One of the crimes of industrialized agriculture is that the egg industry kills male chicks. Each year, more than 6 billion male chicks are killed worldwide, including 300 million in the USfirst The reason behind this abominable practice is at the root of what’s wrong with corporate farming – egg-laying hens are raised to lay eggs, and nothing more.
Because males can’t produce eggs, and don’t grow enough meat to make them useful to humans (as opposed to broilers, which are bred to grow abnormally large), it costs them a lot to grow. more than they are worth. Therefore, egg producers have absolutely no regard for life, so egg producers “destroy” the males, or kill them immediately after birth, sending them to be used as pet food. , animal feed or simply as a filler for landfills.
A team of Israeli scientists has now filed a concept patent related to genetically modifying hens to pass on a lethal or lethal gene to male embryos that will remove them before they hatch.2 While it is clear that the killing of male chicks must end, this biotech “solution” may create more problems than it can solve.
GE hens pass on lethal gene to male embryos
The patent, filed with the State of Israel’s Ministry of Agriculture & Rural Development, is listed as the applicant, and Yuval Cinnamon and Enbal Ben-Tal Cohen are the inventors,3 uses the gene editing tool CRISPR, or Clustered Frequent Palindromic Short Repeats, to insert a foreign gene — a lethal gene — into the male Z sex chromosome.4
The genetically engineered (GE) hen will pass the lethal gene – thought to be activated only by blue light – into all male embryos. After the eggs are laid, blue light is then used to activate the lethal gene and kill all male embryos in-ovo or in the egg.
This will likely present as a more “humane” approach, but it comes with significant risks, including for hens, since the lethal gene is capable of producing proteins that can high toxicity. According to GM Watch:5
“To ensure reliable killing of male chicken embryos at an early stage of their development, the lethal gene that the developers inserted would have to be highly toxic.
The various lethal proteins mentioned in the patent are believed to act by inhibiting growth/development (paragraphs 0156, 0157) or essential signaling pathways, such as “antagonists”. resistance to bone morphogenetic proteins” or “RNA-guided DNA endonuclease enzymes” (paragraphs 0159, 0160), may be too uncertain about their effects.
The developer will therefore almost certainly choose to use a known highly toxic element – such as a gene encoding diphtheria toxin or ricin toxin, both of which are specifically mentioned in paragraph 0158 as possible candidates for the lethal gene.
The fact that the authors illustrate their concept using the diphtheria toxoid lethal gene, albeit in the context of in vitro tissue culture cell experiments (Figure 24A), supports this line of thought. . ”
What’s more, the patent doesn’t restrict the lethal gene to named types, meaning scientists can use almost anything, such as the gene that encodes the cholera toxin.
Deadly gene could be ‘leaked’
Aside from the inherent problems of introducing a lethal gene into a living species is the subject of its blue light activation. The lethal gene is thought to become inactive until exposed to blue light, but there is a chance it could still cause some degree of toxicity even in this inactive state. This “leaky” lethal gene can affect the welfare of the animal and possibly pose a risk to the hen.
GM Watch explains, “It’s common knowledge and experience that all transgenic systems leak – it’s just a matter of degree,” adding:6
“This raises the question of how ‘tight’ and resistant to the expression of the lethal gene cassette – in other words, whether it is completely silent as desired until activated by blue light. or not, or whether there is some low but significant expression before the blue light shines. Indeed, evidence of a lethal gene expression leak is provided in Figure 13 of the patent (upper panel).
… Therefore, the optogenic activation system (blue light) associated with the damage gene cassette will almost certainly be “leaked”. This means that in female crossbred hens, even without blue light, the lethal gene may not be silenced. Thus, the founding women of hens and their egg-laying females may have low levels of lethal gene expression.
This means that these hens will produce a deadly toxin inside their bodies. As a result, they may suffer from health problems.
This possibility (very unlikely) raises welfare questions about the health of laying hens and their offspring. Their state of health will depend on the nature of the damage gene and the extent to which it is expressed in their bodies.”
EU countries, GE Hens will not be GMO
As it stands, the patent only represents a proof-of-concept based on in vitro and in ovo tests. A GE hen that passes a lethal gene to her male does not yet exist, and the data revealed in the patent shows only the distinct components of the scheme and that in theory it could work, but this concept has not been introduced yet. To perform.
