Biotech advances show human health linked to animal welfare

Animal biotechnology is a rapidly growing field due to the vast benefits it can bring to both human and animal health. For example, by carefully modifying the genome of livestock to provide disease resistance, we simultaneously improve animal health, welfare and food safety.  This practice reduces the use of antibiotics in livestock, helping to preserve an antibiotic’s clinical efficacy in humans. By using biotechnology to reduce disease in livestock, we lessen the likelihood of microbes infecting humans. Indeed, six out of every 10 infectious diseases found in humans are spread by animals. Scientists have genetically modified chickens so they do not transmit avian influenza virus to other chickens. This advance could prevent the spread of avian flu outbreaks within poultry flocks and has the potential to reduce the threat of a bird flu epidemic in the human population.  Maryland-based Intrexon has created genetically modified mosquitoes whose offspring cannot survive. When released into high-risk areas, they decrease the number of invasive mosquitoes that carry diseases such as Zika and dengue fever. Last year in Piracicaba, Brazil, the release of these “friendly mosquitos” in two neighborhoods reduced the disease-carrying mosquito population by 90 percent. As a result, the number of annual cases of dengue fever in that area dropped from 133 to just one.