 Food and Drug Administration officials are meeting to decide if genetically modified salmon will be swimming their way into the US's food system. Advocates both for and against the approval of AquaBounty Technologies' genetically modified AquAdvantage® Salmon as a food source met in Washington yesterday and today in a series of hearings orchestrated by the FDA. Dr. Larissa Rudenko of the FDA, stated that the group has not yet made a decision, but that they "are looking for good and constructive conversation." Because this analysis is entirely new ground for the FDA, their Veterinary Medicine Advisory Committee is using the regulations they would to evaluate veterinary pharmaceuticals, rather those used for than food safety. According to Section 5 of the group's overview of this engineered Atlantic salmon, "That rDNA construct meets the definition of a 'drug' under the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act" as "an article intended to alter the structure or function of the body of man or animal." Aqua Bounty Technologies, the developer, has filed a new animal drug application under those guidelines. This allows the AquAdvantage® Salmon to grow to twice the size it normally would, in half the time, as well as effectively rendering the vast majority of the fish sterile - which both prevents the altered fish to breed with wild populations of fish, and protects the company's intellectual material. "Both land-based resources and aquaculture resources are stressed as are wild-caught fisheries, and without improvements in productivity and efficiency, it's hard to imagine how we'll meet the protein needs of the developing population over the next 20 to 30 years," AquaBounty Technologies Executive Director, President and Chief Executive Officer Dr. Ron Stotish told the committee on Monday. Dr. Yonathan Zohar, chair of the Department of Marine Biotechnology at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County agreed, saying, "There is no doubt in my mind that these kinds of technologies need to make it to the industry." He also noted he believes the research will lead to developing fish with higher disease resistance and more environmental tolerance. "And if we do it right, there will also be health benefits." Opponents of this modified salmon's entry into the food system assert that while FDA members generally considered the fish to be safe for consumption, there simply has not been enough testing, nor a period of time enough to assess its longer-term impact on the ecosystem or the human body. "This is a dangerously limited set of data. Even the FDA acknowledges problems in the sample size, what's the rush?" said Wenonah Hauter, with the consumer watchdog group Food & Water Watch. Catch up on all of Eatocracy's GMO coverage. |
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I agree with the comment that people over the world are starving because of politics. There is more than enough food to feed the planet, but it is not distributed evenly or as needed. What the issue of genetically altered salmon really points to is that population control is an emergency. If humanity is considering creating a product that is not found in nature because there are so many people who need food, it is clearly time to address the out of control populating of the earth. Only then will the world be in balance, only then will humans and nature be able to live in balance.
First off, those who are starving in today's world are not starving because there is a lack of food, but because of politics. There is a huge surplus of both soy and corn (also genetically modified) which is literally found in almost everything packaged as "food" today. Shut down Monsanto at this point, and maybe you have an argument for world hunger. Secondly, salmon is not now, and I doubt it ever will be, marketed to the starving populations of the world. It is marketed to the middle and upper classes. And who says it WON'T ever be turned loose in the wild? You want to take that risk? Whether sterile or not, they are going to eat (and compete) with wild salmon.
You eat the fish and you get vaccinated that should say it all, WTF giving vaccines to people in such a way that could be abused is disgusting and wrong.
FDA should say NO and MAKE GMOs lable their foods.
If it looks like a fish ,swims like a fish, and smells like a fish, it's probably a fish.
any animal finding its self in an unknown env will have adaptations to survive and reproduce. Life will find a way these fish might be the answer but when you tinker with genetics it will come back to bite you in the butt. How do we know what is going to happen the answer we do not. i would not want to eat genetically tinkered fish not here in the florida sunshine state. something will happen it always does.
I don't have a problem with using technology, such as genetic engineering, to help solve some of the world's problems. My fear, though, is that the modern capitalistic drive causes us to keep using technologies that we still don't understand the full ramifications of. With respect to genetic engineering, science's understanding of genetics is miniscule at this stage. Modification of genes is really not a whole lot more sophisticated than "see what works." And yet we are well aware that subtle genetic anomalies could have horrific consequences ranging from creating a genetic disease that wipes out a species to inadvertly creating a virus that wipes out many species. And once these things are unleashed its nearly impossible to stop them (in large part because once you realize there is a problem it is too widespread to undo). The same issue exists in many other modern industries as well.
Although I doubt it will actually happen, it seems prudent to say that for technologies with the high potential for catastrophic consequences due to subtle unknown side-effects there should be a minimum number of years (think decades) before the new product is allowed to come to market. If during that time the technology becomes better understand to the point that the risk potential becomes negligible then the process can be accelerated.
I wonder if it taste fishy?
Any farm raised fish? PASS ON IT.
Next you will hear that fishing for wild salmon is illegal..endangerd species...All you will get is fatcat farm fish.
Well, when all the wild life has been patented by big corporations, you will only be getting what you deserve..Controlled economic conditons..that's about how it is now anyway. Why fight, right?
We cant even write computer programs that dont have bugs ... now we are going to "recombinate" DNA and expect it to be safe???? Let the inventors eat it a few years and tell me how it goes.
Wait till the food industry that cant even keep chicken eggs clean gets ahold of this tech.
This is directed to our GMO pusher Jim with the PHD.
Hey genius... perhaps you missed something here.. these are genetically Atlantic Salmon with added genes from Pacific Chinook (another Salmon species), and an eel like fish called a pout. While the genetic difference makes the majority sterile.. there is a small percentage that are not, and these non sterile fish are what? Atlantic Salmon.
Now tell me something Mr. PhD... If the majority of the genome is what again? (Atlantic Salmon) That means they can breed with what fish again? (Atlantic Salmon) This means what? It means that if any of these genetically modified fish manage to escape into the wild and come into contact with wild species of Atlantic Salmon they will do what? Need a clue? Perhaps some assistance in making the mental connection to reality here that you seem so disconnected from?
Yes Mr. genius.. they will BREED and REPRODUCE. Contaminating wild populations with unnatural genetic sequences that nature never intended to happen. You have a percentage of viable fish. SOME of that material will survive and be passed on, and on, and on. Mutations will occur. Some young from these fish will survive, most will die out, but the survivors will be more likely to have the genetics to survive as well, and thus their genetic material... contaminated by an un-natural inclusion of DNA from another species.. will also continue.
So Mr. PhD... while you might be smart... You are obviously not thinking things through far enough to understand the potential ramifications this can have. If even ONE of these fish produce any viable young in the wild should they escape (and the potential is there because there is a percentage of these fish that are NOT sterile), then the wild populations of Atlantic Salmon will be irrecoverably contaminated with an un-natural genome that WILL propagate itself throughout the entire species eventually.
Do you really want to eat something that was genetically manipulated by a minimum wage worker? If the fish dont breed on their own (theyre sterile) thats the only way it will be economically viable.
These genetically modified things are farm fish. Fish farms are great if they are well away from rivers which empty into the sea or into major lakes and if they are fed farm products. If they drain into natural waterways they are heavy polluters and sources of disease. Fish farms almost all feed fish or foods made from fish! The amount of sea fish used will eventually be more than anyone ever dreamed of being caught for human food-fish fishing. That will deprive larger fish including wild food fish of their prey. It will also starve some kinds of whales, seals and other marine mammals. Tens of millions of dollars of the funding for environmental attacks on small fishing boat operators come from investors in the fish farm business. They are attempting to eliminate family fishing and to leave the market to the fish farmers. That does not mean that the environmentalists necessarily understand this motive, but I hope some read this and investigate.
I don't want to eat anything that is someone’s intellectual property. Something that is alive shouldn't be patentable. If you can't create one in nature you shouldn't do it artificially. A pout and a salmon are not kin folks so hybridizing couldn't be done naturally.
Great post. I wish I had said that.
There are even companies which want to release their patented fish into the sea and sue any fishermen who catch them.
I figure that is how globalist work..take over everything, everyone fed..control of everything..everybody beholden.
"as well as effectively rendering the vast majority of the fish sterile – which both prevents the altered fish to breed with wild populations of fish, and protects the company's intellectual material."
My concern, and I readily acknowledge this may be a bit out there, is that this becomes regular practice and much of our food is a company's 'intellectual material'. Decades down the road, when wild animals and plants survival is further stressed beyond the point of being harvestable, suddenly our entire food supply is beholden to a few corporations.
Well, it's easy to spot the industry plants it seems, they're not even trying, lol.
Would be great to see the long term effect of this... one possiblity: those who eat them start aging twice as fast. LOL
YESSSS, FINALLY. The world needs more salmon. Opponents, I don't get how fish+fish+fish=cancer. It's not like they're injecting bat genes or something. Please explain why big fish that grow fast and take the strain off the wild population is such a terrible thing ("it [can be] bad for the environment" is not an answer).
Only a small percentage of the diet becomes salmon meat. Why we do not become vegetarian and thus have less impact. Otherwise we should breed octopus or alligator or other poikilotherm, more than 66% of their diet is used for growth.
People have opposed genetically modified food from the start at the expense of the starving. I'm sure people who are starving don't give a damn if it's been genetically altered. IF YOU'RE IN FAVOR OF LETTING STARVING PEOPLE CONTINUE TO STARVE PLEASE OPPOSE GENETICALLY MODIFIED FOOD.
I will continue to oppose genetically modified food and I will do everything in my power to keep it from the market place.
Whats the big debate? If you eat corn, cereal, bread, or drink most bottled beverages you have consumed a genetically altered food or food product. Many of man's produce had to evolve through genetic experimentation. Put the holier than thou stuff away or starve.
Wow.. this poll is a sack of trash.
What happened to the poll that was at the top of this article before? Was it not effective enough in coercing people into accepting GM salmon?
Do we the Salmon get a say in this? While you humans haggle over GMO's the economy and Jersey shore we are getting poked, prodded and gene reconstructed. Personally the majority of you sound amateurish. You have a choice.
Keep us "real"
I don't mind if you eat us just let us be normal. Please and thank you! (shhh please don't tell on me I am just a fry still in the redd and can get into a lot of trouble for this.)
