Plans for first genetically-engineered pig for human consumption now in limbo

By Sarah Schmidt, Postmedia News

OTTAWA — Canada's only herd of genetically-engineered pigs will be killed by the summer if an industry partner isn't found.

The future of the University of Guelph's Enviropig project, touted by supporters as having a good shot of becoming the first genetically-engineered animal approved for human consumption, is now in limbo after the industry group Ontario Pork decided to pull its research support.

The Ontario university, which holds the patent for the GE pig, says the plan — pending any last-minute corporate support secured by June — "would be depopulating the herd" and "putting the genetics in long-term storage," spokeswoman Lori Bona Hunt said Monday.

There are currently 16 animals in the herd, part of the eighth generation of the Enviropig. Created in 1999 with a snippet of mouse DNA introduced into their chromosomes, the Yorkshire pigs were engineered to produce low-phosphorus feces as a way to reduce polluting phosphorus from large factory farms.

Critics of the Enviropig pounced on Ontario Pork's decision to end its financial support of the project, saying Health Canada should now refuse to consider the university's application to bring the pig to market now that active research is effectively finished.

"Health Canada has already wasted precious public funds reviewing a GE pig that consumers and farmers do not want," Lucy Sharratt, co-ordinator of the Canadian Biotechnology Action Network, told reporters on Parliament Hill Monday.

Sharratt was accompanied by Paul Slomp, youth vice-president of the National Farmers Union. Les Gills, a hog farmer from Eastern Ontario, also participated via teleconference, saying he was "relieved" by the funding withdrawal.

"Our government should reserve the talents of our scientific evaluators for useful and socially-desirable technologies," said Sharratt, pointing out there's a cost-effective hog feed supplement that achieves the same cut in phosphorous promised by the Enviropig.

The University of Guelph previously filed applications with Environment Canada and Health Canada to commercialize the GE pig. A similar application was filed with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.

The university cleared an important hurdle in Canada in February 2010, when Environment Canada determined the GE pig does not harm the environment under the Canadian Environmental Protection Act and accepted the University of Guelph's notice of significant new activity — meaning the GE pig could be farmed commercially.

Health Canada has yet to make any pronouncement on the university's application for the Enviropig to become meat on Canadian kitchen tables. The department does not comment on the status of any application.

"It's clear to us that the university does not have the funds nor the active scientific expertise to carry through with its application to Health Canada. It certainly does not have the public support," said Sharratt.

Bona Hunt said the regulatory processes at Health Canada and the FDA will continue, even if the herd is euthanized.

"Those are still under review and that they are going to remain active until regulatory decisions are made," she said. "The science is done, the genetics are done. The genetics will be stored. The only difference would be you wouldn't see a pig."

Keith Robbins, a spokesman for Ontario Pork, said the group revisited its support for the Enviropig after its annual research budget shrunk from about $1.5 million to $500,000.

In addition to not "getting the kind of return that we were looking at," Robbins said the "project itself was just taking a very, very long time."

AquaBounty Technologies Inc., in a race to bring the first GE fish to dinner plates, is also facing an uncertain future.

The company, based in Massachusetts with a research facility in Prince Edward Island, has 10 months of operating capital left, a spokeswoman confirmed Monday.

Its AquAdvantage salmon, created by researchers at Memorial University in St. John's and the University of Toronto, is genetically engineered to grow twice as fast with a gene from an eel-like fish, called an ocean pout, and a growth hormone from a chinook salmon.

The GE salmon requires approval from the FDA before it could sell the GE fish as food in the United States, and that application is still pending.

AquaBounty also requires approval from Environment Canada because the business plan involves shipping the fish eggs from a facility in P.E.I. to Panama to be grown and processed, then shipped as table-ready fish to the United States for retail sale.