ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Monday, December 9, 1996 TAG: 9612090092
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A-6 EDITION: METRO
THE FUTURE is not bright for U.S. tobacco farmers. Nor is the outlook likely to improve as long as cigarette manufacturers can get tobacco more cheaply overseas - or as long as the crop is good for nothing but products that sicken and kill the people who buy them.
But what if tobacco could be associated with healing as opposed to hazardous products?
Of course, the public wouldn't buy it if cigarette makers suddenly produced research showing that smoking is good for you. Even cigarette companies - totally lacking credibility for their claims, including that they've never tried to entice youngsters to smoke - don't have the chutzpah to try that.
But Virginia Tech researchers have found that tobacco might have positive uses - including medicinal applications. Are we witnessing the dawning of a golden new era for the golden leaf and its harvesters in Virginia and other tobacco-producing states?
Probably not. But Dr. Carole Cramer, a professor of molecular biology at Tech's College of Agriculture and Life Science, recently told the Virginia Farm Bureau Federation's membership that tobacco is one of the most promising plants for a new wave of genetically engineered medicines, vaccines and industrial goods.
Among the possibilities:
It could be used to produce a human enzyme to treat Gaucher's disease, a rare genetic disorder that causes brittle bones, a swollen stomach and mental retardation. Additionally, Cramer described the growing of prototype tobacco plants that could help treat rare childhood diseases and perhaps even cancer. Genetically altered tobacco, she said, may also provide ingredients for laundry products, pet foods and other products with widespread uses.
It would be premature to hail a breakthrough for tobacco farmers, many of whom have resisted converting their fields for alternative crops, such as soybeans, and ought to be accelerating such conversion. But they, and others, might also in the meantime keep an eye on the research at Tech and other advances in genetic engineering.
Better by far they grow, say, a raw material for dog food than help blow away the health of hundreds of thousands of smokers each year.
LENGTH: Short : 45 linesby CNB