I'm not too worried about eating it, more-so what happens if these things get into the wild and out-competing native species. As a society we've demanded unlimited rights to reproduce without any restraint and as such need food sources that can sustain this. However well current methods of agriculture suffice, ultimately the problem may require this type of engineering. There are also risks inherent with using growth hormones, antibiotics, pesticides and the like with mass-farmed foods but despite the myriad number of diseases and disorders we are hearing about the average life expectancy remains high. That said, these risks are nothing to ignore but they are one of the costs of sustaining the current lifestyle of modern humanity.
STILL HERE WITH ONE MORE THOUGHT. Do you remember those radium dial watches, the ones that "glowed in the dark"
long before digital led watches? Little old ladies would paint the watch dials with a very fine paint brush dipped in a solution containing low levels of radium. The Government said there was no health hazard. Soon those little old ladies began to develop mouth cancer and other radiation caused illnesses.
MY GOVERNMENT WOULD NEVER LIE TO ME!
Face it Marcus, the world is ending. If I were you, I'd lie down and die right now.
Now if they could breed them with in ingrown alder wood board for smoking, that would be something!
I wonder if the fact that these Salmon are sterile will impact the human race at some time in the future. It will take several generations to realize something is terribly wrong and not a whole lot anyone can do about it.
STUPID PEOPLE SHOULD NOT BE REPRODUCING ANYWAY!
Calm down America. Think of it this way; when you eat your genetically modified salmon along with a side dish of genetically modified corn while having a drink of growth hormone infused milk loaded with trace amounts of antibiotics the food industry will get rich, you'll get full and human beings will start to assimilate the modified DNA into their own bodies. I can't wait to see what it does to the human race!
IT'S NOT NICE TO FOOL MOTHER NATURE!
If you eat food, you eat GMOs, It is estimated that 70% or more of the convenience foods contain GMOs because they contain things like soybean oil, high fructose corn syrup, cottonseed oil, which are made, get this, from GMO corn cotton and soy. Have you grown a corn cob on your head yet? How is that DNA assimilation working for you?
Hey brainphreak, considering your comments regarding intelligence, perhaps you should lower your own rating for yourself. It was Soylent Green, you idiot.
I love how people are already assuming it tastes bad before they've eaten it.
My feelings are mixed on the issue – I really have yet to see a particularly logical argument FOR or AGAINST it. Most against it claim either "it's unnatural", which has been answered – many crops are unnatural as well. These Frankenfish are also genetically modified so they can NOT breed, so people don't need to worry about it infiltrating wild salmon. As for Jurassic Park as mentioned... these aren't dinosaurs. Fish aren't going to kill you. HOWEVER, those in favor of it point out it could help world hunger – this claim is used ALL of the time.
A few intelligent PhD students and college professors have pooled in actual, logical discussion, which is something wonderful, but like all modern issues, this clearly looks to be mostly one side versus another. Great people can cause terrible things, and terrible people can cause great discoveries. The world is not black and white, it is shades of gray.
My honest thoughts right now is to continue testing the product for an extended period for a superior study of the possible health benefits and also to study in a controlled environment the possibility of escape and affects on wildlife. If the studies are successful, go for it in five to ten more years. If not? Modify the genes, fix the problem and try, try again.
My problem with them is precisely that they cannot breed. The fact that they cannot breed implies that every single one of them is the product of a process of gene manipulation. Imagine an industry that hires minimum wage workers to handle this process. It would be better if they made a small set of fish that they knew were good then bred them to make more.
The issue isn't whether or not genetically modifying an organism is possible. It is, we consume drugs, hormones, food from transgenic organism all the time. The question is, do I trust *this* company to perform this correctly? I've read the VMAC Briefing Packet. I wonder if the scientists who posted comments here have read this packet and trust that this company will not make a mistake in the areas that it says it will not make a mistake in (choosing the correct insert location, making sure they aren't breaking other genes, etc)? What is this company's track record? What other transgenic products does this company have under its belt?
I hope that the FDA have experts who can take a look at this company's protocol and make sure that they aren't screwing something up...and that they institute a trial of sorts before releasing this product to the general public.
Okay, first of all people if you are going to post a study conclusion or information, CITE THE ACTUAL STUDY!! That way those of us who are ecucated in the field can actually look at the study design, spot confounders, look at confidence intervals of statistics, etc.
Second, remember when everyone said anti-bacterial soaps and hand sanitizers would stop germs from spreading and were going to be the best thing that has happened to public health since vaccines? Anyone read about the SUPERBUGS lately? Anyone here know about MRSA? How about the over-antibiotic usage in animals pumpin us up with antibiotics and giving SUPERBUGS the opportunity to spread???
Seriously people? Science isn't always for the better...and I shall quote a famous researcher now "If we knew what we were doing, it wouldn't be RE-search" Albert Einstein
I think we should go back to the way things were two hundred years ago. The air was pure the water was cleaner, the food was all natural, and the life expectancy was about 40…… oh wait never mind.
Exactly. The only reason we worry about cancer and Alzheimer's now is that we finally live long enough to get those diseases....
I do not buy genetically modified food products now, nor do I plan to ever. The big problem with this argument is proponents' linking the development of genetically modified fish with the need to "meet the protein needs of the developing population". This is misleading. The typical American is currently eating more protein than they need. A person needs only 0.36 grams of protein for every pound of body weight, which for a 170 pound person means 61 grams. Protein should only be 15% of a person's total caloric intake. And guess what? This is easily met without huge fish or even any meat at all.
First off, if you eat food, you eat genetically modified food. Even if you grow it yourself. There is not one single kernel of corn in the world that does not has a trace of altered DNA in it. Same for many other crops. Second, one CANNOT get enough protein to support the human brain without regular consumption of MEAT. That's why the vegans all get sick, the diet doesn't work. Not saying we should eat meat every day, but at least once a week.
Howie, actually for my weight, I only need 48 grams of protein a day, which is easy to do without meat. I have been doing it for 20 years and during that time I have gotten a high school diploma, a bachelor's and master's degree (so my brain has been sufficiently fortified), have had two children and nursed them each over a year (so I have had strength and endurance) and I have never been seriously ill (so the diet has supported my health). My body and my brain are holding up well, I would say!
I don't eat GMO because we stick to organic food, which by its very definition is non-GMO. I see from another post of yours that you mistakenly think organic produce does not taste good. If you see only wilted organic produce in your grocery store, it is because it has sat around too long. You should never buy wilted produce! A farm that actually grows the fruit and vegetables is a far better place to go and you will find the taste and prices much better too. Find one near you at localharvest.org. We get a large box of organic produce for $12 a week. And the taste is far superior to anything in a grocery store! I encourage everyone to check it out and support their local farmers.
If this "Frankenfish" Salmon grows twice as fast as regular Salmon, how could it possibly taste like real Salmon? Also, what about the change in taste and/or nutrition based on the altered DNA received from the other 2 species, Chinook and the eel like "Ocean Pout" fish. Yuck..! Neither sounds tasty to me. I like my Salmon as is, and I for one am sick and tired of having my food altered, processed, irradiated, genetically modified and manipulated to the point that it no longer tastes anything like the original. Take tomatoes for instance: Hard, pink tasteless, scentless, irradiated tomatoes are all you can get at the grocery store anymore. Real tomatoes have a distinct, sweet/tart flavor and strong fragrant smell. Consumers should stop accepting the fakes and look a likes and demand real food by shopping at whole food markets, farmers markets and I guess from now on, local fisherman for real, untainted Salmon/sea food. As long as consumers keep demanding "real" food, the more it will continue to be provided by those in the food industry who still have integrity and a desire to produce authentic food that provides the best flavor and health benefits to humans as possible.
Ahhh, Chinook is a breed of salmon - still doesn't sound tasty? It must be that Russkie alteration of a native american name that makes this prized eating fish taste bad...
It always makes me sad to see that the strongest opinions coming from the least informed people.
Stupid people don't know they're stupid. Uneducated people lack the perspective to recognize their ignorance.
And whichever side you are on, you probably think I'm talking about the OTHER side.
I'm intrigued by the many comments from those who feel that GM food will solve all the world's food supply problems. So tell me supporters, given that nearly all the corn and soy produced in North America is GM (and we certainly have an over-abundance of the stuff), why hasnt hunger been eradicated world wide? Why hasnt hunger even been eradicated in this country?? Sorry, but its a crock. I'm not saying the planet isnt over populated or becoming more so with each passing year, but GMO's are questionnable at best.
GMO's were first introduced into the U.S. food supply in the 1990's and since then we have seen an astronomical increase in certain diseases (namely, cancers, heart disease, infertility, diabetes, autism, food allergies). Coincidence??
It's interesting that Europe and Canada require that all food products containing or having been raised on GMOs must be labeled as such. Wonder why thats not the case in the US? Wonder why Monsanto sues dairy farmers who don't treat their cows with bovine growth hormone and accordingly markets their products as being free from it?
Wise up, it all comes down to profits. Profits at the expense of health and the environment. Do some research- there's loads of it out there.
I love a good conspiracy theory...so who killed JFK? was 9/11 an inside job?
What you've just said is one of the most insanely idiotic things I have ever heard. At no point in your rambling, incoherent response were you even close to anything that could be considered a rational thought. Everyone in this board is now dumber for having listened to it. I award you no points, and may God have mercy on your soul.
'GMO's were first introduced into the U.S. food supply in the 1990's and since then we have seen an astronomical increase in certain diseases (namely, cancers, heart disease, infertility, diabetes, autism, food allergies). Coincidence??"
Stupidity as well, it would seem.
It's funny when people say "well it was tested by the FDA!" Like that's supposed to mean something. It sure doesn't give me a sense of well being.
Woo Hoo lets grow em – i bet its gonna make salmon skin rolls a LOT cheaper at my sushi joint.
I don't want to share the waters with anything man made.
Some say "Frankendogs," others call them English Mastiffs. Three cheers for people who failed high school biology!
So it seems that these people have never read Jurassic Park, in which you have people playing around with the DNA of creatures of nature. If you seen in the article that the company is breeding them to be sterile. Well it said a vast majority to be that way so that the company can still make money from breeding them. What is a vast majority?? That could mean 75% are sterile and the other 25% and breed. What happens to the offspring of that 25%. And what will the company that is breeding them do mess with the DNA some more to make them all sterile? What about the fact that mutation happen naturally in nature, you are now talking about a creature whose DNA you have messed with? They say on the adverage they live about 5 years seeing that they muture and return to the river to spawn. And discounting this possiblity what about the fact you are now introducing a larger fish into the ECO system and food chain almost overnight. What will it do to the food chain what food will be hurt by this new species of fish?
