on ABC's
"20/20" to killer tomato cartoons in
the New York Post
Many in the scientific community