Sometimes you see a headline that makes you choke on your coffee.   Other times, you see one that really makes you scratch your head.  This morning I saw one that made me do both.

“Frankenstein Meat Could Get Go-Ahead in European Union”

At first, I choked on my coffee.  Frankenstein meat?  What could that mean? (scratch head) Does that mean someone wants to re-animate animals just to kill them again to eat later?  That couldn’t be it.  I had better read further...

According to the article on a UK website (the Daily Mail www.dailymail.co.uk), the first steps have been taken toward allowing “genetically modified animals” to be used for a variey of purposes.    It’s bad enough that we already have genetically modified plants in our food supply (known as GMO’s or genetically modified organisms).

In fact, they have been doing that for decades.  Plants have been genetically modified to be more resistant to disease and pesticides.  This allows bigger yields (and bigger profits) for food manufacturers.  Vegetables have been genetically modified to be bigger and taste better.  But this does not equate to healthier food for our people. Bahhhh...details, right?

So, what would they do to genetically modified animals?  Engineer them to be resistant to disease?  To grow bigger?  To taste better?  For what purpose?  To get a bigger, more desirable (and more profitable) product.  To be fair, I am all for producers of goods and services making money.  If you can make a good product, you should be compensated for it.  However, when it comes to what we put in our bodies, I think we need to be a lot more skeptical.

What happens if something goes wrong?  How do you “recall” a bunch of animals?  Once they’re genetically modified, the toothpaste is out of the tube.  They will breed and pass on their genetic material.  Who knows what could happen?  Maybe I watched too many bad science fiction movies as a teenager, but I don’t like the sound of this.

The truth is, you don’t have to turn to science fiction to see what happens when we haphazardly start putting unnatural chemicals and agents into our bodies.  Look at what the pharmaceutical companies have done to “make a buck” at our expense.  They put out products that are unsafe and have a plethora of side effects while giving kickbacks and payoffs to doctors to promote it.  The recent Glaxo-Smith-Kline debacle is evidence of that.

This mega pharmaceutical company promoted Wellbutrin by giving famous doctors like TV personality Dr. Drew upwards of $275,000 to endorse it, even though the claims for the drug were unsubstantiated.  They claimed Paxil could be used for children although it was not established to be safe.  They were fined $3 billion dollars for their transgressions but tell that to the people whose children committed suicide as a result of Paxil.  Too little.  Too late.

Now we’re going to trust food manufacturers to “play God” and create genetically altered animals?  In my humble opinion, animals are just fine the way that they are.  The only reason we would need to “alter them” in the first place is because they are subjected to living arrangements that are outside the norm.  They wouldn’t need to make chickens resistant to bacteria if they would let them out of their cramped, feces-soaked cages.  They wouldn’t need to make cows that produced milk higher in omega 3s if they just allowed them to eat grass.  The more we deviate from the way things were intended, the more we look to science to fix our self-created problems.

I see this in my chiropractic practice every day.  The human body works amazingly well if you just take care of it.  Yet, when something goes wrong, we are way too quick to reach for drugs and other invasive procedures for back pain, neck pain, and headaches instead of trying something simple and non-invasive like chiropractic care.  Instead of altering your biochemistry or inserting a bunch of rods and screws, chiropractors get the joints working properly, support them while they heal, and then strengthen them.  Every pill, every potion, and every chemical we put into our bodies has an effect, some of which occur whether we know it or not.  When it comes to artificial substances, less is definitely more.