Letters From Our Readers - Letter to the Editor

E: The Environmental Magazine, May, 2001

DESIGNER GENES

I just read your cover story on the human genetic blueprint ("Designer People," January/February 2001) and agree with the scientist who said that many traits are the result of nurture, not nature. In my opinion, altering genes to produce "the perfect child" is totally wrong. Generations of parents are getting lazier and lazier. What makes a child is how the child is raised.

According to the article, athletic children can be produced by altering genes. But what about parents spending time with their children to teach them sports or help them learn? What happened to good old-fashioned parenting?

Jillian Lyons Gallatin, TN

When you first look at genetic engineering, it all looks good: Life can be extended, diseases can be prevented, and children can be perfect. The problem arises when we look further into the future. If no one dies and lives are extended, our already overpopulated world would reach unthinkable numbers. As it is, we hardly have enough resources to feed everyone. And how would we regulate who gets the longevity genes? The people who cannot afford to buy their children special genes would be cast out and rejected. Everyone else would be perfect, and our world would be boring. The whole concept of purchasing genes is ridiculous, and I hope it never happens.

Ryan Graham Kanata, Ontario

Your article about so-called "designer" people was shocking, like something from a science fiction novel. We would have two classes of people--the "naturals" and the "gene enriched." There could be people walking around with the nose of a bloodhound, the eyesight of an eagle and maybe even the agility of a cheetah. With 3.2 billion chemical letters to decipher, I can't imagine this happening anytime soon. But it makes me wonder what the next millennium will be like. Scary.

Paul Dale Roberts Elk Grove, CA

HOG-WASHED

There is quite a bit wrong with the picture painted by the article, "This Little Piggy Creates Waste," (In Brief January/February 2001). The only positive thing about this industrialization of livestock production is an economic boost to the community. However, when you take a closer look, you realize that this is false economy. The true costs of such operations are not taken into account: the environmental cleanup and acute and chronic health problems associated with the operation.

Environmental disasters such as this must be stopped. It is not a question of whether or not to raise hogs, but how. Some farmers raise healthy hogs, whose waste is considered a resource. It is important for people to read about livestock producers who use alternative management strategies, combining old-fashioned animal husbandry with new low-tech facility design and sophisticated ideas about the relationships between livestock and the land. These farmers need support in leading a movement away from confinement livestock operations, and your magazine could help raise this awareness.

Tina Pilione Holistic Management Certified Educator Eunice, LA

Thank you for pointing out the environmental mental disaster that is factory farming. The portrayal of hog production in your In Brief was extremely enlightening as to the impact of this operation on its community. The contaminating nature of this type of hog facility, and the pork products rendered by it, are disastrous to human health. This fact, together with the barbaric, inhumane treatment of these sentient beings, will always make me wonder why confined animal feeding operations even exist. I'm always shocked back to reality by the sight of those "Golden Arches" slinging Sausage McMuffins on every street corner in America and by the bulging waistlines we see each day. I long for the day when compassion for non-human animals and the environment will outweigh the human ego and lust for money.

Chad Brown Tampa, Florida

David Robinson's employee "health benefits" at his proposed hog facility production plant would pale beside the health hazards they would face working in such an environment.

North Carolina's Hog Watch knows whereof it speaks; much of North Carolina became a cesspool after 1999, when Hurricane Floyd sloshed the contents of pig manure "lagoons" together with animal corpses across a good-sized swath of territory. Short of natural disasters, leakage of these lagoon liners fouls water supplies with feces-borne illnesses, and even while masked, factory farm workers and neighbors still suffer elevated risks of respiratory ailments from the stench of fast-accumulating manure. Down the line, workers in slaughterhouses and processing plants endure high rates of cuts, falls and repetitive stress injuries, not to mention psychological damage.

So congratulations to the six planning and zoning board members who showed good sense in voting down this public health disaster. What did the other five have in mind?

Murry J. Cohen, M.D. Annandale, VA

FLUORIDE FALLACIES

The article "Facing up to Fluoride" (Your Health, January/February 2001) is well done and agrees almost entirely with the investigation of fluoridation I did for a grad school research project. I'd like to add a couple of additional discoveries.