Critics Cite Lax Testing of Genetically Altered Virus

Environmentalists, armed with a General Accounting Office report criticizing the Agriculture Department’s handling of genetic engineering experiments, Thursday demanded that the department revoke a license it granted recently to market the first genetically engineered virus.

The virus, produced by Novagene, a Houston company, is designed as a vaccine for hogs against a deadly disease, pseudorabies. It was created by removing elements from the herpes-like virus that causes pseudorabies and then injecting the altered virus into animals.

Supporters of the vaccine assert that it will save millions of dollars and dramatically reduce incidence of the disease, which attacks about 10% of the nation’s 50 million hogs.

Department Called Hesitant

But opponents argue that because of lax oversight at the Agriculture Department the genetically altered virus has not been tested properly.

The GAO report, released Wednesday night, said the department’s oversight of the controversial tests “has lacked authority and direction.”

The department “has been hesitant in developing a well-defined regulatory structure,” the report charged, partly because it has been “influenced by the White House’s Office of Science and Technology Policy,” which has sought to avoid overregulation of companies in the relatively new industry.

The GAO report shows that the Agriculture Department’s oversight of genetic engineering “is a joke,” said environmentalist Jeremy Rifkin, who threatened to sue the government if the virus license is not revoked within 10 days.

Says Vaccine Could Change

Dr. Michael Fox, scientific director of the Humane Society, said the vaccine poses a risk of “mutation during the transfer from one species to another.”

Fox likened the use of the virus to a proposed experiment by an Oakland company that wants to spray a strawberry patch with genetically engineered bacteria to prevent frost formation. Both cases demonstrate a “complete lack of ecological awareness and plain ignorance and greed,” he said.

Rifkin, who has helped block other genetic-engineering experiments, said that the virus and bacteria pose potential environmental hazards and that “it appears that in both cases the companies were not forthcoming” because they withheld details on the experiments from the government.

However, Arpi Lamell, senior vice president of Novagene, said tests on 20,000 pigs show that the product is “entirely safe” and that “we’re not introducing a new organism; we’ve simply stunted an existing one.”

Process Defended

Rifkin and Fox contend that the Agriculture Department, in issuing the license, failed to comply with guidelines on genetic engineering established by the National Institutes of Health and that the department’s own advisory committee on such research has not been diligent.

But Dr. David A. Espeseth, the Agriculture Department’s senior staff veterinarian, said the department “had no legal obligation to clear this” with the advisory committee because the company seeking the license was not doing government-financed research.

This distinction has led to widespread calls for tougher restrictions on genetic engineering as many companies gear up for production of products that could earn them huge profits.