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Comment by mmisu | Hacker News Reader

> I assumed "clean" referred to the fact that lab-grown tissue would have a much lower risk of disease. Animals have digestive tracts full of bacteria, and farms aren't exactly pristine. Every year in the US, meat-borne pathogens kill thousands and sicken millions.

OK, let's check the numbers.

According to the CDC https://www.cdc.gov/foodborneburden/attribution/attribution-... from 1998 - 2008 from the total of foodborn illnesses 46% were linked to plant based, 22% to meat and poultry, 20% to dairy and eggs and 6% to fish products. From the total number of deaths 23% were linked to plant based products, 29% to meat and poultry (19% to poultry).

You can see a more detailed graphic here https://www.cdc.gov/foodborneburden/attribution-image.html#f...

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A couple of points:

1. The percentages you cite aren’t useful on their own, as one also needs to know how often each kind of food is consumed. Only then would we know the relative risk of eating each kind of food.

2. Most food plants are grown outdoors (often near livestock) and many aren’t cooked before eating. Cultured meat is grown in sterile environments and is typically cooked. These differences mean that it will almost certainly have a lower disease risk than any natural food.

So, I should accept your millions of sick people generality supported with a CDC link as a useful information. Why wouldn't you accept the cold hard numbers given by the same organization ?

> Cultured meat is grown in sterile environments and is typically cooked. These differences mean that it will almost certainly have a lower disease risk than any natural food.

Maybe, or maybe we'll discover in 10 years that eating lab grown meat gives you some form of cancer. Until it is used on a large scale for a number of years (as in decades) we have no idea what the effect of consuming lab grown meat has on ones health.

> Maybe, or maybe we'll discover in 10 years that eating lab grown meat gives you some form of cancer. Until it is used on a large scale for a number of years (as in decades) we have no idea what the effect of consuming lab grown meat has on ones health.

We can know it's safe without a long track record of use because of biology, chemistry, and physics. Cultured meat is the same muscle cells with the same DNA. If it caused cancer but animal meat didn't, that would tell us something new about biology, chemistry, and/or physics.

Your fear-mongering postulates unknown mechanisms of action that science would almost certainly have discovered by now. That's not just unscientific, it's anti-scientific. It's on the same level as, "What if cell phones cause cancer?" or "What if vaping is worse than smoking?"

When some folks wondered "how could you possibly persuade people to pay more for hydroponic vegetables?", my first thought was "get your vegetables, now with fewer bacterial brain cysts!" Vat meat vs incompletely cooked meat, is similar to hydroponic vs incompletely washed vegetables in this. I've no idea what the current state of research is on cysts vis autoimmune diseases.

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