To become vegetarian is to step into the stream which leads to nirvana. —Buddha.
who cares about eating it, Stock our parks and LETS FISH
In theory; Big fish eat small fish, so if these huge genetic alter salmon fish, some how are (unknowingly) introduced in the wild. What is there in the wild to prevent the smaller natural salmon fish to become fish food for these huge genetic alter frankenfish.
Prediction: Robert Roy will die in South America after drinking poison Kool Aid.
The only problem I see with this is the part were they say "Both land-based resources and aquaculture resources are stressed as are wild-caught fisheries, and without improvements in productivity and efficiency, it's hard to imagine how we'll meet the protein needs of the developing population over the next 20 to 30 years," hello there are wild pigs tearing up our country why are we not using them for protien they are good to eat ya know.
Genetically modified food is fine. You eat DNA all the time when you eat different animals. Do you turn into a fish when you eat normal fish? .. nope. I'm not for the use of HGH to make them bigger but altering the DNA of a creature is perfectly fine and I think many of you complainers will soon find out that there is nothing to fear.
Hey guys, it's not about the taste. What is being done to us in the name of bigger or better taste or cost reduction is not relevant to the problem of creating something which is not natural and HAS BEEN PROVEN to alter whatever eats it to MODIFY THEM GENETICLY. Link to the research that's already been done and realize we are rolling the dice geneticly...just because we can, And for the sake of big business who's aim is to claim ownership of the food we eat... ALL the food we eat ! If you are not aware of what is going on ...make an effort to educate yourselves. Once we turn the corner on this stuff we won't be able to recall the damage. And damage has already been done repeatedly with the worst yet to come. The aim here is to control food, not improve anything. Just like the aim is to control all of earth's resources so business will have a free rein to charge whatever they want...and they want it ALL. That's the aim...that's the end. Government has no current plan to control this abuse and shows no signs of interest of ever doing so. There is already a massive effort also to control 1st amendment freedom of speech regarding GMO foods...that's right ...you will be arrested for your opinion...Good Luck and remember you now have the facts and still have the right to act. It won't last long. Many countries have banned GMO foods for good cause. Those countries still have their freedom of speech.
If you want to be free, be free, because there’s a million things to be.
Right on brotha!!
I would be interested in reading the data that you are referencing. In what journal were they published?
the problem isn't with the science it's with the government. the reason why gmo foods aren't getting to third world countries is because we aren't making accessible to them we sell it to them at high prices and force them to become indebted to us, gmo crops are actually the cause poverty in some places. We force our gmos into those third world countries and what happens to the local farmers, displaced, homeless, forced into poverty. . it's all about a control over our food and our minds. it's the reason why gmo foods aren't labeled and small farmers are being taken out. they want freedom for themselves to do as they please and they want restrictions on us and the things we can know or do. in a contradictory move the seed companies say that the gmo food is genetically no different than normal food so they don't have to label their products as gmo. but they also go and say its different so that they can have patents on the genes and sue others for "stealing" their "intellectual material." the government approves of both because the heads of the seed companies are also heads in the government. there really is no sure way to know if GMO foods are harmful, but the crap they spray on them is and the way the government doesn't regulate is. people need to wake up and see that the government's only interest is increasing its power. control the food, control the world.
I think it's interesting how people think in absolutes related to food and genetic engineering. Like everything natural is healthy and everything created in a lab is going to kill you... Yea right. This screams ignorance. I do think there needs to be a long term study done with a significant sample size before this is released into the mainstream market. If it's done correctly this could provide the health benefits of salmon at a lower price. That would be great! As long as it's safe to both consumers and the environment.
So according to a different article from the Center of Food Safety (http://www.centerforfoodsafety.org/geneticall7.cfm), 70 75% of all processed food has some form of GMO in it. I'm guessing that the vast majority of Americans have eaten processed foods at some point in time. So how come we're not all dead, or have a third arm, or 9 foot tall?
Just a bunch of gloom and doom about nothing. What you need to be afraid of is all the cross breeding of poodles with other breeds of dogs so people can put the suffix "-oodle" on their dog. That's just scary.
Look, I’m working on a PhD in genetics and molecular biology, so here’s a quick bio lesson for those interested, and those not interested might also take a look, you might learn something.
For starters, everything we eat has genes in it. That might seem like a silly statement to some, but the fact is, many people don’t realize this. Every bit of food we eat that was derived from either a plant, animal, fungus, protozoan or bacteria contains the things those organisms were made of; their proteins, their carbohydrates, their fats which anyone who watches their diet is aware of, it’s right there on the nutrition label. The thing is, every living thing also has DNA, and that’s something that does not show up on the nutrition info, even though it absolutely is in there.
Everything you eat contains the DNA of the organisms it is made from, and as such, every time you eat food, you are eating the genes of another organism. Now here’s the crazy part; we don’t spontaneously turn into fish people when we eat fish or cow people when we eat beef, and vegans don’t turn into soy people. The deal is our bodies are adapted to breaking down these molecules into their base components and reassembling them for its own needs. That is one of the most basic functions of life. You cannot be harmed by eating a modified gene; the only organism affected by the modification is the organism in which the gene functioned. The only danger that would arise for the person who is consuming the GM food is if the product of the gene was toxic at levels found in the meat. That could happen in some cases, but this does not appear to be one of them.
Here’s a quick test: Lets list out the animals involved in this new breed of salmon; we have the Atlantic salmon, the Pacific Chinook salmon, and the ocean pout. Can you safely eat Atlantic salmon? Yes. Can you safely eat Pacific Chinook salmon? Yes. Can you safely eat ocean pout? Yes. It’s generally a safe bet then that you can safely eat whatever kind of “frankenfish” they could derive from these 3 animals. When they start listing genes from things like Clostridium botulinum, or Pfiesteria piscicid, then you might want to raise an eyebrow.
Now as for environmental implications; if this thing could reproduce on its own and invaded natural fisheries, I’m pretty sure it would decimate the wild populations, but that is another topic of discussion.
In all reproduction of life there is a chance of mutation. In normal reproductive processes the chance of a toxic mutation is trivially small. But how much more risk is produced when the dna is constantly being manipulated through artificial means? Especially when it gets out of the development stage and into the industrialized processing by unskilled labor sources?
THANK YOU for dropping some knowledge on these people! Ladies and gentlemen, I also studied biochemistry, what he said is correct. People that say anything else are just fear mongering or simply don't understand. It's unfortunate that ignorance can cause such turmoil.
Thank you for this intelligent post, but I'm afraid it will still not sway the argument of the anti GMO posters. Some people will never listen even to a biologist with who has studied the subject for years. Science is the one thing people love to bash the most, but when a problem arises that only biotech can solve...they flock to seek its help.
Don't think for one second these GMO's are going to feed anyone in a third world country. That's what seed company's like Monsanto push just so that people will accept genetically modifying food as "good." It is true what Veggiedude is saying about GMOs not being able to contained and then the company's who make them go and sue farmers who's crops have been crossed with the GMO crops on the grounds that the gene in their crops is patented and the fact that the gene now exists in someone else's crop even though they didn't want it is infringement. The worst part is company's are planting GMO crops running tests on animals without any government regulation. So many people don't even realize that they are eating GMOs everyday. There have been tests on the impact of these foods and it has been shown that the individuals who consumed GMO foods everyday experienced depressed immune systems, organ failure, and infertility. I'm not saying science isn't a good thing and that we should abandon all progress but let's not go and make hasty decisions about things we don't fully understand. In the case of GMO salmon, there is no certainty that the GMO salmon is safe to eat or that the GMO salmon will be able to contained. So maybe we should wait before we start saying things like this will be the end to world hunger because it won't. And to CommonSense, Organic is not the latest marketing scam. Organic farms are not harder on the environment, they are actually better, they use methods like crop rotation and produce a larger variety of food instead of using methods like insecticides which are so harmful to the plants and environment that they had to make GMO plants in the first place to withstand them. The workers who handle these insecticides/pesticides experience numerous health issues. How is that not "harder" on the environment. GMO companies don't even work on making food better or healthier, all they care about is making it immune to the chemicals they spray. "Natural" is the new marketing scam. It leads people to think that the food they eat is naturally produced or even organic but it is not. Don't be fooled people!! "Natural" foods still contain things like high fructose corn syrup, which by the way is derived mostly from corn that has been genetically modified. The domestication of animals and selective breeding are truly natural ways of getting the most out of life. But taking genes from other organisms and forcing them into the cells of another is not natural. If you research the way they mix the genes of one organism to the next you wouldn't think it was natural. But that is an entirely different argument on it's own.
Do as you want just be sure to label the packaging properly and clearly so I can be sure NOT to buy this nonsense. What's next, man made cows and pigs? Inching closer to 'The Island of Dr. Moreau.'
Labeling any kind of GMO foods is not necessary here in the United States, according to our government.
Actually I think it likely that our government will more likely ban any company from stating that their product is not genetically engineered under the excuse that it would be unfair to those products that are. They have done similar before unfortunately I cant remember now what it was in response to.
If they allow this fish and don't label properly, guess I'm not buying salmon anymore.
Genetically engineered fish is a great alternative for underdeveloped nations whose populations are starving. Do you think they really care if it's genetically modified or not? They probably don't even know what you are talking about. All they see is fish and fish is food.
In the US you have a choice about what you eat. Honestly with 25% of the US population being overweight, I think some people could use some fish to better improve their lives. Not necessarily genetically modified fish but something else.
And, if you don't like the modified fish, then don't freaking eat it. However, the starving populations out there I am sure would be more than happy and appreciative of this.
If there is a chance that the fish can breed, I'm against this idea. We will invetably disrupt the natural salmon populations ever other organism in that food chain more than we already have. Probably drive natural salmon into extinction. Just like we are doing to soybeans.
"effectively rendering the vast majority of the fish sterile – which both prevents the altered fish to breed with wild populations of fish"
That statment bothers me the most, vast majority, basically it means some day it will happen, and the result is a new species. Maybe killing off the old species, we all remember the killer bees taking over the honey bee nests.
