Meat: A growth industry

[Guest guest]

Hi All,

For a laugh, see the below from Nature.

Meat

A growth industry.

McAuley

Futures

Nature 435, 128 (5 May 2005)

A growth industry.

We certainly don't call any of our clients 'The Meat', or 'Pork Chop #1'. That's

just tabloid nonsense. And while we're skewering misconceptions, the job isn't

as

glamorous as you might think. Although I go to club and restaurant openings,

film

premières, first nights, fashion shows and stay in first-class hotels all around

the

world, I'm not there to enjoy myself. I'm there to prevent any live cells from

my

clients' bodies falling into the hands of meatleggers.

Sweep, security and clean-up: that's what the job is about. First, my team

sweeps

the place before the client arrives, everything from running background checks

on

staff to inspecting the restrooms. Restrooms are where the clients are most

vulnerable, of course. We run fibre optic cameras down the pipework, looking for

traps and filters; we check for microscopic rasps designed to trap a few skin

cells

by fogging the place with an aerosol of tailored bacteria and using ultraviolet

light to spot any unusual clumping. We inspect seating, too; tableware at

restaurants; glasses at bars; cocktail napkins — we have detailed checklists for

every type of venue.

After the client arrives, we run an extra layer of security. No known meatlegger

gets within a hundred yards of any of my perimeters, but they'll bribe staff or

plant some innocent-looking old lady in the crowd, and it's not unknown for some

minor celebrity in need of quick cash to try to snag a few cells from an

A-lister. I

have a database of known stooges and my people keep a lookout for abnormal

behaviour, I can't tell you any more than that. Afterwards, there's the

clean-up,

which is the most routine but most important part of the job, and which I always

supervise personally. Some cleaners ride shotgun on their clients on the way

back

from an event, but I like to make sure that the venue is sterilized more

thoroughly

than any operating theatre. The bodyguards can look after the client in transit,

and

besides, once they're in their limo, my clients are protected by a Class Four

biohazard containment environment. Not even a virus can get in or out.

Hotels? That's a whole book right there. Any place a client of mine would use

has

its own cleaning protocol, but I like to think I add my special magic to the

mix.

Like a lot of cleaners, I started out in public health, running DNA analyses in

a

forensic laboratory. That was ten years ago, when the meat trade was at its

height.

We were processing 10,000 samples a day. Most were fakes. 'Princess Di' for

instance, was originally a basal-cell carcinoma excised from a 58-year-old

Albanian

woman, but it didn't stop the meatleggers moving 20 tonnes of product. Then fans

started doing their own DNA analyses, and growing their own supplies. Once

someone

has started a cloned cell line, anyone with an incubator, access to a few common

biochemicals, and basic knowledge about cell culture can keep it going

indefinitely.

By the time I joined one of the vat-busting teams, most of the meat we were

chasing

was 100% genuine cloned celebrity. As soon as anyone managed to get a viable

scrap

of tissue, that was it. The meat was out there. The only way to stop it was to

bust

the places where it was grown.

Dangerous? Not really. The meat trade is too specialized to interest

professional

criminals, although quite a few are customers; one crime boss likes to serve the

meat of his enemies with his special sauce. Politicians and businesspeople also

enjoy revenge feasts, but the fans are the backbone of the trade. These days,

you

aren't a hardcore tru-fan unless you've partaken of the flesh of your hero. It's

the

ultimate form of possession, and I don't suppose I need to point out the

parallels

with Christian communion. No, that's just an urban myth lifted from some cheesy

bestseller. In order to clone tissue, you need to start with live cells, or at

least

a live nucleus, and after 2,000 years ... exactly.

Cloned babies? Another myth. It's very difficult to turn a somatic cell into an

embryo, and even harder to bring it to term. Far easier to grow sheets of

epidermis

or muscle. I guess the oddest case I dealt with was the meatlegger who cloned

himself. All he ate was his own meat. I guess you could say he was really into

self-sufficiency.

I don't think the meat trade is going to die out any time soon. Most clone lines

have been wiped out, and people like me do their best to make sure that the

meatleggers have a hard time getting fresh ones started, but now there's this

new

thing. These nanotech makers. Pretty soon the meatleggers won't need live cells,

just a DNA sequence, and I've heard that these makers can build an entire body

from

scratch.

As long as people keep finding twisted uses for new technology, there'll always

be a

need for people like me, cleaning up the mess.

Top of page McAuley has worked as a research biologist at various

universities

including Oxford and the University of California, Los Angeles, and for six

years

was a lecturer in plant science at St s University. His latest novel is

White

Devils (Simon & Schuster).

Al Pater, PhD; email: old542000@...

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