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Lawsuit Filed Against Unregulated GloFish
purduephotog writes "You may remember the infamous poll on glowing pets posted in response to the marketing of GloFish. The Center for Food Safety has filed a lawsuit asking to halt all sales of said fish until the government can properly regulate it. More information at ABCNews.com."
"The FDA said last month it will not regulate the fish because it is not intended for human consumption. A spokeswoman said Wednesday the FDA stands by that statement." - from the ABCNEWS.com article.
It seems the FDA doesn't think anyone's going to eat glowing fish either.
Perhaps, but, I for one don't like the idea of people suing to stop things that they don't understand. The same goes for slashdot posters being afraid of things they don't understand. As one of the minority of biologists who frequent slashdot, I feel a small primer on GM technology is in order. I appologise in advance if this sounds preachy.
First, gene's consist of two parts: a coding sequence (which defines the protien produced by the gene) and a promoter (which controls when and where that protein is made). Think of it as event driven programming -- when the promoter is activated, the protein is made. One good example is Heat Shock Protein (HSP). When the temperature of a cell get's too high, HSP changes shape and can then activate other genes' promoters. These genes mediate the cell's response to thermal stress. Green Flourecent Protein is a protein that occures naturally in a species of jelly fish (Aequorea Victoria) and it happens to be flourecent, i.e. when put under UV light it glows green. Scientists have known about GFP for a while and have created versions of it such as Red Flourecent Protein (RFP) or Cyan Flourecent Protein (CFP) that, after small changes to the coding region glow in different colors.
Say, you want to study development. Early in animal development, there are three tissue types: endoderm, ectoderm, and mezoderm and all internal organs are decended from one of these three embryonic tissues. If you are interested in finding out which organs come from which early tissues, you could do it with transgenics as described below.
Now, how to make a transgenic (GM) animal? First, using biochemical techniques you take the GFP gene and attach it to a promoter for a gene that is expressed (or turned on) in the endoderm. Then you put that construct into a small peice of DNA called a plasmid. The plasmid has some other genes also, such as a replication origin (which allows the plasmid to be coppied in bacteria but not in animals) and a neomycin (antibiotic) resistance gene taken from bacteria that are resistant to neomycin. Then you transfect bacteria (usually a non-pathogenic strain of E. Coli) with the plasmid. That is, you get the plasmid inside the E. Coli. Only a very small percentage of the E. Coli are transfected, so you grow them in media that contains neomycin -- that way you know all of the surviving bacteria cary the plasmid. Using this technique you can "grow" a lot of plasmid. Then, using a little biochemistry, you can isolate the plasmid from the bacteria and inject it into zebrafish embryos. Again, only a very small percentage of the zebrafish will incorperate the DNA into their genomes. Those that do, are transgenic.
The entire process can then be repeated with RFP and the promoter for a mezoderm gene. Now you have a transgenic fish in which some organs glow green and some glow red. This is basically what the GloFish is.
Note that all of the gene's present in the zebrafish are present elsewhere in nature. All that has happened is the scientists have moved a gene from one species to another. Note also, that the gene has become incorporated into the genome of the zebrafish and is not just floating around. A larger fish that eats this zebrafish is no more transgenic than you are a cow for eating beef. The larger fish will not make the protein and it is not possible for the transgene to become incorporated into the genome of other fish it comes in contact with.
Likewise, the neomycin (or other antibiotic) resistance gene is not in bacteria and there is no way for it to get into bacteria. Only the zebrafish are neomycin resistant and (being vertibrate) neomycin never would have hurt them anyway.
This lawsuit is spreading an example of the classic fear, uncertainty, and doubt that is spread by those who oppose any genetic modifications. I agree that we need to have a substantive debate about
What if a GloFish is released into a fishing pond? Where it's likely to either be eaten by another fish, or worse, mate. We need to figure out if this GloFish has to be considered a polutant...
A) As another poster pointed out, that would be a matter for the EPA, not the FDA, but for some reason these guys are suing the FDA. The FDA doesn't regulate PCBs, yet you don't want to eat fish that ate them.
B) As to wether the EPA should ban them, there's little reason to ban these any more than any other aquarium fish. GloFish are tropical (I think zebra?) fish. If GloFish are likely to get into the population, then so are all sorts of other pet fish. The fact is that they don't. Asiatic clams are an issue. Tropical pet fish are not. These are not Snakeheads we're talking about.
C) Even if they were likely to get into the wild and survive, could they be dangerous? It is extremely unlikely. Numerous bioluminescent organisms currently live in our environment. Fireflies, certain fungi, lots of things are bioluminescent. Lots of things eat them, which could then get into the game-fish population, and nobody gets sick. These fish would use the same biological processes, and are therefore overwhelmingly unlikely to be harmful.
I'm all for caution. There is a good argument that some GM organisms may be bad. But there are so many threats to the environment that are much much more important than GloFish that these people are wasting resources that could be used to fight important battles. As such they are actually harming the environment by slowing down legitimate cases. Hell, their own suit regarding GM salmon is much more likely to pan out as a legitimate concern, and I support intelligent questioning of GM salmon. But if these guys are wasting their time on this, I begin to doubt whether any of their lawsuits are based on anything other than reactionary anti-GM nay-saying, with no basis in a real threat to the environment or people.
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