FDA thinks DNA is a drug (or the FDA sucks reason #452)

[Antonio the Sixth]

It's a chemical product that has been made or altered by human activity. That makes it a drug.

[Antonio the Sixth]

It's a chemical product that has been made or altered by human activity. That makes it a drug.

To the human body, "modified" DNA is indistinguishable from "natural" (whatever that means) DNA.

Pretty sure that's false as a blanket statement.

[Antonio the Sixth]

It's a chemical product that has been made or altered by human activity. That makes it a drug.

Are you really saying any chemical product made or altered by human activity is a "drug" and should be regulated by the FDA?  Do you really want to say that?  'cause that seems to be what you're saying.

If it's destined for human consumption, then yes? Is that really so controversial?

[Antonio the Sixth]

It's a chemical product that has been made or altered by human activity. That makes it a drug.

To the human body, "modified" DNA is indistinguishable from "natural" (whatever that means) DNA.

Pretty sure that's false as a blanket statement.

nah, she's right. DNA is basically a long chain of four different repeating nucleotides (A G C and T). This is all DNA, including transgenically modified DNA (because all animals share the same structure of DNA). In the digestive tract, the DNA chains are immediately rippedup to their constituent ncleotides (which are further broken down). So the novel DNA combinations one can make from biotechnology become irrelevant.

But DNA is also the "code" that can change the biological composition of a living being, right? The reason why we have different species is because they have a different DNA that "builds" them in a certain way. So, in theory, it's perfectly possible that changing the DNA in some food will change its characteristics in some way. And since some species are edible and some aren't (and some are edible but less healthy to eat than others) it's perfectly possible that altering DNA will have a negative impact.

[Antonio the Sixth]

Yes, except:
A.this is very very targeted manipulations we're talking about here.  It's not going to be poisonous because they aren't putting the genes for poison in.
2.even if by some unknown by science at this time mechanism somehow makes hornless milk cows highly toxic or whatever (which is totally impossible, but I'm humoring you here) they'd notice it in the texting

The FDA is there precisely to check and make sure that all those "totally impossible" things don't actually end up happening. Which, as we have seen, they sometimes do.