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FDA Nears Approval of Genetically Engineered Salmon
WASHINGTON - They may not be the 500-pound "Frankenfish" that some researchers were talking about 10 years ago, but a Massachusetts company says it's on the verge of receiving federal approval to market a quick-growing Atlantic salmon that's been genetically modified with help from a Pacific Chinook salmon.
Biotech crops are spreading worldwide, with 14 million farmers growing them in 25 countries, including the U.S. About 330 million acres are planted globally, an 80-fold increase since 1996. (photo by Flickr user denn)
Though genetically engineered crops such as corn
and soybeans have been part of the American diet for several years, if
the Food and Drug Administration approves it, the salmon would be the
first transgenic animal headed for the dinner table.
"I would serve it to my kids," said Val Giddings, who worked as a geneticist at the U.S. Agriculture Department for a decade before becoming a private consultant.
The financial rewards could be enormous.
Aquaculture is already an $86 billion-a-year business, with nearly half of all fish consumed globally farm raised. As wild stocks dwindle and the world's population heads toward 9 billion, fish farmers will be looking for fish that will be market-ready quicker.
Even so, skeptics abound.
Fears persist about possible health risks from genetically modified food in general, but concerns about bioengineered salmon also extend to the environment.
Farmed salmon are raised in net pens in coastal waters along Washington state, Maine and British Columbia. Most commonly, the fish being raised are Atlantic salmon, and the fear is they'll escape and compete with endangered native stocks. By some estimates, between 400,000 and 1 million Atlantic salmon have escaped into the wild from the 75 or so net-pen operations in British Columbia.
A Purdue University study using a computer model, widely criticized by the biotechnology industry, showed that if 60 transgenic fish bred in a population of 60,000 wild fish, the wild fish would be extinct in 40 generations.
"We've seen assurances in the past from industry and regulators that there won't be catastrophic consequences like the Gulf oil spill," said George Kimbrell, a senior staff attorney for the Center for Food Safety. "We have a cultural amnesia about these things."
If the FDA approves the transgenic salmon, his group would consider litigation to stop it, Kimbrell said.
AquaBounty, which calls its super salmon an "advanced hybrid" rather than a transgenic fish, said they're safe to eat and would be raised in contained farming operations that could be based inland rather than along coastal waters. And the modified fish, all females, would be sterile so that they couldn't breed with wild fish if any escaped, the company said.
AquaBounty's fish grow faster but not bigger that normal Atlantic salmon. The company says that genetically modified salmon are identical to regular salmon in every way except for the genes that have been added.
Company researchers have added a growth hormone gene from the Chinook salmon as well as an on-switch gene from the ocean pout, a distant relative of the salmon, to a normal Atlantic salmon's roughly 40,000 genes. Salmon normally feed only during the spring and summer, but when the on-switch from the pout's gene is triggered, they eat year round.
The result is a transgenic salmon that grows to market size in about half the time as a normal salmon - 16 to 18 months, rather than three years.
AquaBounty would market the eggs from a transgenic salmon, not the actual fish.
After first filing for approval a decade ago to bring the fish to market, the company said in a recent press release that the FDA's Center for Veterinary Medicine has reviewed in detail five of the seven sections of its application.
"The company believes the reviews for the remaining two parts of the application are very nearly complete," AquaBounty said, adding that its management was "confident of a successful outcome in the near future."
The FDA doesn't comment on pending applications, though a public hearing on the AquaBounty application could come as early as this fall. Such public hearings can signal the FDA is close to a decision.
Once approved, AquaBounty said it could start marketing the eggs from transgenic salmon within two or three years. The company is also reportedly developing transgenic tilapia and trout.
Scientists elsewhere are working on cattle that would be resistant to mad cow disease, and researchers in Canada have developed an "enviropig," which would produce manure with less harmful levels of phosphorus.
Biotech crops are spreading worldwide, with 14 million farmers growing them in 25 countries, including the U.S. About 330 million acres are planted globally, an 80-fold increase since 1996.
Giddings, the former USDA geneticist, said that 77 percent of the global soybean harvest was transgenic, 26 percent of the feed corn, 21 percent of canola and 49 percent of cotton. All told, Gidding said, there are 60 to 70 transgenic crops ranging from papayas to yellow squash.
"All have been reviewed by the FDA," said Giddings, who also worked for a leading biotech industry group. "There is no greater risk from eating transgenic crops than eating non-transgenic crops."
AquaBounty officials weren't available for comment, but the company's publicist referred calls to Giddings.
Giddings said he hadn't eaten a transgenic salmon, but people he'd talked to who'd attended AquaBounty fish fries said they taste just like non-transgenic fish. He dismisses health safety concerns and fears that the fish could pose a threat to native stocks.
"Transgenic foods are subjected to more scrutiny than any other food in history," he said.