They should also be studying this. Upset the ecosystem? twice the fish in half the time is going to need more food, alot more.
Ok, what about the Omega 3 content? Wild salmon has more of it, farm-raised salmon doesn't have as much, I only eat wild salmon. So what's the point of eating this genetically alterered salmon. I just don't like the idea eating geneticcally altered anything. Go natural foods!
Why do this? Aren't there enough fish in the sea? Oh wait crap that's right THERE AREN'T. East or starve people.
Make a lobster with four claws and two tails and I'm in!
If you people really think you can get sick from eating this fish then you don't understand how DNA works. As long as they do it right... There is nothing to fear. FYI, changing your DNA to give you longer arms can't happen via some magic injection. They literally alter the genetic makeup of that creature BEFORE it becomes more than 1 cell. There is no possible way for it to effect you. That is the same as believing if you eat a bird you'll grow wings because it's DNA says it should have wings. I don't think HGH injections should be used though. I'm not sure if they are doing that for these fish or just letting DNA do it's magic.
My thoughts. If we had a council of elders with WISDOM guiding the public on Health matters this issue would not even come up for discussion. Every great empire has had a weakness that has led to it's downfall, with America it is our addiction to pharmaceutical drugs and junk food. A new system of Holistic health needs to be put in place in America with Centers of Healing to take the place of hospitals and toxic pharmaceutical drugs. Conventional medicine has failed, it is a lucrative business guided by moral corruption. We are entering a new spiritual age, a golden age of light, will we be around to experience this Blessing?
There's a time for love, a time for hate, a time for peace, I swear it's not too late.
If they're gonna genetically alter the fish anyway, could they reduce the amount of mercury and metals? I know salmon has relatively very low levels, but if there's a way to do away with it, might as well.
This salmon will have less mercury because it grows faster. Less time to grow to full size = less mercury accumulated in the body
I hate fish. I eat so little that I will chose to stay away from Frankenfish.
Please don't mess with things i like :)
I hear you, Marty! I'm not a fish person at all, either. I like to make salmon patties with canned salmon and I love good fried flounder (no skin or bones) with a ton of tartar sauce. So for me, eating fish the only ways I can stand to eat it is not a real healthy option.
I've tried to like fish, I really have. I make it for my husband and just about gag preparing it and smelling it cooking. Blech! If anyone wants to try a good recipe, though, look for Broiled Talapia Parmesan on the allrecipes site. It's easy and doesn't taste near as "fishy" as lots of other dishes.
I am reading these posts while I eat lunch. Since I am a Type I diabetic, I have injected myself with insulin. Insulin made from E. Coli batcteria, genetically altered using rDNA. This is basically the same technology used to produce these fish. Keep in mind that injecting something is far more hazardous than eating. There are fewer guards in the blood stream than in the digestive system. Millions of diabetics have been doing this for decades, without ill effects. It seems to me that those against this fish do so because of their feelings and perceptions. Perception is NOT reality. Reality is reality.
Notice those lacking an understanding of science are the ones scared to eat it. Transgenics scares people because they don't understand it. I can think of more than a few technologies that have revolutionized humanity that scared people as well. Like the earth being round??
Well, Einstein, you don't need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows.
Que te parece ?
I've only eaten wild caught salmon for years. It was bad enough when they added the red dye to farmed salmon. This is just disgusting. I'd rather pay through the nose to fly to Alaska, catch it myself and ship it back across continent on ice than to ingest a single one of these inbred science projects masquerading as food.
The earth is your mother.
And I use her conservatively. I take only what little I need and leave the rest. I have fish once every few weeks and eat vegetarian the rest of the time. If everyone else can have their free range beef and chickens, I don't think it's too much to ask that I can have salmon as nature intended it as well.
Go for it, pay out the nose for your wild salmon. Just don't deny the world one of the best, most viable options for solving the food deficit.
I'll have the salad.
from what the artical said, there are no chemicals (man made or natural and no growth hormons being introduced to the fish. It's DNA from other fish. So i don't see a problem. The worlds population is growing and we need food to feed the masses. The only thing I can see a issue with is other industries taking a hit on profits when the price of salmon goes down.
We should all just live natural lives. What's wrong with eating oatmeal? I just let my bush grow out.
Why are people buying the altered food?
1)Altered food is NEVER labeled Altered food.
2)Not all stores carry enough of the different kinds of ORGANICALLY grown food.
3)Altered food is regular priced, while the more Health Food/organically grown food is in many cases VERY EXPENSIVE. You have to be rich to buy the organically grown food.
4)The only food which is labeled the type it is, happens to be the healthy organically grown and raised food.
The philosophy behind the whole idea of genetically altered food by the money making corporations and their CEO's is: "What the public DON"T KNOW, won't hurt our profits."
On the flip side, organics are more profitable and are a larger growing sector of the food industry than GMO. The organics/natural producers have just as much reason to bash GMO's as the GMO producers have to push their products. This makes your argument a bit asinine.
Being a biologist who has worked in GMO biotech agriculture (and don't work for them anymore, so I'm not supporting them because) I can tell you that GMO's are not dangerous. When I see people equating them to Jurassic Park and chemicals fed to cattle I laugh. Please for the sake of this countries reputation as a leader in the scientific community read a biology book on basic genetics and proteomic.
And in case you were wondering... although I am a 46 year old man, my testicles have not yet descended. Thank you and good day.
your maturity is wonderful...Mike. Instead of making fun of me why don't you please say something intelligent...
Possibly No one else noticed in the original picture of the GMO salmon vs.the "regular" salmon-That the person is wearing two different color gloves.I believe this is Rick Sanchez after giving Proctology exams to his staff{trying to save on that Health Insurance} and was about to make "fish Tacos" for a simple taste test. From the looks of this blog some people got sick.
It's a strange world we live in where an ANIMAL can be patented and thought of as "intellectual property."
Also, people should understand that there is a diffference between directed evolution from thousands of years of human selection to grow the best crops and making specific genetic alterations to DNA of a species. It would be decades until we fully understood all the differences. We should also be limiting our use of GMO crops for issues pertaining to monocultures. But that's another topic altogether.
I doubt they're as bad for you as a steady diet of twinkies and soda.
Nothing is wrong in this world,... good or bad is relative to the time/period you are living in,... Human hunger brought down so many countries, people, animal, etc and some already extinct [sadly]. Once hunger is there, there is no difference between human or anyother living being [including trees, wind, light etc]. If any animal has the ability to do the same thing as humans, definitely it will do,... so first we should stop thinking we are great than anything else on this earth, we are just the same as anyother living creatures,... except we are chatting on the internet and others live on their nature-given gifts,... if humans can think that doesn't mean they can start thinking "how to control the hunger",... definitely if a person from the developed nation skip a lunch or dinner for a day, in some poor country [or within his country] a person can feed on that for a week ... thinking...
they will do the same with humans ,no doubt have already.
Then there is the Genetically altered food when the Chickens, Cows, Fish, shrimp and so on are altered with GROWTH HORMONES, STEROIDS, and ANTIBIOTICS. These food altering chemicals and or ingredients can NEVER be cooked out. They continue doing their process down the food chain, including our own bodies. The active ingredients: Growth Hormones, Steroids, and antibiotics do continue their job of growing muscles and meat tissue and especially fatty tissue in our own bodies. Thus that is how we get the alarming increase in OBESITY in AMERICA. Why aren't Doctors educating the public on this matter if they are so concerned for their patients? Where are the scientists who should have connected the dots on the immediate effect on our bodies? Why is everyone assuming that people are over eating, when all it takes is ONE meal with a genetically altered food with GROWTH HORMONE, Steroids to being causing Obesity in our bodies? Time to pull the Plug on Money Making Corporations using the Average Americans as Guinea pigs.
The alarming rise in obesity rates is due to people stuffing their fat faces with too much, and the wrong kind of food. Exercise and eat a healthy diet and you won't have obesity problems.
angie, stop while you are Mmmm ok you are not ahead so just stop. Doctors are not informing us because you are wrong.
This is another example of trying to solve a problem's effect rather than the cause. The issue is not that salmon aren't large enough, it's that our population is growing faster than is sustainable. We should be shift our energy towards solving the root of the problem. Not to mention the fact that it is almost inevitable that these genes will migrate into natural salmon populations, as only the "vast majority" are sterile. It's difficult to assess the risk of something like this without knowing what the negative consequences will be. Without more studies, the payoff does not seem worth the risk at this point in time.
I'm OK with genetically altered animals and fish for human consumption on ONE condition: everyone has to eat this new 'food.' If those who can afford it get to eat traditional 'real' food and the rest of us can only afford 'genetically altered food,' that's not fair. So it's 'all or nothing' unless we want a further class divide than we already have here.
I won't even eat farm raised fish....much less a Frankenfish!!!!
Great idea!! Let's just keep it natural by fishing 60 year wild old tuna from their natural habitat, shipping it to inland places like Las Vegas, and burn as much carbon as we can in the process! Oh, and while we're at it, let's stop conversing like this over the internet! It's not NATURAL.
Next stop, Soylent green
Soylent Green is People, it's people I tell you...
Since when has the FD&A become God, in knowing how these SUPER FISH WILL SAVE THE WORLD????? They can't get anything else right.....
Only ignorant people are concerned about this issue. GM food is going to be the salvation of humanity as we continue to overpopulate beyond the capability of "natural" sources to feed us. This path was started down the first time farmers selected the strongest samples of their crops to use as seed stock for the next year. When we introduced the first fertilizers we started messing with 'nature'. Humanity would have had a population collapse over 200 years ago if we hadn't figured out how to free more Phosphorus from the soil. I am more concerned about chemical sprayed on the food, than genes modified within it.
Sorry but I don't buy it.
Most predictions still put the point at which we surpass the planet's ability to sustain the human population somewhere in the future. Few say it is already surpassed, but for our behaviors, not yet our numbers, that could make it otherwise. This means there is certainly hope that our current population can still be supported SUSTAINABLY by the resources of the planet as we currently know/think them to be. And it means that we can achieve this by using technology to help us change our ways, rather than simply use it to feed the population explosion itself – which is what advocating GM food as a means to solve global food shortages does. Many of the technologies that have contributed in part to the near-zero population growth seen in many industrialized societies have not been employed nearly to the same scale in less-developed countries where the population growth is out of control. There is a plateau for population growth globally that we might try to reach rather than just blindly 'feeding the beast' so to speak.
