FDA Closer To Approving Biotech Salmon

An anonymous reader writes with a story about the possibility of genetically engineered salmon showing up on your table. "A controversial genetically engineered salmon has moved a step closer to the consumer's dining table after the U.S. Food and Drug Administration said Friday the fish didn't appear likely to pose a threat to the environment or to humans who eat it. AquAdvantage salmon eggs would produce fish with the potential to grow to market size in half the time of conventional salmon. If it gets a final go-ahead, it would be the first food from a transgenic animal - one whose genome has been altered - to be approved by the FDA."

Comments

"didn't appear likely to pose a threat"

[sugarmotor]

"... didn't appear likely to pose a threat to the environment or to humans who eat it" --- what kind of standard is that?

Then the article states "In a draft environmental assessment, the FDA affirmed earlier findings that the biotech salmon was not likely to be harmful. It said it would take comments from the public on its report for 60 days before making a final decision on approval."

So first poke a bit here and there, find no problems. Then ask the public if they have an idea what could go wrong !!??

Re:"didn't appear likely to pose a threat"

[jedidiah]

The very concept is just wrongful. It's already a species that doesn't do well farmed. You end up with an inferior product. Taking that a step further and introducing genetic meddling just seems silly.

Compound one bit of stupidity with another...

What happens when the patented fish contaminates the wild stock? Will fishermen be subject to the Monsanto effect? Will fishermen need a patent license to fish? Will fish farmers be stuck not able to breed their own fish?

Re:"didn't appear likely to pose a threat"

[meerling]

It's pretty much the only scientific standard available for food. Nothing is absolute, including your existence, and science recognizes that. Additionally, 'food safety' is a pretty nebulous thing once you've excluded all known toxins. Well, those fish aren't toxic, and the tests haven't found anything else more dangerous than any other salmon. As to long term effect, well, we don't really have long term effects on human consumption of any salmon other than anecdotal stuff, and on the level we interact with the salmon, it's the same as other salmon. If I gave you 10 salmon steaks and one was from a genetically modified salmon, you couldn't tell which one it was. (That's if they were raised in the same environment on the same food. Different water temps and foods can change the texture and taste of salmon, but that's environment, not genetics.)

As a side note, I like mentioning corn. Do you really think our corn is 'natural'? Have you seen corn from a thousand years ago? I have, it looks like wheat. What we call corn now is a fast growing freakishly huge form that was created by the form of genetic manipulation techniques known as hybridization and selective breeding.

If you're afraid of eating something just because it's genetics have been changed, you had better stop eating commercial food because pretty much everything we grow and raise has been genetically modified. It's just those were done by slower and less accurate means in the past. It was a method that has even more unintended alterations than genetic engineering and also has to be repeated many many times in an attempt to target the specific change desired while attempting to weed out some of the unintended ones that were introduced at the same time. If you don't believe me, that's fine, go look up breeding and hybridization, you'll find haphazard and unregulated it actually is.
Now if you have a problem with something specific, like a pesticide being produced by the crop, then you might have something worth looking into. Of course, does it express in the part we eat? How do the quantities compare to 'normal' food we buy? (They get pesticide too, and in larger quantities. How much is still there after you take the food home and have washed it?) Of course, if you are just afraid because something is a 'frankenfood', your fears are baseless and I have to wonder if you enjoyed dying in your zombie apocalypse a few days ago?

Sorry about my post being a bit disorganized and rushed, I have to hurry up and get some last minute stuff done that just came up. Have fun, and don't have a staring contest with your food, even if the food started it. :)

Re:"didn't appear likely to pose a threat"

[SuricouRaven]

Caught salmon is expensive, and fish stocks are already in a state of near-crisis. If the choice is between inferior salmon or no salmon at all, make do.

Re:"didn't appear likely to pose a threat"

[uncqual]

This always intrigued me.

The neighboring farmer didn't sign a license agreement with Monsanto.

Perhaps Monsanto should go after the farmer who didn't control their "Monsanto Pollen and Seed" properly (that, of course, will never happen because they are Monsanto's customer!) if the license requires that the licensee exercises such control over the product.

It seems to me that the farmer whose crop got cross pollinated has no obligation to return or avoid use of that which someone distributed onto their property voluntarily -- much as if I leave a flyer on your front door, it's yours to do with as you like. This is not a case of "lost" property -- the distribution is expected, predictable, well known, and the actual item being distributed has no direct economic value.