However, critics say there are no guarantees the transgenic salmon would be raised in contained, inland pens, and that claims of sterility can be overblown. The company says that 99 percent of the transgenic fish will be sterile, a level that meets FDA requirements.
"I hope that's true," said Eric Hoffman, who works on genetic technology policy for Friends of the Earth.
FDA regulations don't specifically address whether transgenic food is safe for public health and the environment, Hoffman said, and the approval process is so closed it's impossible to tell whether fish raised from AquaBounty's eggs will have to be labeled as transgenic. Products made from transgenic crops in the U.S. don't have to carry a special label.
"This is all about corporate profit and not public health," Hoffman said.
- Posted in
45 Comments so far
Show AllHow come we never hear from organized Christianity over this kind of thing?
Billions of our tax dollars are spent each year to pay private contractors to eradicate invasive plant species and invasive animal species.
The FDA keeps approving the proliferation of more invasive species such as this engineered salmon, thereby assuring profits for producers and the eradication industry.
Remember, This is the Corporate States of America. Profit above all for the chosen few.
because it doesn't involve the repression of women and gays, that's why.
I've long fantasized about starting an organization called, Agnostics for Jesus- our purpose would be to promote the teachings of Jesus among the Christians.
But I fear that it would just get me shot by some bible-thumper.
quote "The financial rewards could be enormous."
That's what it is all about. Always. The so called Christians are as much into money making as the non-Christians, if not even more so. In other words the most conservative people (Republicans) very often are Christians, therefore are FOR capitalism, which means money making. Who cares that everything gets destroyed along the way.
Unless its genetically modified to grow on land I don't want it. We are living through an extinction event, a once every hundred million year loss of nearly all indigenous species from the planet. One-third of that loss, its estimated, is due to introduced species. (the other 2/3rds is habitat loss).
GMO organisms like this salmon represent introduced species, when they escape their pens (notice, I didn't say 'if they escape'). Sooner or later, they are going to do what naturally-evolved introduced species have done, once humans have introduced them into areas they had no business being in: kill off the locals. I like local salmon, and I don't want them changed into frankenfish.
About ten years ago here in BC, roughly 1,000,000 Atlantic Salmon escaped their open water holding pens. They have been breeding and colonizing the local rivers and streams ever since, cannibalizing and replacing the various native salmon as they go.
The Provincial and Federal Governments didn't even bother to fine the Norwegian based fish farm responsible.
Pacific and Atlantic salmon have been separated geographically and genetically for hundreds of thousands, if not millions if years.
This is an idiot move that will endanger both stocks even more.
Time, and well past time to rein in such hubris and arrogance.
Non Serviam - I will not serve.
Can those salmon be "genetically modified" to suck the oil gushing out and currently poisoning the gulf ?
Perhaps the petro diet would create the megafish that would eat half of the world's human population, thereby attacking the root of most of the world's problems.
First they would have to modify them to not need oxygen, since its a dead zone down there due to all the fertilizers.
Jennifer, that was hysterically funny. thanks!
Glad to be facetious once in a while. :)
Seriously, between the GMO and the oil spill, I wonder if there really is a possibility of creating some GMO to suck up the oil off the Gulf Coast given the horrendous damage. It would be a pipe dream to see Monsanto and BP team up and actually do something heroic for the environment.
Various micro-organisms are already volunteering to eat up the oil and stuff, and their populations are growing with the increased food supply. Oddly, they didn't wait for us to tell them to do it.
No-brainers to the rescue!
It is getting to the point where there won't be anything left to eat that is natural and decent and healthy. I don't want anything genetically engineered. Engineered buildings and engineered cars are one thing, but an engineered living being is anther matter.
I guess I will not be eating farm raised fish any more and since corn and soybeans are also genetically altered, I don't eat those either. So sad. Profits before people.
Great! Now it's Franken Fish.
"I would serve it to my kids." I'll bet Mr. Giddings will alter his stance when his kids cant get a date for the prom because of their gills.
Great.. more Franken(freakin)Disease, just what the world needs. NOT!
Every sane person knows this is NOT a good idea. The fish ARE going to get out and they ARE going to breed and they ARE going to destroy the natural balance of the wild salmon and everything that is in the food chain – including humans – and it will be the end of a natural order that has existed for many thousands of years. This is the end. We will never see it again. It is not a matter of “if”, but of “”how quickly.” And yet again the American citizens will shut up and take it.
Last year the FDA approved Chinese chicken for import into America for human consumption and I haven’t found a single person who thinks that’s a good idea or wants to eat it. This salmon will be the same thing, no one wants it but they won’t even know they are eating it. Another legal deception by the corporate weenies. They don’t even care if children eat this stuff.
When the final okay is given by the FDA that is the end of the wild salmon.
Shame on the FDA.
That is product that will never cross my lips.
