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It would be better if you got to keep the meat rather than letting it go to waste. Then you could indulge in autophagy by proxy.


If we're genetically modifying the pigs to be more like humans, I wonder if there would be health risks with eating the meat - specifically from prions. Similar to those that come from eating humans. Admittedly probably negligible until we modify them a heck of a lot more than we are right now (if they do theoretically exist).


Prions don't appear from thin air - and you can already get deadly prions eating meat, the reason why you don't is the same why you don't get all kinds of deadly diseases from meat - it's (usually) well regulated and any outbreaks are immediately culled. A pig genetically modified to be "more like a human" wouldn't spontaniously get deadly prions.


Apparently they have recently granted permission for these (type of) pigs to be sold for meat so those who suffer with alpha-gal syndrome (and are thus allergic to regular meat) can eat it. So I’m guessing by not.


I think the ones approved for consumption don't have the full set of genetic modifications used for this transplant, they just have the alpha-gal change.


Pigs are already similar enough to humans that there are major risks from parasites; I don't think the small modifications we've seen so far would significantly increase prion risk.




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