The Case against Genetically Modified Salmon

Consumer Reaction
Consumers have cer­tainly been react­ing to this corporate-profit-over-public-safety sce­nario. Since the deci­sion now in front of the FDA became pub­lic, nearly 200,000 com­ments oppos­ing it have been posted on the CFS web­site. And not long ago a nation­wide poll, con­ducted by Lake Research Partners for Food and Water Watch, found that 91 per­cent of Americans polled believe the FDA should not allow genet­i­cally engi­neered fish or meat into the marketplace.

So, too, have politi­cians been voic­ing their con­cerns. According to a recent arti­cle posted on ge-fish.org, a web­site pub­lished by the Center for Food Safety to address this spe­cific issue, 40 rep­re­sen­ta­tives and sen­a­tors have called on the FDA to halt approval of genet­i­cally engi­neered salmon.

Although the FDA held a for­mal hear­ing on September 19, it has yet to announce its deci­sion. Fortunately, there is a pub­lic com­ment period last­ing until November 22—and the already plen­ti­ful com­ments are expected to mount. The site where you can add your remarks is listed at the end of this article.

They Blinded the FDA with “Science”
“The FDA asked AquaBounty Technologies to pro­duce food safety and envi­ron­men­tal data on the ani­mals,” Hanson explained. “The com­pany did incred­i­bly small sam­ple sizes in their stud­ies. They made the kinds of mis­takes that you would expect a fresh­man in high school—not a PhD fish­ery scientist—to make in research design. The largest sam­ple size of the fish being pro­posed as food, exam­ined for mor­phol­ogy, was 12 ani­mals. They found that the skele­tons are worse than in nor­mal farmed salmon, that their jaws are eroded more than in nor­mal farmed salmon, that their gills are enlarged and that their flesh is inflamed. But they say that it’s OK to eat.

“When they looked for pos­si­ble aller­gic reac­tions, they exam­ined 6 fish. The kind they’re propos­ing be sold as food is a ster­ile vari­ety, which they com­pared to a genet­i­cally engi­neered fer­tile vari­ety. The FDA said, ‘The aller­gic effects of the fer­tile one looked bad enough to keep it off the mar­ket, but the ster­ile one is okay.’ Well, this is sick fish, and the sam­ple size is so small you can’t pos­si­bly say yes or no.”

Apparently the opin­ions of expert advi­sors have lit­tle effect on the FDA. “The FDA has to have a vet­eri­nary med­i­cine advi­sory com­mit­tee look at the data,” Hanson said. “Nearly all of them said the sci­en­tific data was inad­e­quate. However, it is an advi­sory com­mit­tee. The FDA doesn’t have to take their advice; it could still approve the fish.”

No Label, Says FDA
Following the approval hear­ing, which the FDA has already con­ducted, a hear­ing was held regard­ing the label­ing of genet­i­cally mod­i­fied salmon. “The FDA is argu­ing that this genetic con­struct is just the same as nat­ural con­structs, and there­fore it doesn’t need to be labeled because it’s the same thing that we’ve been eat­ing,” Hanson said.

Nutritionally and flavor-wise, the fish gets low marks. “By the company’s own data, this fish has less omega-3 and omega-6 fatty acids than reg­u­lar farmed salmon in worse ratios,” Hanson argued. “It tastes insipid. When you com­pare ordi­nary farm salmon to wild salmon, it doesn’t taste as good because it doesn’t have the fats that give the fish that good taste. The genet­i­cally mod­i­fied salmon is not going to taste as good as even reg­u­lar farm salmon. So basi­cally every­thing you eat salmon for, it doesn’t have, or it’s got less of than any other kind of salmon.”

The envi­ron­men­tal safety of areas sur­round­ing the breed­ing areas for the genet­i­cally engi­neered salmon has also not been addressed prop­erly, accord­ing to Hanson.

“The FDA is rec­om­mend­ing what they call ‘approval with lim­its,’” said Hanson. “The lim­its are the com­pany has to grow the fer­tile fish to pro­duce the eggs that they then ster­il­ize up at Prince Edward Island, Canada—which is in the mid­dle of the Bay of Fundy where Atlantic salmon have his­tor­i­cally been. The com­pany says that mix­ing in with wild fish won’t be a prob­lem because they’re ster­il­iz­ing the fish; but even their own data says that, at best, 98 per­cent of these are sterile.

“Then they say that their facil­ity is far enough back from any water that there’s no prob­lem of cross-contamination. Well, they are 120 feet from tidal waters. Then they say that they’re at a high enough ele­va­tion that it’s no prob­lem. They’re at 23 feet. I went down to look at the Gulf Coast after Katrina and there was a storm surge over 40 feet. In the envi­ron­men­tal assess­ment, the com­pany says that shouldn’t be a prob­lem because no large storms ever hit Prince Edward Island. They’re right on the North Atlantic, famous for storms, and they had the tail end of a hur­ri­cane hit the week before the FDA hearing.”

Food Safety Advocates
The good news is the Center for Food Safety has become involved. On the front lines of bat­tle against genetic mod­i­fi­ca­tion, the orga­ni­za­tion has already suc­ceeded in halt­ing the plant­ing of genet­i­cally mod­i­fied alfalfa and sugar beets, pend­ing full envi­ron­men­tal impact studies.

The stop­ping of genet­i­cally mod­i­fied salmon is a key issue of which CFS is fully aware.

“This is just a way for them to get a run­ning start on genet­i­cally mod­i­fy­ing ani­mals,” Hanson con­cluded. “AquaBounty has two other fish it wants approval on: one a trout and one a tilapia. These are of the same genetic machin­ery. I think their thought is if they get the salmon approved it should be easy to get the other fish approved.

“Elsewhere, the University of Guelph in Canada has devel­oped a pig with a gene from a fun­gus intro­duced into it that breaks down phos­pho­rous. Their idea is this pig could be crowded together with other pigs and not pro­duce as much pol­lu­tion. They’re call­ing it the ‘enviro-pig.’

“Yet another com­pany has actu­ally devel­oped what they call a mad-cow-resistant cow—to which I say, we already know how to keep cows from get­ting mad cow dis­ease: don’t feed them ground-up sheep!”

Visit http://ge-fish.org to get the lat­est in the fight against genet­i­cally mod­i­fied salmon and to find out how you can help.

For more infor­ma­tion on the Center for Food Safety and their projects, visit http://truefoodnow.org.