What is bound to happen is that these frankenfish are going to contaminate the wild stock and destroy 6 billion years of evolution.
It's a toxic combination of greed and uterus envy that will take centuries to undo.
i ate a piece of salmon once.........but i'm alright now!!!
Well, of COURSE it's all about corporate profit and not public health. Does this even warrant mentioning, Mr Hoffman?
C'mon, this is the United Shitholes of America - why the fuck else would anyone want to screw around with the salmon? I mean, 'public health'?!?!?!?! Are you stark raving mad??? To even put those words in a sentence clearly brands you as a commie terrorist (or commie tourist, depending on the dialect in your corner of the Rotting Mess of America), and'll get you a one-way ticket to Guantanamo.
So wash out your mouth with soap, Mr Hoffman, you nasty little socialist, you.
Now, on a more important point, what are the chances of genetically modifying Dick Cheney, George Bush and his whole filthy tribe, Glen (Look, Ma! I can get the whole cock in my mouth!) Beck, that twat Palin, that twat Mattis, that other twat McChrystal, all the twats in Congress and 7,927 twats in the 'mainstream media',and a few thousand other evil-doers, so that they're dead?
What are the chances of genetically modifying the president so that he or she DOES THE RIGHT THING?
What are the chances of genetically modifying the entire population of the United States so that they end up with spines, not breathing through their mouths, not dragging their knuckles, are less fucking gullible, don't think the presidency is some kind of goddamn religion, and march on Washington with gasoline-soaked torches, set a few things alight in order to start to demonstrate THE WILL OF THE PEOPLE, and then establish third, fourth, fifth, sixth political parties?
Oh. Right. Zero.
Sorry - my mind must have snapped for a minute there.
Even most kids have the good sense to leave alone guns, avoid trying to start cars, ...
You dumb ass science wizards----The fact that you can do something does not mean you should do that thing; especially when it has irreversible and unforeseen consequences.
Hey, if we're gonna play Russian Roulette we may as well make it interesting. Maybe we could genetically engineer a really smart giant lizard with a taste for humans.
no surprise here. frankenfish can make huge profits for somebody. I don't think you even have to pay the fda anymore. just tell them it's a business thing, and they roll over and say do it.
How about building a salmon with small legs to walk around all the dams without fish ladders that we've built. I saw this idea on a car's rear bumper more than once.
We on the far left have very clear principles regarding who controls production, how, and why.
The people, not kapital, should control production, and this is a showstopper for privateer hi-tech.
Production should be in the people's better interest. Natural, wild food under light cultivation, is in the people's better interest because it maintains our connection with nature and the natural processes that enable us to thrive.
There is a clear limit on the amounts/types of mechanization that benefit the people. It's clear when we think about our connection with nature. Did the elites provide you an opportunity to think?
And when they lower the cost of food, do we benefit. or do we find only that the cost of healthcare, education, shelter and transport inflate?
Notice their simple-minded explanations that their rackets are safe. They are encouraging people to trust them, instead of encouraging people to think. That should be a big red flag.
Do you want these frankenfish to contaminate the wild gene pool? What about YOUR connection with nature?
f***ing insane.
DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT
http://www.capwiz.com/grassrootsnetroots/issues/alert/?alertid=15197336
OMG! This is insane. The QUESTION should be, WHY are fish dying, why are oceans dying, why is the Earth dying?
Changing the genes, doesn't answer the QUESTION of why things fall apart!
Of course, we know the answer, which is that humans destroy the earth, and then try to build profits out of creating something unnatural to replace the natural. That's what theme parks are for; please leave real life alone.
In Korea, some scientists have bred kittens whose faces glow in the dark. What the hell is wrong with people? Just because you CAN do something doesn't mean that it makes any sense to do it. Why is it important to make cats faces glow in the dark? Is this a Halloween marketing promotion?
The book, 1984 is coming true and now we have Brave New World to look forward to as the future? There are some good things from science, like using stem calls to replicate body parts that can't regenerate, but EARTH can regenerate, if you just clean it up and stop treating it like a garbage dump!
PLEASE , work on figuring out what to do with atomic waste, or we will surely waste away, and there won't be any Jurassic Park to bring us back.
We had a good storm on Puget Sound one year, and thousands of Atlantic Salmon escaped their pens. They weren't dying on spawning like our Pacific Salmon, and just L O V E to eat the eggs of other species.
Take a look at what Brook trout have done to California mountain rivers and lakes (they are a Char). They crowd out Rainbows and Browns, so you end up with millions of tiny fish instead of a few large fish. I hates them, my precious...
there's something fishy about this.
Well isn't that reassuring that they will be inland and can have no possibility of escaping to the sea. And that 99% will be infertile.
I wonder what that 1% can get up to, especially if some warped individual decides to fish some out inland and drop them off at inland waters?
Nah! Like offshore oil leaks, it could never happen.