We've been genetically manipulating our food supply for thousands of years. Its the prime reason that there are now 7 billion of us living on this planet. We're going to be 10 billion in just another decade. The "natural" good supply cannot support 10 billion people. What are our options? (a) quit breeding more people (unlikely), (b) let people starve until the population gets back to what can be "naturally" supported (not good if you're one of the ones starving), or (c) continue improving the efficiency of our food supply.
Throw in a really good pandemic and it may cut down the population significantly, but probably not enough.
I'm with Bill on this one. Just wipe out 99% of the hoomans on this wretched planet and let the lucky survivors have a do-over.
My last post did not show up, so I will try it again. Genetically altered food is when the DNA of Fruits and Vegetables is alered. That process can never be washed out. It continues down the food chain, and ends up altering our bodies. As it causing the fruits and vegetables to grow larger faster, increasing the size of the fruit or vegetable, it also increases our body size, altering our own DNA.
Nonsense.
Please name a single food source that can alter your DNA.
Sorry Angie, that's not how it works. The DNA in our food doesn't become part of our DNA, otherwise we'd have all grown gills by now.
Your post shows complete ignorance. What we eat does not in any way effect our DNA. You are correct that once genetically modified organisms breed in the wild, you will never be able to put the genie back in the bottle – everything descended from the GM organism will carry those modified genes, but you clearly have no idea what you are talking about when you postulate that the DNA of organisms that consume the GM food will be altered. Any 2nd grader knows better than that.
"you will never be able to put the genie back in the bottle..."
Hmmm... we're not in disagreement about everything I see!
that is so stupid you should not be allowed to post anymore.
Sorry Angie. I'm on your side in my total opposition to GM food, but the part about altering our dna... nope. A post like this doesn't do 'our side' any good at all I'm afraid.
Angie, please go and tie your tubes right now. Everyone in the US has eaten some sort of GMOs, in fact most of our crops are GMOd. Corn, rice, soybean, etc. Those are made into high fructose corn syrup, soybean oil, corn oil, cottonseed oil, and more. Pretty much everything you eat has those in it. Have you mutated recently?
This is leading us in to a future where natural organic foods will soon become like diamonds, rare and expensive. Where food is controlled by patents. Worst yet, soon the choices will be nothing but genetically modified foods with the extinction of organic food due to cross breading. And once that happens the corporations will own the rights to the new off spring in the wild and It's not just with animals, it's also with plants as with the court case, Monsanto vs. Schmeiser.
What's the problem with genetical modified food? Two things:
First, it has the potential, in the near future, to limit the options we have on the foods we eat. That it's taking away our right to choose. A choice among a many assortments of "only" genetically modified foods is not a choice at all. It is a suppression of our rights.
Second, our bodies have been developing over thousands of years. It is a slow process that our biology adapt to the environment around us and just like us, so to do the have plants and animals. We change together. Producing genetically modified fish that change in a blink of an eye in comparison with the evolution of life has health implications we don't yet understand. The big fear is if our understanding of the health implications come after all natural organic food has already been wiped out and replaced by the cross breading/pollination of genetically modified animals and plants.
To think we, as the brilliant and flawed humans we are, can produce better a food that will agree with nature better than that of which nature it self has already produced is mad. If you are reading this please take the poll above very seriously. Polls like this are used on the news and sway many. If it reads that a crushing majority DO NOT approve, court cases of the future will have a better chance at saving our food.
-side note- Boycott companies and their parent companies that produce genetically modified foods. It really is in our hands.
And then the Tyrell Corporation will start making Replicants. THEN the fun will begin!
@Derek Waleko, personally I think this will make organic food more popular than ever. People are tired of being sold crap.
There are many people starving in this world right now that could use these new food sources. This planet can only hold so many people without a little help from it's friends.
@Bill food shortage isn't the problem, it's corrupt governments who inhibit starving people from getting help.
Science will outdo nature every time. You want proof – walk down the produce isle of your local supermarket. the 'organic' produce is crap. Smaller, wilted, tasteless, full of bugs. Look at the non-organic produce – Much greater yield, stays fresh far longer, juicier, tastier, and insect free. Only ignorant luddites with an idealogical axe to grind will eat the 'organic' offerings.
Your posts are cracking me up man!
"the 'organic' produce is crap. Smaller, wilted, tasteless, full of bugs."
Where the hell do you shop?! The organic produce I find 'round here is deeeeelicious. Full of freshness, color, taste. Yum.
Wow, this article is dangerously short on the details as to why these fish are an ecological catastrophe in the making!!
At the rate that the Chinese and Japanese are eradicating fish species in the wild, this may very well save many species from extinction.If the same concepts could be applied to the Bluefin and Yellowfin tuna, maybe there would be a few left in 30 years.
The 30% who would dig right in are the same people who think food from 7/11 is good eating.
No, actually we're the ones who see through the myth of 'organic'. Take apples – you claim the organic version is better, less harmful, more nutritious. However, all crops need protection from bugs. The organic crops are sprayed with pesticides that are certified 'organic', while the non-organic version is sprayed with synthetic pesticides. The synthetic agents are designed to dissipate quickly. That's why when you buy non-organic Apples, you can just rub it on your shirt and go ahead and eat. when you buy 'organic' apples you must SCRUB with soap and water to remove the TOXIC residues. Also, when you spray fruit trees with synthetic pesticides you are allowed to walk the rows within 3 to 6 hours. "Organic" pesticides require at least 24 hours before it is safe for farm workers to walk the rows. That doesn't even address the fact that 'organic' apples look like, taste like, and are crap in comparison to the non-organic version. Recent studies have even proven that 'organic' is NO BETTER FOR YOU from a nutrition point of view. I'll put my faith in science, as will most intelligent, educated people.
Wow, Howie. This is about the most ignorant assessment of organic agriculture I have EVER read. Just one example is that synthetic pesticides are designed to 'stick' to crops, so as to not wash off in rain, etc. It is THAT produce that must be washed and scrubbed for 'TOXINS'. What are those "toxins" you are finding intentionally applied to organic produce again?
Speak to a worker who actually handles those products. Organic crops are sprayed with highly toxic 'organic' pesticides which must be scrubbed to be removed. The synthetic version does not need to 'stick' to the produce, it does its job quickly and then dissipates. Again, speak to an actual farmer, I have.
Howie is completely right, do you research. What did you think organic crops weren't damaged by pests because they were treated with love?
Frankenfish, I'll turn my property into a small farm, grow my own stuff, along with a couple cows, goats, and chickens and F**K em all and there freaky food. Right, using drug guidelines... Guess I have to go to the Farmacy (sic) now and buy my food
thank god I don't like salmon, fresh or science experiment
“Genetically altered animals considered harmless because they can’t breed in the wild”. Hmm. Wasn’t that the same process the scientists used in Jurassic Park? “Nature will find a way…”
That is called SCIENCE FICTION.
Reality is not scary. Go to school.
Getting bit by a radioactive spider does not turn you into
a giant spider.
No, it turns you into SPIDERMAN!
Just kidding.
I don't know how to feel about eating the GMO salmon. I just don't like the idea of a company having a patent on a fish. Aquabounty Technologies could become the Monsanto of the fish industry. Note that the article said that the "vast majority" of the fish were sterile. I know that Monsanto holds their grip on farmers because their "Round Up Ready" soybeans get spread all over the place... so when a seed happens to blow into your crop, or whatever, Monsanto suddenly has the power to run you into the ground with legal battles.
If ABT has this GMO salmon as their "intellectual property", who is to say they won't do the same when a couple of these guys get loose and end up all over the place?
Maybe I'm paranoid, but I'm not comfortable with this.
If it keeps making young women hot, like the hormones they put in cattle and milk, I'm all for it! Eat up the frankenfish ladies! Woo!
we shouldn't be looking at how to feed growing populations, we should be looking at reducing over population to fit within the planets ability to supply us with our needs naturally.
I'm trying to figure this out - are they actually intending to RELEASE these fish into wild populations?
I don't care if they use the fish in hatcheries and sell to the US food market, the assumption restaurants and food markets would sell the meat with a label. But to just release them into a wild population sounds like an authentic Bad Idea; besides eradicating anyone's ability to tell what was modified and was wasn't when they catch new salmon (thus not giving consumers a choice in the matter outside of boycotting all salmon), there's absolutely no way to tell what kind of impact this would have.
I really hope the FDA stops thinking with its wallet.
It's not their wallet they're thinking about... and it's certainly not yours. it's Aquabounty Tech's wallet that will rule the farm here I'm afraid. (And yes, of this I'm afraid!)
Genetic modification of this kind is the wave of the food future, so you had better get used to it. It's either this, overfish/hunt entire populations to extinction, or stop eating certain things. We are only going to get older on average, and populate the earth more. More humans=more need for food. I'd rather have a tasty fat salmon, than no salmon at all. Heck, half the people complaining only barely ask where most of their groceries are from...
Just clearly label it, and let the consumers make choices.
The real reason behind genetically engineered food is that these "products" of LIFE are patented, which gives companies more control over the food source, leading to less choices and poor quality. There is a good documentary out called the Future of Food that deals with this issue. Genetically modified foods could lead to world starvation if we as consumers do not step up to the plate and wage are against corporate control!!!
For everyone who voted "Never"....as I was told at age 5, you'll eat it when you get hungry enough.
@ John, September 21, 2010 at 12:24 pm. I think you got separated from your cult. They were last reported to have been in the desert somewhere.
Now that GMO corn has been shown to cause organ failure and infertility, we're still going to try this again? If terminating, non-reproducing corn causes infertility in those who eat it, shouldn't we be examining if the same thing happens to these mostly sterile Frankenfish?
Really? which articles?...I would like to read them.
