Fear and anxiety of genetically modified food

Introduction: Science magazine, published on January 12 this year, reported a beautiful rhesus monkey, andI The monkey, which has been implanted with a fluorescent Jellyfish Gene, may glow green with fluorescence Obviously, scientists do not want to entertain the public They hope to use this gene to code monkeys that are only 1% different from human beings to study the effects of various diseases on human beings and develop corresponding treatments GM is no longer a special news, but the public shock caused by it is far from subsided In China, scientists interviewed by reporters who do transgenic research are particularly anxious In the process of marketization and commercialization, the genetically modified food they research and produce has encountered unavoidable obstacles, which are not from public fear From a global perspective, the anxiety of Chinese scientists and the obstacles they encounter are not so simple Niu tomato is not a joke on April Fool's day The expert group for the achievement appraisal of Zhu Zuoyan's "pilot study on fast growing transgenic carp" is very high, with three academicians of the two academies participating According to the appraisal passed on October 17 last year, this achievement is considered to be "at the international leading level" The academicians involved in the identification examined the food consumption safety of the fish, and the results did not confirm that it was unsafe Zhu zuozhi, academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, was obviously busy The reporter found him by phone and said only a few words He went to deal with more important matters than the interview Hu Wei is not as busy as academician Zhu The research participant speaks with respect to Zhu Respect comes from the fact that Zhu Zuoyan completed his own transgenic research as early as 1984 The same paper on fish was published in the German Journal of science the following year At this time, the international scientific community is being shocked by the "super giant rat" This is the first time that human beings have combined the genes of rats and mice to make "giant rats" Only two years later, Zhu zuozhan published his paper on genetically modified fish, which is the new "fish wave" of "rat wave" In the scientific community, the fish may be more interesting than the genetically modified rhesus monkey andI developed in the United States this year The New York Times took note of Zhu's work, and they wrote: "at least [Zhu's research] is two to three years ahead of the United States "There have been many reports on Zhu Zuoyan's research, but there are still facts that have never been noticed in Hu Wei's recollection of history Zhu's research method is to implant human growth hormone gene into fish The greatest value of this method is to establish a theoretical model of transgenic fish Hu's account of "human growth hormone gene implanted in fish" is extremely calm, but the reporter at this end of the phone heard that it was quite exciting In the past 90's, newspapers constantly reported the birth of "niutomato", and then denied the authenticity of the news, calling it "April Fool's Day joke" No reporter has seriously pursued the news Hu, of course, noticed the reporter's surprise He explained that the transgenic research at that time was too new and too advanced, so there was no special ethical burden It was only the scientific community that had such an attempt, and the debate came later Zhu Zuoyan then completed the "whole fish gene construction" of the transgenic research on fish, that is, using fish genes to "transfer", all fish, without other animal genes involved This, of course, makes it easy to avoid some controversy Zhu Zuoyan just passed the identification of the subject, that is, the new transgenic fish between carp and crucian carp - 863 Ji carp Other transgenic research is not as simple as "fish gene transformation", and "cow tomato" may not be a simple "April Fool's Day joke", at least there are "fish tomato" Mr Huang, who studies transgenic tomatoes in Harbin, called the American plaice transgenic tomato Tomato is probably the most popular topic in the field of transgenic research Huang, the northernmost teacher in China, hopes that her tomatoes can resist the cold, at least Heilongjiang people can eat strong and fresh tomatoes "What is the most frost resistant thing? "She told this reporter in a telephone interview," the cold water fish in the Atlantic Ocean, the American plaice So Huang chose the fish's antifreeze protein gene and transferred it to tomatoes This is obviously the real "fish tomato" In this kind of gene "transfer" between animals and plants, animals and plants, panic is certainly a normal response to the general public who are not particularly clear about scientific research What scientists are facing is obviously not just the simple problem of gene selection The hard road to marketization and the anxiety of scientists Huang, who has done more than ten years of transgenic research, told reporters in a telephone interview that it's not pride but anxiety She said she had lost an important opportunity Huang's freeze-resistant transgenic tomatoes entered the field release stage in 1997, which is the last link of marketization, and then wait for the approval of the relevant departments, batch planting and listing But Huang went abroad at this time When she came back, the controversy about GM had spread to China, and the relevant departments had closed the door "In fact, when it was approved, it was also approved "Huang said Missed this opportunity, so far Huang is still waiting for the approval of the real market-oriented commercialization No one knows whether we can wait Researcher Huang Danian is more ambitious than Huang to take the road of marketization and commercialization In 1999, the Chinese Rice Research Institute, where the researcher works, and Zhejiang Qianjiang Biochemical Co., Ltd jointly established Zhejiang Jinshui Agricultural Genetic Engineering Co., Ltd According to their plan, this means "the beginning of industrialization of transgenic rice" Since then, Huang's research has been carried out in an orderly manner, field release, trial planting demonstration Their demonstration fields are quite abundant in Fuyang, Lin'an and Lishui of Zhejiang Province But when Huang Danian was interviewed by our reporter, his mood was far less optimistic than expected He told reporters that the state's attitude towards GM commercialization is: "90% disapproval! Especially genetically modified food According to the reporter's current interview, the 10% that should be approved has not been found Of course, Huang Danian was worried He said, "if we don't change our ideas, we will lose a market!"