

Chinese cows (GM) to produce human milk. To be sold in 3 years. - wisty
http://www.news.com.au/world/chinese-scientists-genetically-modify-dairy-cows-to-produce-human-breast-milk/story-e6frfkyi-1226071579075

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mapleoin
_"It's good," said worker Jiang Yao. "It's better for you because it's
genetically modified."_

Flawless argument.

~~~
ori_b
I doubt he intended it as an argument. I'd read that as a very awkwardly
phrased (ESL-garbled?) version of "It's genetically modified to be better for
you".

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StavrosK
Apart from the usual "Oh no, we're playing God" kneejerk reactions, do we
really know enough about genetic modifications to be making GM foods
available?

We barely know enough about why our own medicine works (frequently only having
a hazy idea, really), should we really be messing with systems so much more
complex than we currently understand?

~~~
mseebach
Medicine is a great example. Do we really need to know everything about, say,
penicillin or sundry vaccines to know that it's a good thing we have them?

If GM human milk can help babies that don't have access to enough actual human
milk to be healthy in their infancy, then what more do we need to know? (OK,
rhetorical device. Obviously it needs to be tested - but we don't need perfect
understanding of everything to know that healthy babies >> unhealthy babies.)

~~~
StavrosK
Oh, definitely. However, I'm not sure if testing shouldn't be proportional to
the complexity of the thing we're testing. Shouldn't we study the long-term
effects of GM food before deeming it safe for consumption? We know already
that it's not poison, but we've had long-term issues with GM food already, no?

~~~
JoeAltmaier
All food is 'GM' - usually done in your grandmother's back yard, as she
randomly fools with crossbreeding to produce a better tomato.

In the laboratory its done in a directed manner. Hard to see how it can be
worse than "random".

~~~
pyre
Cross-breeding will never bring us glow-in-the-dark tomatoes (or cats for that
matter). There is some amount of difference between breeding and splicing.

~~~
zeteo
Take the tomato genome and look at any random pigmenting gene. There are a
finite number of mutations (flips, insertions, deletions) to change that into
a gene producing glow-in-the-dark proteins. All of those mutations can, and
do, occur without human intervention. If only there was any Darwinian
advantage for tomatoes to glow in the dark, they would most likely be doing so
already.

~~~
pyre
I think 'most likely' is an over-statement. Most of those mutations are based
on random chance. There is nothing that states that over a certain amount of
time, every possible random mutation will happen.

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yread
_"There are 1.5 billion people in the world who don't get enough to eat," the
director of the research project, Professor Li Ning said.

"It's our duty to develop science and technology, not to hold it back. We need
to feed people first, before we consider ideals and convictions."_

~~~
mapleoin
I don't understand how human milk produced by cows is better for feeding the
world than cow milk produced by cows (will this no longer be a pleonasm now?).

And how would it help feed people who don't have enough to eat? I can't
imagine this ever being produced cheaper than cow milk.

~~~
dstein
Cow milk is for feeding baby cows. The concept that cow milk is healthy for
humans is a sophisticated advertising claim sponsored by the dairy industry.

~~~
xentronium
Please, tell me it's a very subtle joke.

~~~
dstein
No, it's true. Cow milk is not essential part of the human diet. The "Got
Milk" ad campaign is not a government-sponsored plan to get people to eat a
healthier diet, which is what most people think it is.

~~~
pyre
But cow's milk has also been consumed for longer than you could consider it an
'industry.'

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BruceForth
Godwinned in 1st comment.

(edit: apparently it wasn't actually the first comment)

~~~
ori_b
The sheer stupidity of the comments scares me. There are good arguments to
make against genetic modification -- at least at this point in time. However,
the hysteria in the comments... ouch.

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teyc
Great. What could go wrong?

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ChrisArchitect
general hysteria-inducing article. How about some population control?

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Hisoka
I don't trust "normal" pasteurized milk with steroids, so this can't be any
worse.

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mey
I assume you mean rBST/rBGH and not steroids. If not that's news to mean and
I've love to see some reference material.

Additionally, what is your issue with pasteurized milk aside from making it
taste worse, increasing it's shelf life, and most likely destroying some
nutritional value?

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martythemaniak
Yumm! Economic efficiencies!

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yawgmoth
I really don't come to HN to read these types of articles... I come here for
technical and entrepreneurial topics, not this.