However, the researchers are hoping to take the project to the next step and have received support from the European Commission, which states that such GE hens and their eggs will not classified as a genetically modified organism (GMO) and would therefore exist outside of EU GMO regulations.7
According to the committee, the definition for GMOs refers to organisms “in which the genetic material has been altered in a way that does not occur naturally by natural mating and/or recombination”.8
Although the concept of the patent does not occur in the wild, the EU responded, “This does not appear to be the case for the laying hens mentioned, based on the information provided, whereby the transgene is only transferred to male embryos, preventing female embryos from developing into these laying hens.”9
They then reasoned that, since the GE hens would not be considered GMO by their definition, neither would the modified eggs they lay. “As a result,” they note, “the mentioned laying hens and their eggs will not require permission…”ten Since the patent does not provide evidence that GE hens are not abnormally modified, GM Watch believes the Commission’s claim that hens will not be classified as GMOs is illegal.
History has demonstrated that it is more likely that lethal gene fragments that may end up in unwanted places, outside the Z chromosome, on the chromosome may end up in female chickens.
GM Watch notes: “There appears to be no published evidence that this procedure does not give rise to inadvertent transgene integration and results in transgenic founder hens and their offspring. there is no such foreign DNA.”11
The so-called “off-target” effect is a known result of CRISPR technology, including CRISPR-Cas9, which is believed to be even more precise than the original technology. One study looked for unintended mutations, based on a separate study that used CRISPR-Cas9 to restore vision in blind mice by correcting a gene mutation. The researchers sequenced the entire genome of the CRISPR-edited mice to look for mutations.
In addition to the expected gene editing, they found more than 100 additional deletions and insertions along with more than 1,500 single-nucleotide mutations,twelfth showed that genetic edits rarely occur in isolation.
Ethical issues cannot be ignored
Biotech researchers will no doubt try to paint these GE hens passing on lethal genes to their males as a more humane option than killing the chicks after they hatch. Targeting genes to reduce animal suffering has become a popular tactic among biotech companies, who believe it can appease regulators and consumers. Be wary of this technology.13 But the ethical issues remain and are equally worrisome. As GM Watch explained:14
“This is an important ethical issue, which begins with the act of genetically modifying one hen to pass on the killer gene to all her males. The gene produces a deadly toxin that can escape into the environment or into bacteria. If it gets into bacteria, it can pass from the bacteria to people or animals, with potentially serious consequences for their health.
Any male embryos killed using a toxic gene will need to be disposed of as hazardous waste and cannot be used, such as animal feed, which is the usual destination for male embryos. or discarded chicks in the non-GMO egg industry. ”
GE Chicken and Cattle is here
Although GE hens capable of transmitting the lethal gene have yet to materialize, other types of GE hens have been created. Scientists have used CRISPR to create chickens that are resistant to avian influenza, a disease that spreads rapidly between CAFO (concentrated animal activity) birds.15
However, the simplest way to prevent the widespread spread of bird flu is to change the way chickens are raised, releasing them outdoors in pasture instead of crammed into disease-ridden CAFOs. Likewise, the need to create genetically engineered GE hens to kill their male chicks would also be negated by an overhaul of the industrialized food system.
Using heritage poultry breeds, some reincarnated farmers are raising poultry in a different way. Although these varieties laid fewer eggs and were slower to grow than modern varieties, in the long run they were healthier and more productive. Male chicks are not killed at hatching but are instead raised to maturity.16
Other GE chickens have also been created, including those that are resistant to avian leukemia virus, another disease that infects CAFO poultry.17,18 It should be noted that foods produced through gene editing are not subject to U.S. Department of Agriculture regulations – although an advisory panel recommends gene-edited foods not be labeled organic – or other governing bodies.19
In fact, in March 2018, the USDA released a statement noting that it would not regulate CRISPR-edited crops, stating, “With this approach, the USDA seeks to allow change new when there are no existing risks.”20 What’s more, in as little as two years, Americans could bite into their first gene-edited burger, thanks to U.S. Food and Drug Administration regulatory clearance for U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) regulations. with genetically modified cattle.21
While a lengthy approval process is often required for gene-edited animals to enter the food market, the FDA has streamlined the process for gene-edited cattle, allowing them to comply with the regulatory approval process. normal browsing. The animals, created by bioengineering company Recombinetics, are genetically engineered to make their coats shorter and shinier, to help them better withstand heat stress, allowing them to increase more weight and increase the efficiency of meat production.22
It is possible that the “CRISPR chicken” could follow a similar route and reach the supermarket before long-term safety and toxicity studies are conducted. For now, the best way to avoid genetically modified foods is to buy organic and even better, from a local farmer you know and trust.
