Gene editing in hogs. It isn?t a matter of safety. It has become a matter of jurisdiction. This is the argument that Iowa Pork Producers Association (IPPA) President Dr. Michael Paustian brought to the Senate Agriculture Committee on behalf of the National Pork Producers Council (NPPC) and hog farmers around the country. The message was very straightforward; jurisdiction for this technology should be under the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA), not the Food and Drug Administration (FDA).
After President Paustian testified, he talked with me about the gene-edited pigs. These pigs have been edited to be resistant to the Porcine Reproductive and Respiratory Syndrome (PRRS). This would be a great advantage for hog producers in the United States. PRRS has been called the ?billion-dollar disease?, because of the cost to American producers each year. Being able to eliminate this disease would be a great advantage to our production.
However, the problem doesn?t lie in the technology itself, but rather who is in control of regulating it. The Food and Drug Administration has claimed it has jurisdiction in this matter because these are food-production animals. If the FDA has its way, these gene-edited hogs would be considered ?living drugs?, and every producer would be labeled as a drug company. Paustian says this poses a problem by putting unnecessary hurdles in front of producers and researchers.
The USDA already regulates gene-edited plants which are also used in the food system. Paustian says the agency already has a lot of experience in these matters and could use that experience to better serve the farmers who produce these hogs.
While Federal Agencies haggle over matters of jurisdiction, our global competitors are taking advantage of this and pushing their programs further ahead. Paustian says we in danger of falling behind international competitors in Canada, Brazil, and Argentina.
There may be consumers who are concerned that a switch of jurisdictional authority from the FDA to the USDA would be a compromise in the integrity of the food system. Paustian and the NPPC want consumers to rest assured that they are by no means looking at deregulating or undermining oversight of the animals that are going into the food system. This is a matter of classification and giving agricultural authority to the Department of Agriculture. In many cases, the gene-editing is a minute and precise altering of the DNA. It is something that could easily occur in nature, and, in some genetic lines, already has occurred naturally.
Even if the USDA eventually gets jurisdiction in this matter, Paustian hopes that the FDA still plays a part in the project. These pigs will eventually enter the food chain, and Paustian says consumers need to be assured that the FDA is involved in the safety of all consumers. Afterall, hog farmers eat too. They won?t feed your family anything that they wouldn?t feed themselves.
Paustian said that he felt the Senate Ag Committee was receptive to the message he brought, based on the feedback he received from the members.
In June 2019, NPPC launched an aggressive campaign, “Keep America First in Agriculture,” to highlight the importance of establishing a proper regulatory framework for gene editing in American livestock. Learn more by visiting www.nppc.org/kafa.
