U.S. troops could be used as “guinea pigs” in a Defense Department-funded lab-grown “meat” initiative, an environmental watchdog group warns.
BioMADE, described as a “public-private bio-manufacturing consortium sponsored by the U.S. Department of Defense,” announced an opportunity for alternative-protein producers and labs to qualify for a series of grants ranging from $250,000 to $2 million in a federally funded study on vastly expanding production of lab-grown “meat.”
Lab-grown meat is the term often used to describe a recent advancement in bioproduction, in which animal muscle and fat tissues are grown from altered “immortalized” animal cells in bioreactors using a complex formula of chemicals, temperature, and pressure in order to mimic cuts of beef, pork, chicken, and other staple proteins.
While “cuts” of these artificial meats haven’t…
