US Troops Could Be Used as Guinea Pigs for Lab-Grown Meat

(Dreamstime)

A public-private company that has received more than $500 million in federal funding from the Department of Defense (DOD) is seeking proposals to feed U.S. service members with lab-grown meant to reduce the carbon footprint at military outposts.

BioMADE announced June 3 on its website that it is seeking proposals for “innovations in food production that reduce the CO2 footprint of food production at and/or transport to DOD operational environments.” The innovations include, but are not limited to, “novel cell culture methods suitable for the production of cultivated meat/protein,” or lab-grown meat, the Washington Free Beacon reported Thursday.

Lab-grown meat is a recent advancement in bioproduction in which animal muscle and fat tissues are grown from altered animal cells in bioreactors using a complex formula of chemicals, temperature, and pressure to mimic cuts of beef, pork, and chicken. Still in its experimental phase, the method has created a debate regarding how efficient and moral it is to manufacture meat without slaughtering animals.

BioMADE, which launched in 2021, received a $450 million budget increase from the Pentagon in March 2023. It maintains that lab-grown food products will reduce the Pentagon’s carbon footprint, the Free Beacon reported, a priority for the U.S. military as it pursues a Biden administration mandate to address the effects of alleged climate change.

The group is also seeking proposals to convert waste into bioproducts; for carbon-capture technologies that convert greenhouse gases, including CO2 and methane, into bioproducts that are of industrial use and resist degradation; and for developing bioproducts that can be used to prevent or slow coastal erosion, or mitigate the impact of drought or fluctuating weather patterns.

Critics of the BioMADE-Pentagon partnership assert that U.S. troops should not be used as guinea pigs for an experimental process such as lab-grown meat, which is not available on store shelves, the Free Beacon reported, even though the Department of Agriculture in 2023 gave two California companies permission to sell cultured chicken to area restaurants.

“Taxpayer dollars should not be used to fund the lab-grown meat sector,” Jack Hubbard, executive director at the Center for the Environment and Welfare, a consumer group that analyzes emerging markets such as bioengineered meat, told the Free Beacon. “Our troops deserve better than to be served lab-grown meat, produced in bioreactors with immortalized cells and chemicals.

“Unfortunately, this effort is being driven by an agenda that is political and anti-farmer. Our soldiers should never be used as guinea pigs.”

A 2023 study published by the University of California-Davis suggests that “lab-grown meat’s carbon footprint [is] potentially worse than retail beef,” the Free Beacon reported.

“If companies are having to purify growth media to pharmaceutical levels, it uses more resources, which then increases global warming potential,” lead author Derrick Risner of UC Davis’ Department of Food Science and Technology, said in a news release. “If this product continues to be produced using the ‘pharma’ approach, it’s going to be worse for the environment and more expensive than conventional beef production.”