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| | | COSTING THE EARTH
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| | | Costing the Earth tells stories which touch all our lives, looking at man's effect on the environment and at how the environment reacts. It questions accepted truths, challenges the people in charge and reports on progress towards improving the world we live in. | | | | | LISTEN AGAIN Ìý30 min | | | |
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|  | | Could these tomatoes be used for the mass production of vaccines?
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Modified Medicine
For the past decade environmentalists have fought a bruising battle against the introduction of genetically modified crops to the UK. They’ve successfully persuaded the public that the risks of herbicide-resistant maize and flavour-savor tomatoes outweigh the benefits. But a new front is about to open in the GM war.
The European Union have awarded an £8 million grant to fund research into genetically-modified plants. The goal is not to produce an edible crop but to grow antibodies for vaccines to combat TB, rabies and eventually HIV because current techniques for producing vaccines are expensive and cumbersome.
The search is on for a cheaper alternative which could be used in the developing world where the need for vaccines is greatest. If a field of maize or tobacco plants was able to produce antibodies on a large scale then a powerful blow could be struck against some of the most deadly and persistent diseases on the planet.
In this week’s ‘Costing the Earth’, Tom Heap asks if the latest advances in GM technology will meet the same opposition as the food crops we’ve seen trashed in the fields of Norfolk and the Black Isle. Could medical crops contaminate the genes of conventional maize? Are opponents right to be worried that we could soon find ourselves innocently munching on human antibodies in our corn flakes? Or could this research lead to a cheap method of mass-producing vaccines? | | |
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