You make it sound like a bad thing
The FDA is a horrible joke. How many studies or trials will these corrupt boneheads sit on, and how many will they approve? There is absolutely no rhyme or reason to FDA decision-making, EXCEPT: They are indelibly stained with biopharm and biotech money, and this is just another example of the influence. It's time for Americans to stand up to big corp money and nonsense.
cows and chickens are genetically modified too, and all of that is on the food market. i don't see the difference.
genetically modified vs. genetically engineered...there is a difference. genetically modified only tells part of the story. These salmon are genetically engineered...safely. I hope.
Frankenfish..."Water, Bad!"
With the way humans are over fishing all over the world I can see a need for this. I would prefer to eat natural fish, but with the human population growing and polluting the ocean I can see that this sort of development will become a necessity. I just hope it is safe to eat.
Agreed.
MMMMmm! Mercury!
Unfortunately, humans are waaaay too stupid to understand the problems with overpopulation.
I'll eat the heck out of it if it comes to market, of course. Like many posters, my main concern is not for us but rather for wildlife. However, seeing as I'm not a veterinarian or a wildlife biologist, I'd like to see what they have to say.
When I initially heard of this I thought "why not? they're just taking genes from one fish and putting it into another. Its kind of like selective breading" But now that I've read this article I have serious doubts. Due the them being rendered infertile they have to use rDNA on every batch of fish, severely increasing the chances of some genetic abnormality occurring. While most anomalies would result in the egg dieing some could result in health risks. If they were able to fix the infertility problem and test a couple dozen successive generations of the resulting fish for safety I wouldn't have any problem eating them, Assuming reasonable measures were taken to make sure they were never allowed into the wild.
A prediction. The FDA will approve the genetically modified salmon, for what ever reason. American consumers at Wal-Mart will see that they are getting more fish at a lower price and buy it without reservation. Ahhh, A triumph of capitalism
No one has learned anything except how to be greedy.....if this is really all about feeding the population of the future, then there should be more research. PERIOD. If this is about making another dollar, then let's push this thing thru, because it's obvious that our government cares more about a dollar than taking care of the American people. Beginning with what they put int their mouths. We all need to revolt against all this hormone, genetically modified crap these corporations are selling us......EDUCATE YOURSELVES ABOUT ALL THE CHEMICALS AND HORMONES YOU INGEST EVERYDAY OF YOUR LIFE!
Sooner we will have to create a genetic modified bear that is able to eat the genetic modified salmon. Thousand years from now, we will be in trouble for sure, the genetic modified bears will be using humans as their main source of food. That is the problem, none of those analysis done by FDA take into accout the long term impact.
Looks like I'm gonns be kickin' some Salmon Ass here shortly.
This is great technology. Don't listed to the FUD people are spreading from ignorance. ..
now from my hug a-tree-liberal-side: Life will always win in the end. don't worry man is so arrogant to beleive it can destroy the world...
to the world:. One sneeze and this human infestation will be over and you can start over again...
A toast, To Life! Until the sun winks out!
"as well as effectively rendering the VAST MAJORITY of the fish sterile – which both prevents the altered fish to breed with wild populations of fish, and protects the company's intellectual material."
Does the writer of this article know that it only takes two to procreate. Even if a VAST MAJORITY are sterile that doesn't mean there won't be non-sterile fish interacting.
Quit playing God, and Let It Be!
99.999% of everything "god" made is extinct.
Jesus was the first. probably the best too since he fed the multitudes from one fish... (John 6) I'd like to see Science top that
who fucking cares, its not chemicals its genetically modified. If you refuse to eat this food you are buying into the medias purpose of making you fear the world around you and everything in it. Eating this fish will not make you die, and it will feed more people for less. Seriously, droolers, grow up.
With rising demand for seafood, this will relieve pressure from wild fish. Don't let your phobias of science destroy the environment.
The fight to end world hunger will not be met by sustainable farming practices, and removing wild game from their natural environment (esp. fishing) will often lead to that wild population becoming stressed and endangered. This is not always true, as deer populations have bloomed all across the USA because man has eradicated their natural predators.
I applaud all the folks that grow their own food, but sadly, a large majority of the population does not have that luxury if everyone wants to enjoy the standard of living that modern life entails, though the majority of us would like to enjoy a higher quality of life by eating better foods.
Science has given us the ability to make changes in a couple of generations that used to take hundred, sometimes thousands of generations using traditional selective breeding. Sure, we may not be aware of all the repercussions of that manipulation, but what if some of these salmon get out of captivity and happen to breed with the wild population? What do we end up with? Larger wild salmon? Is that really so bad?
Wait until a stupid intern release one this genetic salmon into the wild, and it breed like crazy. Btw these fish is genetically altered, it has an eel-like fish called ocean pout gene's in it. So it doesn't stop growing when it supposed to.
Just like our overweight population, we eat more so we make our food just like us, obese.
Are we so eager to eat plenty enough salmons, or other genetically modified natural food sources after all, knowing that we've got more than all the rest of human populations to fill their stomach with rice, wheat (genetically modified ones exist already), corn, and tons of wildly available marine food sources and hormone injected farm raised poultry, beef, pork.. There exist naturally available foods in its natural state and these foods aren't scarce to them: It's just some of our capitalistic mindset that look for maximum profit with the least expense, or investment.. I don't believe in food scarcity, and it just sounds like an excuse, not to share more of industrial nations' role with some of the developing worlds' population that needs earth's available food sources so badly.. Maybe before we think more about peoples' appetite for bigger and faster slamons, it's time for our nations-U.S. ,Japan, Britain ,S.korea- to do more of our responsibilities to share the existent foods already with the poorest people starving to death in third world nations^^
Perfect answer. America has more food than it knows what to do with. Portions are out of control, meals are rushed and people keep gaining size......say NO to this Salmon!
Exactly. There is plenty of food but it just doesnt get to those places that really needs it. Restaurants, Supermarkets and even consumers in the US and other developed countries throw out unbelievable amounts of food daily!
So food scarcity is just a tactic to maximize profit. Because really, if GMO is really the answer to famine then we should have solved it along time ago.
It’s all about ACCESS to food!
So the billions of dollars and millions of tons of food the first world nations donate to third world nations every year is meaningless to you? Just how much is enough? Until we're all living like the thrid world? Maybe the thrid world could actually start doing things for themselves for a change instead of always looking for a handout.
And for the record, everyone eats modified food, even you vegitarian "organic only" eaters. There is no such thing as natural food anymore. Anyone who would attent to grow such food would never see it mature into a full plant as the old style natural foods simply aren't strong enough to survive anymore (thanks to years of spraying insects and making them practically super bugs and forcing fungus and other plant killing bacteria to evolve at a faster rate due to man's interference).
Yes, when a new technology is developed, it must be tested thorughly by an independant tam of scientists. Simply trusting a company's word is recipe for disaster, but if it meets or exceeds safety standards, go for it.
Keep it out of the food chain.
(Selective breeding is not the same as genetic modification.)
I think we have a misunderstanding of genetic modification and genetic engineering. selective breeding can be the same as genetic modification of a population but is not the same as genetic engineering.
How would you like 'Roid Rage Salmon in your mouth?
It plumps when you cook it!
No thanks
Where are the fish sticks?
Rusty
I see some really tall basketball players in the future...lol!
To him was given the key (symbolic for knowledge) to the bottomless pit (genetic engineering?, the possibities are endless, or "bottomless").
It's amazing how many folks are convinced by the hysterical "frankenfish" propaganda put out by the organics industry (now worth billions). Do the producers if this salmon intend to turn a profit? Of course. But you're kidding yourself if you don't think this mass hysteria is anything but a push by the organic/natural industry to stop competition (and their current status as the fastest growing food industry).
There is absolutely no reason to be concerned about eating this fish; I would eat it in a heartbeat, and I am an MD/PhD student with a degree in molecular, cellular, developmental biology. For one thing, growth hormones are large protein hormones, meaning they will be significantly degraded and denatured simply by heat during cooking, and will be digested completely upon entering the stomach, which on average has a pH of about 1.5 (extremely harsh conditions for any protein.) Not to mention the fact that this is fish growth hormone, which undoubtedly already has diminished (if any) activity on human growth hormone receptors.
Do not confuse this with concerns about steroids being injected into other animals, their milk, etc. Steroids are not proteins, and are not as easily degraded. Do not be caught up in the hysteria of the uneducated and the business interests which will be hurt by the success of completely safe GMO's, such as this salmon.
I kept it simple for the purposes of this discussion, but if anyone has any other questions please feel free to ask and I will be more than willing to explain details of the science/health surrounding this issue.
Which corporation funds your research? Or your professor's research? Or the department? The wholesale sell-out of research to the big corporations is sad. We saw how Monsanto got caught for trying to bribe the Canadian researchers to recommend the acceptance of GMO's in Canada.
The NIH. Nice try, although I'm sure you'll try to say something about the US government being implicit etc. etc.
I have a big issue with the following:
"their Veterinary Medicine Advisory Committee is using the regulations they would to evaluate veterinary pharmaceuticals, rather those used for than food safety. According to Section 5 of the group's overview of this engineered Atlantic salmon, "That rDNA construct meets the definition of a 'drug' under the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act" as "an article intended to alter the structure or function of the body of man or animal." Aqua Bounty Technologies, the developer, has filed a new animal drug application under those guidelines."
Maybe you should explain to the FDA that there are no chemicals in the fish because apparently this is how the fish are being perceived and defined even by their own institution. So if they are classifying this as a chemical alteration, shouldn't we?
I understand your confusion. The chemical modification they are referring to is the chinook growth hormone transgene. They are considering it a "drug" because the growth hormone itself is not native to the atlantic salmon, and thus its administration, although not conventional, is best viewed as administration of a drug (growth hormone) to these fish.
In other words, the modified fish are classified as being treated with a pharmaceutical because the net effect of the transgene is that the fish are being treated with the chinook growth hormone. It is basically the same as if they were giving the fish chinook growth hormone by injection, only this is a practical method of administration.
The reason this is not harmful to us is outlined in my original post.
Of course they can't reproduce, they want to CONTROL access to the "resource". No thanks. Let's save our farms instead of inventing frankenfood.
So if they modify a group of fish and those fish get into the wild does that mean this company owns the worlds fish supply because they patented a new gene and all the fish will now have it? I dont trust companies that want to make a few extra bucks but dont have any care for the longevity of resources or if people get sick later. They mess with chickens to the point that they can not walk on their own in the chicken coops. Modifying animals in this way should be illegal.
