Terry Etherton’s Blog on Hormones, Biotechnology, and Food Safety

Terry D. Etherton

As readers of Terry Etherton Blog on Biotechnology appreciate, I have written a great deal about the looming World population growth, and the challenges we will confront in feeding the World’s population over the next 40 years.

Recently, the scientific journal, Nature, published an excellent series of articles about this topic (July 29 issue).  This is noteworthy because Nature is the preeminent scientific journal in the World.  It is telling that the leading life science journal in the World focused much of the July 29 issue on this topic.

In the Editorial in this issue, How to Feed a Hungry World, several important issues are presented that must be overcome if we are to produce and distribute sufficient food to feed the projected population of the World in 2050, about 10 billion people (the current World population is approximately 6.9 billion). Read the rest of this entry »

Terry D. Etherton

This morning, at home over breakfast, I opened the Wall Street Journal.  And, page A15 “popped” open.  What caught my attention was the article EU Extends ‘Frankenfood’ Fight, Nears Ban on Farm-Animal Clones.  The purpose of the story was to convey that the European Union (EU) had moved a big step closer toward a ban on cloning farm animals and a prohibition of imports of cloned livestock and their meat and milk.

The EU decision is silly, and is not based on a shred of scientific evidence.  I have written previously about the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) conclusion that “….the available data has not identified any food consumption risks or subtle hazards in healthy clones of cattle, swine, or goats.”  The “key” take-home message is that cloning is safe. Read the rest of this entry »

Terry D. Etherton

The latest American Farm Bureau Federation Marketbasket Survey of retail food prices was just released.  In this informal survey, for the third quarter of 2010, shoppers reported the average price for a half-gallon of regular whole milk was $2.04, down 2 cents from the prior quarter. The average price for one gallon of regular whole milk was $3.16, up 10 cents. Comparing per-quart prices, the retail price for whole milk sold in gallon containers was about 25 percent lower compared to half-gallon containers, a typical volume discount long employed by retailers. Read the rest of this entry »

Chad Dechow
Associate Professor, Dairy Cattle Genetics
Department of Dairy and Animal Science
The Pennsylvania State University

First published on the Blog American Thinker on September 18,2010

Ever-Green-View My 1326-ET is the new world milk production record-holder. In the course of one year, she made 72,168 pounds of milk. That’s nearly 8,400 gallons in one year, or 23 gallons per day. The average cow produces 6.5 gallons per day. Ever-Green-View My 1326-ET is the culmination of intense genetic selection, terrific cow management, and the use of technologies like rBST. Genetically, she is a product of artificial insemination and embryo transfer. Her sire is Stouder Morty-ET, and he has over 67,000 daughters in more than 15,000 dairy herds around the globe. The “ET” designation indicates that she was transferred as an embryo from her genetically superior mother to an inferior surrogate cow. Read the rest of this entry »

Terry D. Etherton

Notice anything different between the two salmon in the image above?  The salmon are the same age–the difference is the larger fish is transgenic, and has a much faster growth rate, which is due to the presence the Chinook growth hormone gene (more about this later)!

For 15 years, the Center for Veterinary Medicine (CVM) at FDA has been evaluating reams of data about the safety and efficacy of transgenic salmon produced by AquaBounty Technologies, Incorporated, located in Waltham, MA.  You might wonder why so long?  Especially when, in my opinion, it is clear there are no significant questions of human food safety surrounding the food from fish grown with AquAdvantage salmon eggs, nor are there any question of material difference between fish grown from genetically enhanced salmon eggs and conventionally bred and born salmon, or between farm-raised salmon and those sold as “wild-caught” fish. Read the rest of this entry »

Harold W. Harpster
Professor of Animal Science
Department of Dairy and Animal Science
The Pennsylvania State University

Let’s be optimistic and say that that the agricultural industries are slowly getting better at informing the general public on how and why their food is produced the way it is. The days of assuming we can raise animals any way we want and keep consumers in the dark are OVER! However, we must do a much better job of educating the public to the realities of food production. Read the rest of this entry »

Terry D. Etherton

Increasing agriculture productivity to meet growing global demand for food must be accompanied by an intense, innovative effort to enhance the environmental imprint of farming to be sustainable. Read the rest of this entry »

Paul Patterson
Professor of Poultry Science
Penn State University

For those readers who have been following the news about eggs and salmonella, here is a very informative Op-Ed article written by Dr. Patterson that was published online in the New York Times on August 25. Read the rest of this entry »

By COLLEEN BARRY
Bloomberg Business Week
August 18, 2010
PORDENONE, Italy

Giorgio Fidenato has made a habit of carrying a raw ear of yellow corn and taking a hearty bite whenever a camera is in sight.

It’s a provocation. The Italian farmer’s corn is genetically modified, grown surreptitiously in fields in the northeast not far from the Austrian and Slovene borders.

“Our biggest goal is to show consumers that it is safe to eat,” said the 49-year-old advocate of what’s known as genetically modified organisms, or GMOs.

More activist than farmer, Fidenato’s cultivation of nearly 5 hectares, or 12 acres, of genetically modified corn is a rogue act aimed at forcing the legalization of genetically engineered crops in Italy. He waxes on about their benefits: They require fewer chemicals and produce higher yields and greater profits. Read the rest of this entry »

Virginia Ishler
Dairy Complex Manager
Department of Dairy and Animal Science
Penn State University

News media has a tendency to portray certain aspects of agricultural production either positively or negatively. Doug Powell, an associate professor of food safety at Kansas State University co-authored a paper on “Coverage of organic agriculture in North American newspapers: Media – linking food safety, the environment, human health and organic agriculture,” just published in the British Food Journal.

Powell examined how organic food production is portrayed in the media. The paper is based on a study Powell conducted from 1999-2004 with two colleagues at the University of Guelph in Canada, Stacey Cahill and Katija Morley. Cahill was one of Powell’s students at the time. The team explored how topics of organic food and agriculture were discussed in five North American newspapers. Using the content analysis technique, the 618 articles collected were analyzed for topic, tone and theme regarding food safety, environmental concerns and human health. Read the rest of this entry »