The company says that genetically modified salmon are identical to regular salmon in every way except for the genes that have been added.
--------------------------
Priceless (or perhaps I mean worthless) example of corporate Newspeak: they're identical except for the differences.
Are we anywhere near ready yet to put our regular lives on hold and organise against the psychopaths' destruction of our world?
Right - they're identical except where they were changed.
But even this is a lie. DNA works roughly like syntax in language, in that it combines dynamically. A change in one part of the DNA chain may alter folding and express different genes.
This is only a rough analogy, but it gives an idea. Watch the word "green":
1. The green house burned down.
2. Now Mrs. Green has nowhere to go.
3. She will have to stay in her greenhouse, with the greens.
4. Maybe the fire was caused by the greenhouse effect.
Genes also have very few elements, and their effects are carried by circumstance or context-dependent responses. So when some of the genes are changed, resulting changes distribute through the organism, though not equally.
A genetic engineering company knows this. They're just lying.
Excellent point. I was so stunned by that egregious abuse of language that I couldn't even force myself to look more deeply.
people need to quit eating salmon period and let the fisheries build up......and of course the government has to take the lead in this ...and won't
You have that right. Our government doesn't lead, it follows the corporations. Public campaign financing is the only hope for America
Two sentences jumped out from this piece.
1. The financial rewards could be enormous.
2. ..., fish farmers will be looking for fish that will be market-ready quicker.
#1 is, of course, the most urgent reason for modifying the salmon.
Guess if salmon are quick grown like the GM crops are, their nutritional value will be less as it is with the crops. Vitamin companies need to start sending out the message that we need a whole lot more of their products to make up the difference in what we'll no longer be getting from our food supply. Then they'll need to have their vitamins GMed so they can be manufactured faster.
Ain't life grand!
Not much different from the introduction of the Hybrid Stripper Bass, is it? Everybody is happy with how that turned out.
YES there is. A hybrid is a mating of two type so simular fish to porduce a new fish/plant/etc. Like takeing a herfer cow and mating with an texas long horn to get the best of both breads... angus if I am correct. Genetic Modified food is the done at a genetic level with non compatible species. they have to invade the cell with the nes DNA code and remove the exsisting. The current form of splicing is done with the only know cell invader ... viruses. They take a created virus and have it carry the new code into the cell to produce the new creature/plant/etc. Virus do one other amzing they the mutate into new strians .....that is very concering the companies doing this are thinking of bottom line only. Also the FDA and these major GMO players constantly shift personel between them ... just look at FDA's current roster and Mosanto, Dow or Bear and see what the sceptics are saying.
Sorry for the typos in the above post... to check Mosanto/FDA relationships read this
http://www.communicationagents.com/sepp/2003/11/30/fda_monsanto_dangerous_relations.htm
Not necessarily.
And not everyone is happy about the stripers, though it is one of the more successful among many catastrophic experiments in introducing animals to new areas.
Meanwhile,
The trouble with genetically engineered species is not that they are genetically engineered or altered per se, but that they are altered specifically and exclusively for the private profit of a few individuals within the offending corporations.
That means that they are NOT altered to fulfil human need.
That means that they are NOT altered to be sustainable.
Both of these are important, but the latter is even more so, because sustainability is a greater eventual factor in human need than particularly rapid growth and so forth.
Natural and native species have been evolving to survive, hence to maintain sustainable relationships with a given environment, over billions of years altogether. Certainly hybrids and non-native species can screw things up also, but a sustainable and productive policy would be to cease all three practices.
The genetic engineering, generally, is the worst of these on several counts. The possible variation from viability is at least potentially greater. The changes are made not by natural selection but by private interest, whereas even a hybrid created by artificial insemination mates two similar species. And non-viability is a characteristic strongly favored by genetic engineering companies.
Of all the fool ideas, genetic engineering companies deliberately create sterility in their products. The motive is obvious: clients must return to the parent company (usually Monsanto, but you-all know that) to replenish stock at every generation.
The bastardized GM stock mates with the native population, thereby resulting in a % of sterile zygotes in the previously native population with every generation. Of course, the greater the % is, the happier the GM company is, since this gives them sales.
A single GM fish may or may not be just fine to serve to the execs kids. That depends on what the company has changed in the animal, and must be attended to on a case-by-case basis.
One exception to this comes with allergies. It is hard enough to diagnose which of the possible allergens one responds to without engineering allergens from one species into another. When chemical compounds, particularly protein complexes, get transferred from species to species, the buying public cannot determine the presence or absence of allergens by the species.
DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT
http://www.capwiz.com/grassrootsnetroots/issues/alert/?alertid=15197336
I think they have purchased the rights to your DNA too. Except in remote places in the world where they just stole it. This fish is you, right now you have a choice to eat it or not but that will not always be true.
Did you all see the piece about the super methane bubble that could wipe us all out?