It seems to me that the "cross pollinated" farmer has more of a cause of action against Monsanto (for knowingly distributing a manipulated organism that interferes with the farmer's ability to grow premium valued organic, non-GMO crops).

I'd be tempted to make an offer to Monsanto if I was a neighboring farmer whose crops had gotten cross pollinated: 'Monsanto, get every last bit of your pollution off my property. Access to do so will be granted at the rate of $x/acre per day until you return the land in an "as found" condition with the exception of getting your crap off it'

Re:"didn't appear likely to pose a threat"

[climb_no_fear]

The patented fish are diploid and fertile. Female triploid salmon are sterile and cannot cross-breed with wildtype stocks. They are produced by heat shock and other methods (they have to be produced, as they are sterile). The female triploids are produced from the diploids for production purposes, so that if they escape, they cannot reproduce. Triploids even occur naturally but rarely (0.6%) in natural salmon populations.

However, several questions come to my mind:
1.What if someone, sometime, accidentally releases the diploid GMO fish? These fish grow faster than the normal salmon and therefore might have introduce a selective advantage to the introduced genes, even if the original GMO fish are reportedly less fecund.
2. Is the triploid production method 100% effective or might you have 0.1% diploids in there, capable of reproduction?
3. Male triploid salmon do have gonads and are are potentially (even if at a very low rate) slightly fertile. How long until a male escapes? I know that the males appear obviously different than the females (I used to fish for salmon in Canada as a youth) nevertheless, I cite Murphy's Law ...

A bit of reading for the interested:

A simple, clear presentation:
http://www.salmotrip.stir.ac.uk/downloads/SSPOpresentation.pdf

More hardcore molecular biology:
http://www.nature.com/hdy/journal/v104/n2/full/hdy2009108a.html

No problem with the product

[__aaltlg1547]

This should not be a big deal for the FDA. It's clearly a safe food product, although I would be a little put off by a "THIS PRODUCT CONTAINS GENETICALLY MODIFIED FISH" label that I think should be mandated.

The FDA isn't really even competent to judge whether the animals are safe to introduce into the environment. It's not their area of expertise. All they can tell us is if it's safe for people to eat them. It's the EPA that should be concerned about people making frankenfish. And since if they get loose they'd be in international waters, it's a subject for the whole world to decide, or at least every country that fishes in waters where these modified salmon can survive and reproduce.

What happens if they get released and hybridize with wild salmon? Will hybrid fish be off limits to fishermen? Will the fast-growth genes be weeded out in the wild, or will they spread across the whole wild population? (The former is more likely. If it were advantageous to the species to grow faster, they probably would grow faster.) Is this company going to come after salmon fishers the way Monsanto comes after farmers?

Re:Did you notice the legalese?

[Attila Dimedici]

You do know that many foods that humans have eaten for centuries have been discovered to pose a threat in recent years? I have no objection to labeling foods that have been genetically engineered by modern techniques, but exactly how are you going to define that? I take it you do not eat corn? That is a "Biotech" food by certain definitions of the term "Biotech" (including some of the definitions used by those opposing "Biotech" foods).

stop complaining

[Iamthecheese]

A hundred years ago it was said miracles of science would feed the world with an unbelievable array of giant, hearty and delicious foods. We're almost there. And we'll get there a lot faster without you kneejerk "anything with altered genes must be bad for you" reactionary luddites.

Stop complaining and take a moment to marvel at all science has wrought.

FrankenFish!

[swschrad]

do NOT cook in an electric oven. you have been warned.

Re:Did you notice the legalese?

[crmarvin42]

How, pray tell, do you prove a negative? I.e. how do you prove that "GM salmon will never cause harm". If you set the bar impossibly high, then progress will never be made.

As to the labeling, the USDA guidelines for food labeling are designed to keep people honest about the differences in what are essentially commodities. If the USDA believed that there was a significant difference between GM crops and Conventional crops, then they would approve of a labeling initiative. However, one of the requirements for regulatory approval, is demonstrating that the GM crop is substantially similar to the conventional. Therefore, there is no need for a label, unless the label also makes it clear that the implied difference is insignificant. For example, Milk in the US frequently has a label indicating that no rBST was used in its production, but at the bottom of the label is a footnote indicating that their is no difference between milk produced with or without rBST. It is about battling FUD.

I'm currently involved in some FDA filings, and the hurdles for getting a new use approved for something already on the market and GRAS are prodigious, I can only imagine the hurdles that they've forced these GM salmon to jump through to show that the salmon do not appear likely to pose a threat.