Market for Camembert

An important part of European Union trade law is the control of the Appellation d'origine contrôlée (AOC). (This is the locational brand name that, for example, makes Champagne--sparkling wine made in the French Champagne region using the methode champagnoise--different from Cava, the sparkling wine made in Spain by the same method. Which brings us to the question of Camembert de Normandie, the French cheese that, according to the Camembert Charter, must be made by hand from raw (unpasteurized) milk.

Because raw milk can harbor disease causing bacteria, the costs of making cheese safely from raw milk is greater than from pasteurized milk. Because of health concerns, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration controls the interstate sale of raw milk and cheeses made from raw milk. All of which brings us back to France, the home of both Camembert and pasteurization. Der Spiegel reports that one of France's largest cheese producers has just given up a long campaign, citing health concerns, to change the Camembert Charter to allow pasteurized milk to be used. But consumers and other producers successfully resisted, and it remains the case that no cheese made with pasteurized milk can be sold as le Camembert de Normandie.

I can't quite tell if this is brand protection, some other kind of protectionism, or if it is related to the kind of repugnance associated with the resistence to genetically modified crops in Europe. But it makes for a good story, and reflects some of the complexities of buying, selling, and labelling food.

Animal organs for human transplants

The Times of London reports on hopes of
Pig organs ‘available to patients in a decade’

If the formidable immunilogical barriers to such xenotransplants can be overcome, it would be a welcome development that could overcome the present dire shortage of transplantable organs. I'd be happy to see kidney exchange replaced by even better alternatives.

Pig kidneys for transplantation would presumably be sold without becoming a repugnant transaction of the kind that selling human kidneys is widely seen to be. However the breeding of transgenic pigs involves some of the same perception of repugnance:

"Professor Winston said that “organs that might be transplantable” could be ready “within two to three years” and on the basis that research went smoothly they would be fully licensed and tested in as little as ten years. He expected the first “proof of principle” pigs to be bred next year.
Two months ago he hit out at the “red tape” blocking the project’s progress in Britain. Under UK and EU rules, his team has been banned from mating and producing offspring from the transgenic pigs. Research in developing transgenic pigs is now likely to move to the US where the regulatory system is more relaxed. "

Repugnant transactions in Australia and England: GM crops

In many parts of the world, barriers have been raised to the sale of Genetically Modified (GM) crops.

In Australia, they were legislated against, and now that legislation looks likely to be repealed.
Science 19 September 2008:Vol. 321. no. 5896, p. 1629 reports:
"Four years ago, the governing Labor Party in Western Australia (WA), the country's breadbasket, banned growing GM crops in the state. But after elections last week, the Liberal and National parties formed a coalition that will oust Labor--and the Liberals have promised to rescind the GM moratorium."

In England, where GM crops aren't forbidden, Prince Charles has headed the opposition:
"The mass development of genetically modified crops risks causing the world's worst environmental disaster, The Prince of Wales has warned...
"The Prince, in an exclusive interview with the Daily Telegraph, also expressed the fear that food would run out because of the damage being wreaked on the earth's soil by scientists' research.
He accused firms of conducting a "gigantic experiment I think with nature and the whole of humanity which has gone seriously wrong".
"Why else are we facing all these challenges, climate change and everything?".
Relying on "gigantic corporations" for food, he said, would result in "absolute disaster".