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Enviropig: Genetically Modified Pigs Approved to Benefit Agribusinessby Heidi Stevenson7 October 2010 
Continuing in lockstep with the desires of Agribusiness, a genetically engineered pig has been approved by Health Canada and is under consideration by the US's Food and Drug Administration (FDA). Dubbed Enviropig™ by its developer, the University of Guelph, it's designed to reduce phosphorus output in feces. These genetically modified (GM) pigs have been designed to serve the needs of the factory farming abomination. Because factory farmed pigs are fed an unnatural diet heavy in grains, their feces contain massive amounts of phosphorus, which promotes algae blooms, which deplete oxygen in water, which results in massive dead zones in rivers, lakes, and oceans, and creates cyanotoxins, which can kill livestock, pets, and wildlife. Agribusiness feeds grain to pigs and other animals grown for food because it's cheap and results in fast growth. Pigs cannot readily digest grains, so they're fed the enzyme phytase, which allows their digestive systems to break phosphorus down. However, the majority of it ends up in their waste. The GM pigs produce phytase in their salivary glands, so it travels through the entire digestive tract, breaking the phosphorus down so that more of it is absorbed into the pig's metabolism, rather than being excreted. Genes from a mouse and the e. coli bacterium are spliced into the pig's genetic structure to create the Enviropig for the benefit of Agribusiness, It's being sold with the claim that they will benefit the environment. This is the typical corporate approach to modern problems: Rather than try to resolve the root of the problem, a patch is used to hide it. The problem is factory farming. The solution is an end to this inhumane, environmentally destructive, and health destroying practice, not technological bandaids that prolong and worsen the agony. Health RisksSo, what happens to the phosphorus that no longer ends up in pig poop? It ends up in pig meat, of course—and if you eat that meat, it ends up in you. While phosphorous is a necessary nutrient, it is a poison when taken in excess. The classic condition caused by excess phosphorous is phossy jaw, the destruction of the jaw bone, which is a symptom of a deranged metabolism and systemic osteoporosis. So, all that excess phosphorous ends up in people instead of pig poop. Of course, excess phosphorus is only the predictable health risk. As always with genetic engineering, the full range of effects is unknown. GM foods have already been documented to cause harm in animals, including Regulation of EnviropigIf any safety testing has been done on Enviropig meat, we are not informed. If it has been done, it's been classified as confidential business information. The basis under which Health Canada approves GM products is not provided to the public. Therefore, we have absolutely no information on the effects of ingesting such meat—or even of the environmental effects. All we have is the hype.
The University of Guelph (UofG) already holds patents for Enviropig in the US and China. China is a massive pork user and supplier, and UofG is actively pursuing business relationships there to gain regulatory approval. Although the UofG applied for the FDA's approval of Enviropig in 2007, a search of the FDA site turns up virtually no information, other than references in a couple of talks. Is the FDA hiding Enviropig, hoping to slip it in behind genetically engineered salmon? In the meantime, HealthCanada has recently approved Enviropig for limited production. It is not yet in production for the food supply, but it appears to be merely a matter of time before it is. Mistakes Put Enviropig in Animal FeedAnimal feed has been contaminated by Enviropig. In 2002, eleven piglets were sent to a rendering plant and became part of 675 tons of poultry feed, which ended up being fed to egg-laying chickens, turkeys, and broiler chickens. According to The Globe and Mail, the UofG's Vice President of Research effectively said, "Oops!" Things you don’t expect to happen can happen. This isn't the only occasion that GM pigs have contaminated the food supply. In 2004, GM pigs designed for Big Pharma by TGN Biotech became chicken feed by carelessness. Unintended ConsequencesThough it will be sold as environmentally better by lessening the production of phosphorus in pig poop, which would presumably result in less phosphorus going into the environment, it's unlikely to actually be good ecologically. Though the number is massively higher than it should be now, phosphorus is a limiting factor in factory farm density. Regulations limit the number of pigs based partly on phosphorus output. John Phelps, a developer of Enviropig, was quote by Reuters in 1999 as saying that pig production could theoretically be increased by 50% if phosphorus waste were reduced by that much. He said that in North America, Europe, and Asia, the only thing holding back a farmer's pig output is the amount of phosphorus that leaches into the water table. Obviously, claims that the goal of Enviropigs will help the environment are nothing but hype, simply a sales technique. The anticipated result—not an unintended consequence, but an intended one—is to allow even more intensive pig farming.
That means, of course, that the rest of the nasty effects of Agribusiness farming will be intensified. There will be that much more antiobiotic and artificial hormone use, resulting in yet more running into the environment, with worsening of effects on wildlife, such as feminization of fish. It will also mean further reduction in human males' reproductive ability and probably even earlier maturation of girls, whose onset of menstruation is already happening years earlier than it did just 20 years ago. Air quality problems, which are devastating areas around pig factory farms, will become worse. Of course, the most worrying unintended consequences are unknown. To understand the truth of this, one needs to look no further than the L-tryptophan disaster of 1989, which resulted in L-tryptophan being banned in the US. It's now fairly well-known that the problem was a bad Japanese batch that caused eosinophilia-myalgia syndrome (EMS), which killed 37 people. What isn't commonly recognized, though, is that the batch had been produced by genetic engineering—that people died because of an unintended consequence of the GM process. Public Kept in the DarkIn Canada, the public has borne the onus of cost for development of Enviropig through the University of Guelph and HealthCanada, the agency that supposedly protects public health, but apparently doesn't believe the public has the right to know how it makes decisions. What is equally true is that the onus of dealing with adverse effects, both environmental and health, will also be borne by the public. Profits, of course, don't follow the burden of development. Instead, profits will go to Big Agribusiness. The only thing you can hope to do is protest. Please do so. The world your children inherit depends on it. CanadaIn Canada, a well-coordinated action is being taken by the Canadian Biotechnology Action Network. Click the link to find out more, or click here to go straight to their page for sending a message to the Minister of Health. It includes a message that you may accept as is, or you may rewrite it. USThere doesn't appear to be a campaign for US protest against the FDA's approving Enviropig, so it's up to us to simply do it. Please, write to your members of congress and to the FDA to let them know what you think. You can send your views to the FDA by clicking here to go to the FDA's contact page. You will need to write your own message—but don't be shy. A brief and simple statement like, "I do not support Enviropig. Please do not approve it." will get your point across. Go to this page for easy access to your congressional members. As with the FDA, you'll need to write your own message, but again, it doesn't have to be long or complex. Simply tell tham that you don't want Enviropig to get approved by the FDA. If you want to say why or offer more information, that will help support your case—but you don't have to do more than make your views known. Please, do contact your representatives and agencies that should be supporting our needs, rather than those of Agribusiness. The only way they'll know that they don't have free reign to give Agribusiness everything it wants is by telling them. 
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