Has anyone considered the issue of a patent on these fish? It's happened with crops like soy beans. The genes have spread in nature to the extent you can hardly find any soybean varieties don't have a patented gene. Anyone caught planting a soybean crop that has that gene and does not pay royalties can be sued for patent infringement. What happens when this fish gets into the wild. Notice I said when, not if. There are no gurantees that they won't. Just think what that will do to the small fisherman. I'm ok with selective breeding, but genetic mainulation and gene patents are just wrong on so many levels
Apparently no one here has every eaten Black Angus beef, Hampshire hog pork, nectarines, tangelos or boysenberries. None of those animals or plants exist in nature; people created them. Science is merely extending to seafood what people have been doing with land-based livestock for hundreds of centuries. Many species of wild fish are on the brink of extinction from overfishing. Seafood is a luxury in America but it is a necessity of life for Japan, Iceland and many other countries. Fish farming, including the modification of species, is essential to continue human and wild animal life. Without human science life for 6 billion humans would end. The only alternative is death for humans and animals alike. I see nothing here but irrational hysteria. If this fish were available today, I'd buy it as soon as I'd buy an Angus steak or a tangelo.
Skip the fish, can hardly wait until this can be done with humans.
At age 8, your kids will be fully grown and be ready to go off to college.
The cost of raising a child cut in half.
Seems to me it should be a different agency determining the longer-term impact on the ecosystem. With regard to longer-term impact on the human body, that has already been accessed if we have been eating Pacific Chinook salmon or pout...as long as there is no difference in growth and inhibitor harmones between the genetically engineered species and the natural species.
Although science has demonstrated that cockroaches can adapt to changes in their food or environment in a matter of a generation or two, humans and other more complex specifies require many more generations to adapt to subtle changes in their food or environment. My sister, a certified nurse and certified metabolic typist, suggests the following when determining if a particular food is appropriate for consumption. "If the food product did not exist 100 years ago, there is a good possibility that your body cannot process or make use of the food product".
There was some research done on these monster salmon over a year or so ago and part of the problem lies in their accidental release in the environment. As I recall, because they grow so fast, they can outcompete the younger natural salmon for food. This has the potential of diminishing the survival rates of the natural salmon.
Lastly, if they decide to raise these fish in fish ponds or fish farms in the ocean, there is the additional risk of spreading disease to native fish. There is a ton of research on how existing Atlantic Salmon have led to drastic reduction in native stocks in British Columbia and Norway. The native fish swim by the fish farms and contract mites, viruses and other weird organisms from the penned in Salmon. There is one river system in BC that lost over 90 percent of their native stock. It is a very serious problem. The BC government threatened the independant researcher with over 4 years in jail for "dissecting native fish". They were in cahoots with the local fish farm industry.
The fish farms response to the diseases in the pens was to give the farmed fish megadoses of anti-biotics and other medicines. Now your farmed fish get contaminated with all sorts of interesting chemicals.
There is also the other issue of the food pellets they gove to the farmed fish. They actually end up consuming high concentrations of chemicals from the food pellets. Additionally, it takes more food stock to create the food pellets then what is naturally consumed by a native fish.
But what do I know? I only have a degree in Wildlife Biology, worked in a microbiology lab studying fresh water organisms for a year...then got a masters in business (so I do understand the economics that drive this). To quote Barry Commoner from his book The Closing Circle – There is no such thing as a free lunch..
Mike – excellent post.
You guys can eat all the atlantic "farmed" salmon you want. Ill never touch that slop. All farmed fish are basically fed the equivilant of dog food and therefore they taste like crap. Once youve had wild caught you cant go back. The real problem isnt just over fishing its habitat depletion from things like clear cutting, development, toxic runoff, fertilizing your lawn etc. to name a few. You may think that because you are not out there bobbing around with a net in your hand youre not to blame but you are...just by existing.
Those are trout on the CNN homepage. Not Salmon
think you are wrong. They look like young atlantic salmon to me
In the film Jurassic Park, the dinosaurs were also "designed" to be sterile, yet the comment was made that "nature finds a way". Although the movie was obviously a work of fiction, that statement holds a LOT of truth. It's not a matter of IF the engineered salmon genes will end up in the wild, it's WHEN! It WILL happen. History is full of examples of humans trying to contain or manipulate nature for specific purposes only to end up losing control. Consider all of the invasive species issues that we are faced with today. Nature always finds a way.
Actually the engineered fish/nature won't have to "find" a way. As I posted: 1."effectively rendering the vast majority of the fish sterile – which both prevents the altered fish to breed with wild populations of fish" So at least some of these genetically modified fish //will// breed with wild fish. Doesn't sound good for the local fish populations. Note the words "vast majority" some fish will //not// be sterile. Guess how many eggs a single female salmon produces.. 2,500 to 7,500 depending on the species according to Wiki Answers.
its ok, rich people will eat real fish, poor people will eat frankenfish. the FDA will be happy and the people in power (the rich) wont care
For those who would like their comments formally considered by FDA, go to regulations.gov and enter docket number
FDA-2010-N-0385 .
Once you submit your comment, you'll be given a tracking number. FDA does not currently post most "individual consumer" comments online.
This is a very bad idea for many reasons!! If these fish are approved they will breed with natural salmon and using forecasting software shows that within 60 years will take over the natural population completely. Due to their increased size, females are more likely to breed with the buff new males leaving the natural guys no mates :( Also in regards to nutrition, check out the studies on rats fed GMO potatoes and how their DNA had unexplainable mutations over two generations. If we change the food, it's not food anymore, it's a drug. Drugs don't provide nutrition and our bodies don't recognize them as food. Hopefully this won't be approved!! It's funny America is getting fatter and they just want bigger fish, lol!
Stay Natural, Be Healthy? 60% of babies in this country have formula during their first year of life, which is not only "un-natural" its a horrible substitute for breast milk in confirmed studies!! Its scientifically factual your child will get sick more often and more severly in his first year of life if he has formula instead of breast milk, yet only 40% of women breast feed past 1 week!! Its just convenient to lean on science when you are lazy, and fight it when you feel like it.
The bottom line is this fish will probably affect you a millions times less than 1 fast food meal a week, being formula-fed, or being fat so lets stick to fighting the things we KNOW are bad and leave the things that MIGHT be bad alone.
All good points, but this has been shown to be bad and should be pooled with your other suggestions!
Come on Sheeple, "Organic". "All Natural" etc. Is the latest marketing scam. How do you get sheeple to pay 3 or 4 times as much for the exact same food item? Label it "Organic". So called "Organic" farms are harder on the environment, and produce less food. Protein is protein, plants are plants, there are no studies that show "Organically" produced foods are any better for you or have any more vitamins, or anything else, in fact there are a lot of studies that show that they are exactly the same. People have been genetically modifying animals for centuries, where do you thing domesticated, cows, goats, chickens etc came from? We made them by artificially selecting for traits that we wanted. Just because we are now doing that using a different mechanism does not make it any different.
Nothing is what it seems, or will seem anymore. As the health of humans continue to degenerate due to food that is processed, packaged and genetically modified, when will authorities realize that they're playing the role of the mad scientist????? If this modified form of salmon is approved, I'll knock if off my 'to eat' list along with many other things.
People are living longer healthier lives, now than at any other time in the history of the world, so how is that bad.
Sorry, you got half of it right, people are living longer lives by taking drugs to live longer but definitely not healthier lives! Non organic food doesn't provide healthy soil (ie. humus – micro organisms that feed the plants nutrients) because humus is killed by pesticides. Also check out the sustainability of commercial farming vs organic farming. Organic farms increase the health of the soil each year where commercial farms are eventually "un-farmable" once the soil is dead.
Come on Grant, soil sustainability? What farmer organic or non is not concerned with the soil health? For both it is their lively hood, they rely on that soil to feed their families. Never understood that argument why would you rape the land that supports you, most farmers are excellent stewards for conservation.
Chad, I think you are a bit confused. So while commercial farmers definitely rely on the soil to feed their families, their primary purpose is high production. At the expense of sustainability. Plants grow through photosynthesis from air and water right, but we now know that humus must be present in order for the plants to get minerals fed to them from microorganisms in the soil. Commercial farming techniques (harsh pesticides and fertilizers) kill these microorganisms allowing a nutrient-less plant to grow. These harsh pesticides and fertilizers are what render these farms useless after literally killing the soil (or stuff in the soil actually and providing and environment that they can't exist in). California is going to have one big desert soon if they aren't careful.
So it's legal to sell cigarettes, which definitely kill people, but it's not legal to grow bigger food and sell it? Why would that matter as long as its labeled, so people who dont want to eat it dont have to?
Anyone who fishes knows that bigger fish doesn't necessarily mean better tasting. Organic fruits and vegetables taste better than the generically altered versions.
1."effectively rendering the vast majority of the fish sterile – which both prevents the altered fish to breed with wild populations of fish" So at least some of these genetically modified fish //will// breed with wild fish. Doesn't sound good for the local fish populations. 2. FDA seems to be concerned the fish are receiving proper veterinary care, but are ignoring what those chemicals will do to humans who consume these fish.
Let's put a stop to all this progress and these scientific achievements!!! "Be Natural! Be safe!" Say no to immunizations, vaccinations, pasteurized dairy products, genetically altered fruits!!! Let us blindly resist the progress of the scientific community! They are obviously wildly out of control and unregulated! Let us "be natural" and take herbal supplementations and additives that are not regulated by the FDA! Let us say no to innovative changes that scrutinized and reviewed by the FDA! I want to live in a non-progressive society that remains stagnant exactly the way it is!
