FDA, university disagree about pigs

FDA said Wednesday that it has "determined that pigs involved in certain bioengineering studies at the University of Illinois-Urbana/Champaign were possibly not properly disposed of, and may have entered the food supply." FDA added that although the "incident poses no public health risk," if confirmed, "it would represent a significant breach of the FDA requirements for this study -- warranting strong action against the responsible parties." The FDA and the University of Illinois disagree about regulatory and scientific issues associated with the sale of pigs from the school's transgenic research program to a slaughterhouse.

FDA inspectors determined that between April 2001 and January 2003 the university sold 386 offspring of transgenic animals to a livestock dealer for slaughter and sale as human food. The agency noted that university researchers "claim that these pigs...did not inherit the inserted genetic material from their parents - that is, they were not themselves transgenic. However, FDA cannot verify this assertion because the researchers did not conduct sufficient evaluation or keep sufficient records to assess whether the offspring inherited the inserted genetic material." ...