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CFS Announces Major Campaign, Calls Decision to Move Forward with Approval of GE Salmon “Misguided and Dangerous”

Salmon Would be First-Ever GE Food Animal
 
The Center for Food Safety today criticized an announcement by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) that it will potentially approve the long-shelved AquaBounty transgenic salmon as the first genetically engineered (GE) animal intended for human consumption.

“FDA’s decision to go ahead with this approval process is misguided and dangerous.  CFS has been following this issue for many years and our campaign will take all steps needed to halt any approval” said Andrew Kimbrell, Executive Director for the Center for Food Safety.  

FDA officials today contacted the Center for Food Safety about its upcoming approval process and posted information about potential approval and labeling of the engineered salmon.  This process includes public meetings scheduled for September 19-21 as well as a 60-day public comment period until Nov 22, 2010.  FDA plans to approve the GE salmon as a “veterinary drug,” a review process conceived before GE products became a reality. If the GE fish is approved, Agency officials are undecided as to whether they will require product labeling.

“In its announcement, FDA has yet failed to provide data on the food safety and environmental risks that this GE fish may pose,” said Jaydee Hanson, Policy Analyst for the Center for Food Safety.  “This animal should not be approved for human consumption until further study indicates that they are safe for consumers and the environment. The promise that the FDA would provide the data before the hearing is not good enough, in that it affords precious little time to assess the data the FDA is reviewing.”

The genetically engineered Atlantic salmon being considered was developed by AquaBounty Technologies, which artificially combined growth hormone genes from an unrelated Pacific salmon, (Oncorhynchus tshawytscha) with DNA from the anti-freeze genes of an eelpout (Zoarces americanus).  This modification causes production of growth-hormone year-round, creating a fish the company claims grows at twice the normal rate, allowing factory fish farms to crowd fish into pens and still get high production rates.

Genetically engineered fish pose serious risk to wild populations of fish.  Each year millions of farmed salmon escape from open-water net pens, outcompeting wild populations for resources and straining ecosystems. “We believe any approval of the salmon would represent a serious threat to the survival of native salmon populations already teetering on the brink of extinction,” said Kimbrell. 

Escaped GE salmon can pose an additional threat – genetic pollution resulting from what scientists call the “Trojan gene” effect.” Research published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences notes 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 generations.

In 2002, the National Academy of Sciences issued a report saying that GE fish could cause significant environmental and food safety problems. More recently, a 2009 study commissioned by the European Union revealed that fish engineered to grow faster have a resultant high tolerance to environmental toxins.  The study’s authors expressed grave concerns that both toxins and growth hormones had a high potential to end up in consumers’ bodies, calling for further tests to determine safety.

The AquaBounty company says that it will only produce sterile females; however fish are known to change sex. “FDA has difficulty tracking salmonella in hen eggs; to believe that the FDA can track whether salmon eggs are sterile or not is ludicrous” says Jaydee Hanson, Policy Analyst at the Center for Food Safety.

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The Center for Food Safety is a national, non-profit, membership organization founded in 1997 to protect human health and the environment by curbing the use of harmful food production technologies and by promoting organic and other forms of sustainable agriculture. CFS currently represents over 125,000 members across the nation. On the web at: http://www.centerforfoodsafety.org

*CFS has worked with many states to pass laws and regulations on GE fish: California, Washington, Oregon, Maryland, Michigan, Florida and Alaska have all passed laws or rules regulating GE salmon, and Alaska requires labeling for any GE fish product.

*A 2008 Consumer Reports poll found that the majority of Americans are concerned about consuming products from GE animals.  An additional 95 percent agreed that these products should, at the very least, be labeled.

Filed under: Aquaculture, Food Safety, GE Animals, GE Food, Politics and Policy