! "The problem of marketization is just not to approve? Most professionals who work directly in the economic field are not as optimistic as scientists In an interview with our reporter, Mr Zhou Guangtian of Beijing University Weiming group Bioengineering Co., Ltd., the first rhetorical question is very meaningful: "there are more tomatoes in the market, who must have your genetically modified tomatoes? "The bioengineering that Zhou Guangtian is engaged in is not only familiar with GM, but also very familiar with it Of course, after his interesting rhetorical questions, what he narrates is valuable thinking He takes a valuable genetically modified crop as an example - if you really get the field, from a scientific point of view, you need strong support from agronomy, first you need to select seeds, then you need to be stable after the selection is completed, and you need to be able to form a system, and you can ensure that not just a few generations of variation Of course, selective scientists can solve it, but what scientists can't solve is the problem of economic operation Scientists have calculated huge profits in the future on paper, but when it comes to real operation, the property right of agricultural production is a problem that cannot be solved first In a word, Zhou Guangtian is not optimistic about genetically modified, especially genetically modified crops Another company, Jinxiu Dadi Agriculture Co., Ltd., which is also actively involved in the field of genetically modified crops, is also not optimistic about genetically modified crops Although they are called "agriculture" companies, they are more optimistic about the pharmaceutical industry, especially the biological pharmaceutical industry In an interview with reporters, they described the future as follows: milk in the future may cure you, of course, this kind of milk will be much more expensive than ordinary milk In the front, there are the strict control of the relevant departments on the marketization and commercialization of genetically modified food, and in the back, there are doubts from the professionals in the economic circle In the middle of the two, there are scientists with genetically modified achievements in their hands We can imagine their emotions Lin Zhongping, a professor at the school of life sciences at Peking University, is almost furious He used the word "finding fault" to describe his reaction to the incident His transgenic project is potato The fact that China's reality between the opposite poles makes Professor Lin Zhongping angry is that he was accused of "incomplete data" in both industrial applications and lacked the results of the declaration year When the forest was declared, the potatoes of that year had not been harvested "How to get the data"? In addition to these factors, Lin also accused the newspaper of irresponsible random articles criticizing GM The key reason for Lin's anger is that if the state does not always approve it, his project funding will soon be unfunded and there will be too much pressure to survive Besides the living pressure, there are also huge profit temptations that make transgenic scientists anxious He Wei of the Institute of aquatic science of the Chinese Academy of Sciences has calculated an economic account of "863 lucky carp" This one looks like a crucian carp, but the guy with two small whiskers on his mouth grows 15% faster than the carp, and its feed conversion rate is increased by 11% In other words, the carp grows faster and eats less He Wei says it can even grow for two seasons in the north and south He said that in 2000, the total output of China's fish industry was 1.26 million tons If this kind of fish is really put into full cultivation, it will increase production by 189000 tons on this basis At market prices, this will increase by 1.134 billion yuan "To put it another way, if only 10% of the water aquaculture is carried out, it will increase the income by 189 million yuan "He finally stressed This profit prospect not only appeals to scientists, but also many who are seeking cooperation with the Institute of aquatic science of the Chinese Academy of Sciences He introduced that the enterprises "even include Lihua silk treasure group, which produces cosmetics" In comparison, He Wei and the Institute of aquatic science of the Chinese Academy of sciences are relatively detached He said that at present, the work of scientists has been completed, and they have declared the market-oriented and commercialized reports to the state They are not particularly concerned about whether they approve them Before the approval of the state, they strictly abide by the non-proliferation requirements, have hung up barbed wire in Jili farm, and added several safety measures at the water inlet and drainage The temptation of huge profits should not only be faced by scientists, but also by farmers When Lin Zhongping, a professor at Peking University, started doing experiments in a province, the other side asked for money, but later the farmers found out the benefits and asked them to plant Without the permission of the professors, some farmers even steal their seeds In this context, the discussion of biosafety will be very light He Wei said that most of the fish they raised had been eaten, "except the fish is a little bit hard and tastes delicious "And Huang, who studies tomatoes in Harbin, said that she fed 100 mice with her own" fish tomatoes "and the results were all OK!"! Transgenic scientists can only talk about the safety of their own research projects, and they all have a set of safety reports However, "the safety problem is not the genetically modified food itself," Zhao Jindong, member of the safety committee of genetically modified organisms of the Ministry of agriculture, told reporters "The important problem is the environment Genetically modified food may break down