A little bit of Pfizer in your cheese? Fake rennet bypassed additive approval process

The Gold Report Staff

March 11, 2024

Pfizer's bioengineered rennet turns your milk into cheese

You may be surprised to learn that the cheese you are eating, if it's not USDA organic, most likely contains synthetic rennet bioengineered by Pfizer. Often referred to as microbial rennet, the source of the rennet is not required to be listed on food labels, so most Americans have no idea that the food they are eating contains non-natural ingredients.

Global Research's Dr. Ashley Armstrong, who believes that natural rennet is preferable to synthetic rennet, explained that cheese making involves just four ingredients — milk, salt, starter culture, and (traditionally) animal rennet. Rennet is used to curdle the cheese and separate the curds from the whey. Today, rennet comes from more than one source, the others being “vegetable rennet, microbial rennet, and a genetically modified version called FPC (fermentation-produced chymosin). Chymosin is one of the two enzymes found in natural animal rennet, the other being pepsin:

Animal rennet is usually 90% chymosin enzyme and 10% pepsin enzyme. The small amount of pepsin will break down the casein protein in milk in a slightly different way compared to just chymosin alone, producing a final product with an enhanced taste.

Supreme Court rules new life forms can be patented

The permissibility for manufacturers to make synthetic rennet resulted from a 1980 Supreme Court ruling that new life forms can be patented. As VRG's (Vegetarian Resource Group) research director Jeanne Yacoubou, MS, explained, this became pivotal to the development of synthetic rennet FPC (fermentation produced chymosin) when animal rennet started rising in price as a result of the animal rights movement:

When calf rennet became scarce and unreliably available in the 1960s and 70s as the veal industry was declining due to the animal rights movement but demand for cheese increased, calf rennet became very expensive. Companies looked for a “rennet substitute.” Recombinant DNA technologies involving microbes were becoming popular and companies turned to it in the 1980s. [Emphases added.]

FDA permits bioengineered food products

In 1990 the FDA set a precedent by permitting the inclusion of FPC, the first bioengineered product, in food. Yacoubou explained that the technique used to manufacture the FPC was perfected by Pfizer. Gene splicing, using recombinant DNA technology, enabled the company to remove the genetic material for coding the enzyme chymosin:

Pfizer is credited with perfecting the technique in which genetic material (ribonucleic acid, or RNA) coding for chymosin is removed from an animal source and inserted via plasmids into microbial DNA (bacteria E. coli K-12) in a process known as gene splicing (a type of recombinant DNA technology). Through fermentation the microbes possessing the bovine genetic material produce bovine chymosin which is later isolated and purified in quantities much greater than those in calf rennet or in non-animal recombinant DNA microbial rennets.

FDA-approved GMO rennet received GRAS status

The FDA gave this novel GMO version of chymosin GRAS (generally regarded as safe) status, allowing it to forgo a preapproval process required for new food additives. In order to do this, Yacoubou continued, Pfizer had to show that their product was substantially equivalent to the real thing:

What is significant about the FDA approval is that bioengineered chymosin was granted Generally Regarded as Safe (GRAS) status. This meant that Pfizer was exempt from the preapproval requirements that apply to new food additives. Pfizer demonstrated what is often referred to as “substantial equivalence.” FDA concluded that bioengineered chymosin was substantially equivalent to calf rennet and needed neither special labeling nor indication of its source or method of production.

. . . Pfizer showed “…the introduced chymosin gene encoded a protein that had the same structure and function as animal-derived chymosin; the manufacturing process removes most impurities; the production microorganisms are destroyed or removed during processing and are non-toxigenic and non-pathogenic; and any antibiotic-resistance marker genes (e.g., ampicillin) are destroyed in the manufacturing process.” In effect, the FDA extended calf rennet’s GRAS status to the bioengineered chymosin product.

Not just Pfizer

Pfizer's rennet wasn't the only rennet given GRAS status, as two other bioengineered chymosin products produced with different bacteria were also given GRAS status. She pointed out that the FDA was never concerned about the process used to generate the enzyme:

A few years later, FDA extended GRAS status to two other forms of bioengineered chymosin: that produced from Kluyveromyces marxianus var. lactis and Aspergillus niger var. awamori. In none of these approvals was FDA concerned with the process used to generate the chymosin.

Foreign cheese contains GMO rennet, too

Consumers thinking that perhaps the cheese is more natural in other countries may be surprised to learn that even in Europe, where GMOs are largely frowned upon, artificial rennet is used. According to Megan Stevens writing for Food Renegade, FPC rennet is actually given a pass since it is imported:

Even cheeses imported from European countries, where GMOs (genetically modified organisms) are limited in agriculture and food production, likely contain GM rennet.

How is this possible? The laws that prohibit GM production within Europe do not hold for exported items. And most European countries (not including France and Austria) now allow the use of FPC for their own citizens, as well.

Can't digest cheese? Check back to learn why FPC may be at the root of your digestive issues.

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