The Issues with GMO Salmon

What is the ratio­nale behind genet­i­cally engi­neered salmon? Why have sci­en­tists spliced genes from an eel-like crea­ture called the ocean pout into the genome of the Atlantic salmon? These genes crank out growth hor­mone year-round, result­ing in a fish that grows faster, cut­ting the time to reach mar­ket weight almost in half. This could mean cost sav­ings for fish farm­ers, lead­ing to higher prof­its for the salmon farm­ing indus­try and (they promise) lower prices for consumers.

But there are mas­sively dis­turb­ing eth­i­cal, envi­ron­men­tal, and health con­cerns that make the intro­duc­tion of Frankenfish highly controversial.

Corporations Given the Power to Create Life

Humans have been using nat­ural selec­tion for years to favor cer­tain genetic expres­sions in ani­mals and plants. But nat­ural selec­tion on the farm is entirely dif­fer­ent than tak­ing genes from two or more com­pletely dif­fer­ent crea­tures, and splic­ing them together in a laboratory.

Some peo­ple are con­cerned that the power to cre­ate new life now sits in the hands of cor­po­rate inter­ests. Others are dis­turbed by the notion of eat­ing genet­i­cally engi­neered ani­mals when there isn’t even so much as a label to give them choice in the matter.

With count­less more genet­i­cally engi­neered ani­mal cre­ations wait­ing for approval, the release of genet­i­cally engi­neered salmon could lead to a plethora of new life forms com­ing onto the mar­ket. John Robbins, author of The Food Revolution and many other best-sellers about food, health and the envi­ron­ment, calls this “Pandora’s Pantry.”

Impact on Oceans and Wild Salmon

AquaBounty, the com­pany behind the first Frankenfish, insists that their cre­ation poses no threat to wild salmon pop­u­la­tions. But research pub­lished in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences found that a release of just sixty GE salmon into a wild pop­u­la­tion of 60,000 would lead to the extinc­tion of the wild pop­u­la­tion in less than 40 fish generations.

AquaBounty insists that their fish will be raised in con­trolled pens and will never be released into the ocean, and that besides, their fish will be ster­ile. But every year, mil­lions of farmed fish escape from fish farms into the wild. It’s true that ini­tial intro­duc­tion of AquaBounty’s fish is slated for Panama in highly con­trolled pens. But AquaBounty is plan­ning to mar­ket the eggs, not the fish. Once the pro­duc­tion of GE fish becomes com­mer­cial­ized, it will be impos­si­ble to con­trol the where­abouts of every sin­gle indi­vid­ual and assure com­pli­ance with appro­pri­ate con­tain­ment mea­sures. Some degree of release may be inevitable.

As to ster­ile fish, at present, there is no guar­an­teed method to pro­duce 100% steril­ity. In fact, the FDA’s most recent study found that five per­cent of the ani­mals were in fact fer­tile. If large num­bers of fish escape, it doesn’t take a rocket sci­en­tist to deduce that some fer­tile fish might not only sur­vive in the wild, but thrive. Because AquaAdvantage fish grow many times faster, and become mature much more quickly, than wild salmon, they may have the abil­ity to out­com­pete wild salmon for food, and to repro­duce at a much faster rate.

By stip­u­lat­ing that AquaBounty’s fish will never by pro­duced in the United States, the com­pany was able to avoid hav­ing to con­duct a full Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) that would ana­lyze what would hap­pen if things don’t go as planned. So long as the fish are only pro­duced in coun­tries with rel­a­tively lax envi­ron­men­tal laws, they may be able to get away with­out fur­ther study.

But if the fish escape into the wild, they won’t stop swim­ming at national bor­ders. This means that if they sur­vive in the wild any­where, they may soon be dri­ving wild salmon into obliv­ion every­where. The impact on marine and fresh­wa­ter ecosys­tems, and on the eco­nomic well­be­ing of fish-dependent coastal com­mu­ni­ties, could be devastating.

The FDA chose to review AquAdvantage as an ani­mal drug, rather than a human food. In the FDA’s view, the refash­ioned DNA that is in every cell of the fish’s body is con­sid­ered a drug, and that’s what the agency is reg­u­lat­ing. If approved, the AquAdvantage salmon would not only be the first GE ani­mal approved for human con­sump­tion, but also the first ani­mal drug that’s the­o­ret­i­cally capa­ble of swim­ming off into the ocean and reproducing.

Is It Safe to Eat?

The FDA con­cluded the salmon to be “as safe as food from con­ven­tional (farmed) Atlantic salmon.” While this might be debat­able, con­sid­er­ing that the genetic makeup of the fish is a new cre­ation, and there have been no long-term stud­ies con­ducted on humans actu­ally con­sum­ing genet­i­cally engi­neered salmon, let’s sup­pose for the moment that the FDA’s con­clu­sion is accurate.

Is being as safe as con­ven­tional farmed salmon such a great thing? Salmon has been widely touted for its preva­lence of Omega 3 essen­tial fatty acids. And it’s true that wild salmon has low lev­els of many of the con­t­a­m­i­nants found in other fish. But farmed Atlantic salmon is an entirely dif­fer­ent matter.

Jane Houlihan of the Environmental Working Group com­ments: “Nearly all (farmed) salmon (that) Americans eat are grown in dense-packed pens near ocean shores, fed fish meal that can be pol­luted with toxic PCB chem­i­cals, awash in excre­ment flushed out to sea and infused with antibi­otics to com­bat unsan­i­tary conditions.”

Many med­ical experts are already rec­om­mend­ing reduc­ing farmed salmon con­sump­tion to one serv­ing per month or less. Compared to wild salmon, stud­ies have found farmed salmon to have sig­nif­i­cantly higher con­cen­tra­tions of con­t­a­m­i­nants, includ­ing such lovely sub­stances as PCBs, diox­ins, dield­rin, and toxaphene.

If AquaAdvantage does come to mar­ket on a large scale, and if it does reduce the cost of farmed salmon, thus mak­ing it more widely avail­able and more afford­able, is this really a boon to a hun­gry world? Or might it be a recipe for even more can­cer and envi­ron­men­tal pollution?

What You Can Do

Tell the FDA what you think: If you are dis­turbed by the prospect of a solid green light being given to sale of genet­i­cally engi­neered salmon in the United States, now is a great time to speak up. The FDA’s com­ment period lasts until February 25. You can sub­mit com­ments online, or sign peti­tions like this one.

Take action for label­ing: Genetically engi­neered crops are already unla­beled, inad­e­quately tested, and present in an esti­mated 75% of the foods in America’s restau­rants and super­mar­ket shelves. Surveys have found that as much as ninety-three per­cent of the American pub­lic sup­ports the label­ing of genet­i­cally engi­neered foods. Perhaps the prospect of genet­i­cally altered ani­mals pour­ing onto American din­ner plates with­out label­ing will tip us over the edge from con­cern into action. To sup­port label­ing, sign the Food Revolution Network and Care2′s peti­tion to Congress, or the Just Label It Campaign’s peti­tion to the FDA.

Protect your­self and your fam­ily: You can get a non-GMO shop­ping guide and mobile app that can help you and your fam­ily avoid genet­i­cally engi­neered foods if you want to do so. And the Food Revolution Network offers a com­pli­men­tary no-GMO action pack.

Ocean Robbins

Ocean Robbins is founder and co-host (with best-selling author John Robbins) of the 60,000 mem­ber Food Revolution Network, an ini­tia­tive to help you heal your body, and your world… with food.