9 yr olds are maturing as they always have. Jurassic Park was a movie. Some man made stuff can be bad, some also cures/helps/protects us. Dont want to eat it-then dont, your choice. For those that feel it might help ease the strain on our over taxed fisheries or help those that are starving with little or no risk-press
Man are you people stupid. What happens when man plays God with things they don't fully understand or have no business dealing? We often find ourselves in dire quagmires. The problem is not a shortage of food in the world, but a shortage of merciful regimes and citizens alike. When mankind learns to work together to better themselves instead of worshiping the all mighty dollar bill, all our problems will be solved. We are a despicable race with great promise to do great things. Yet our selfish desires often seals our fate both individual and as nations. It's too bad it usually takes catastrophic situations for us to come together. But as soon as it ends we return back to human nature. We are like viruses. We consume and consume without mercy and when that consumable is gone we simply spread to another area. Only doing good if it's profitable or benefits us. Oh well! I will stick with natural food and simple fertilizers. I have full faith in nature and limited faith in man.
spend a week walking around in "nature" made shoes, pants, coats or driving one of those "nature" made cars to work. Yep we are all stupid.
Ok, go live in a cave. Give up all your clothing, footwear, tools, books and food. Let's see how long 'nature' keeps you alive.
As usual, if well-fed intellectually-lazy westerners will not accept the new fruits of science, the millions from the rapidly expanding middle class of China will happily gulp down salmon at affordable prices – salmon they can otherwise not afford if it was not for the miracles of science.
Just like they "gulped down" gallons of tainted milk that eventually killed them, amirite?
Seriously? Don't Ask debates are less important than a fish?
lol dumb yanks
It's lunchtime Massa & I had to take care of your Mamma if ya know what I mean!
Two words – Big Oil...... Enjoy your salmon
I'm not really in support of this, but isn't it inevitable as the human population outgrows food supply?
I say bring on the big fishes!! Then, lets move on to big chickens.
If it does end up screwing up the world....really...are we doing a great job NOT screwing it up without these fish? ....come on people...we're doing much worse things to ourselves and to our planet than introducing a large salmon.
What gets me about all this is that one of the main justifications for this genetic-altering is to feed a ever growing population. When heart disease, diabetes and obesity have been at higher rates then ever in history isn't even bigger food kind of counter-productive?
Actually if people ate more fish those particular health problems would be less prevalent.
I doubt that eating genetically altered salmon will be harmful but I do question the taste. Already farmed salmon is inferior to wild atlantic salmon and this new "frankenfish" will almost certainly be even worse. No mater, in a short time a whole generation will be brought up to think of it as a delicacy not even knowing what real salmon tastes like. This has already happened with asian shrimp that everbody buys. Meanwhile the producers will laugh all the way to the bank.
Great point – EXCEPT that it has recently been proven through numerous blind tests that no one can tell the difference (in taste) between farmed and wild Salmon. Oh well, you had a nice soapbox for a few minutes. . .
They already performed taste tests on this salmon. Tastes fine.
When companies that cant keep eggs clean start processing dna do you think it will still be safe?
I think many of the readers have missread one very important line in the story. The story does NOT say the fish can't breed with the wild Salmon, it says "as well as effectively rendering the vast majority of the fish sterile – which both prevents the altered fish to breed with wild populations of fish."
Notice it says MAJORITY of them can't breed with wild population. So if even one can breed, then guess how long it will be until all the Salmon on the planet are inbred with the genetically altered fish? What else will happen? Well, what happened with the GMO crops? The GMO crops got cross populated by accident with wild crops, now the big pharma companies are coming in with the "patent" ownership and take everyone's crops. So tell me, anyone out there think for a single moment that this Aqua company won't hope that they literally "own" every single Salmon on the planet???
This needs to be shut down, now.
Selective breeding is not natural selection. It also looks for mutations and isolated characteristics. But manipulating genes by artificial processes brings in results which may easily be unforseen and unintentional. Science is so arrogant. They will save the world, but will not say they are sorry when they destroy it. They will just say, that their data was incomplete.
The problem is that these people are thinking about their wallets, how fat they are going to be with a fat GMO salmon and ignoring all other things such as impact on peoples health, the ecosystem, and quality of food. To elaborate, it does not sound to me like they have done any tests to check if the protein content or all those healthy benefits as the Omega fat content are altered in their GMO fish as compared to the natural salmon. We all know that mass production drives the cost down so does it also drive the quality of food down. The ecosystem, they are saying these fish are sterile hence cannot reproduce, also that they can alter the genes to make the fish more disease resistant. By making them disease resistant they are most probably going to end up throwing antibiotics at these fish increasing the worlds problem with antibiotic resistance all for a big fat salmon to make a few bastards rich. This will in turn drive the cost of natural salmon high making it difficult for a lot of people to even afford the already costly delicious tasting salmon. RETHINK your ignorant technologies and for once use your God given intelligence to whole heartily benefit people instead of throwing more problems at them. Right now people are even scared of going to the hospital because of antibiotic resistance strains of bacteria. And all you are going to do is make that worse by using more antibiotics. I think the world already had enough to deal with GMO chicken, pork, beef, all those millions of antibiotics now fish. Oh please
Big Mac (fast food) vs GA Salmon. Salmon is always a better choice. So Before you start freaking out about a frankenfish ask yourself do you freak out about fast food burgers and fries. I prefer Wild but can't afford it and if I can get a nice piece of salmon for the price of a Happy meal I'll choose GA Salmon every time. Well, almost every time I still like a Double Double every so often.
Can anyone here say Monsanto? My main concern is that these fish make it into the wild, breed with wild fish and then you have a corporation that tries to lay claim to all salmon populations. This may sound absurd but this is what Monsanto did and still does today with soy and corn seed. Even if you're a farmer using someone elses seed and your crop gets pollinated by Monsanto GMO pollin, you owe them some royalty. Now imagine some fisherman in New England or Alaska hauling in wild salmon and this company hires investigators to take DNA samples from their catch, what happens then?
Thank you very much ODDBALL we need more people like you in this world who can think and use their brains when it comes to critically evaluate these "new technologies", then you also have other comapanies throwing herbicides into the environment which have potential to cause cancer and then the same companies partner with companies that make cancer drugs
Cigarette companies did it for 50 yrs, cell phone companies are doing it today and in the future we have genetically modified foods. Looks like the general public will believe lies as long as they are going to save you money. I see the future of the world as 5% healthy and well educated people and the other 95% as overweight, diabetic and fighting cancer. In 200 to 300 years we will have killed 95% of the human race. The future will then be on the other 5%.
Need more food faster, faster, cheaper, more calories lower quality. Would rather use technology to have more quantity of inferior food than to have a standard quantity of quality food. Unfortunately that is the predominant thinking of the average american these days. Our medical industry is becoming overwhelmed with patients with new unknown illnesses. I will continue eating normal natural foods and drinking water from glass containers.
As long as everyone understands that the charter of the FDA is to promote, defend, and expand the profits of corporations, then there is no problem. There may be absolutely nothing wrong or unsafe at all about eating genetically-engineered fish, but if you are expecting the FDA to tell you definitively that this is safe or unsafe, you are foolish.
Really Jack,
Some people are really naive to think that the FDA are made of those who have your best interests. Especially when some of these board positions are filled w/ Corporate lifers who use it as a revolving door.
If the FDA approves, I don't see anything wrong with it. Of course, I'll wait a year first and see what happens before I buy it...
GM foods may have a relatively short history, but by increasing crop yields, disease resistance, and nutritional value, it will save millions of people.
Scary what they put in our food now-a-days. (you are what you eat) Eat the Frankenfish and become FrankenPeople!!! I don't want cancer or become obese. But they will find a way to slip these monsters into our food supply.
HELL NO TO GMO!!!! it is no wonder why we have so many people that are over weight – grocery stores are packed with modified food. Sad when something made to look or sound healthy is really bad for you.
I think it's more sad when people like you who sound like they haven't even finished their GED come out and start blabbing away without any actual knowledge of what they are talking about.
explain to me how genetic modification is making food less healthy? By explain I mean cite ONE scientific peer reviewed journal article. ONE.
You won't be able to though because every study that has tried to find something wrong has fallen flat on their face.
have you ever eaten a banana? THEY ARE ALL GENETICALLY MODIFIED BANANAS AREN'T A NATURALLY OCCURRING FRUIT THEY ARE ALTERED PLANTAINS!
GMO fish already swim in our lakes. In the state of Michigan we have splake and tiger muskie that have no natural reproduction. They are only planted by our DNR grown in hacheries. They have never brought any problems to our lakes nor their population taken off and destroyed our lakes. Most of these stories are blown out of proportion by the media. Those that think that we can feed the world with organic practices have no concept on the demands of our countries farmers and agricultural property. Saying we need to go organic is like saying we should erase the last 50 years of research and only grow 1/4 the crop. The same people who cry wolf today will be on this forum tomorrow when a loaf of bread costs $6.
Might I suggest reading "the Omnivore's Dilemma" before you assume that it is impossible to feed everyone without GMO products. Other than the fact that it is entirely possible to grow enough non-GMO foods there is also the issue of ownership. GMO products are in all actuality immensely expensive. Due to their patenting, most items are sterile. This requires farmers to purchase new seed every year from a corporation that sets the rates. On top of that, they must purchase the specific fertilizers and pesticides that the product is engineered for. In the end this leads the farmer into a perpetual servitude without the ability to every actually make a true profit since the bounty of their fields is meaningless when all of the above items have to be repurchased yearly. Add to that the immense amount of runoff from the immense amount of pesticides used and you see the true cost of supposed bigger, better and faster GMO.
Insted of reading a book why don't you take a drive to country and talk to these farmers who are in "perpetual servitude". The advent of GMO crops has in corn, beets and beans (the only ones I am familiar with) actually reduced input costs to produce said crops as well as increased yields. Your farmers today have stronger financial statements than ever before. Now I do agree with you that the costs of the seeds has increased tremendously over the last ten years with a bag of triple stacked corn seed on the high end almost $400 a bag. The modification that most controversy revolves around is the "round up" resistent gene. This gene alows farmers to spray a glyphosate based product ie. roundup, to kill weeds in the crop. These crops need to be sprayed ONCE for weeds!!!! as opposed to conventional practices which sprayed 3 and 4 times. Now you tell me how much worse off our farmers are today? Sure they are slaves to the company that sells them their seed but that company also increased their yields and margins to places they never thought possible. I think its great that you support your local organic farmer you and your friends support a small segment of agriculture that taylor to people with your same views. However for the masses who like our cheap, safe food supply don't screw it up for us. Just don't eat the dang salmon, go catch one (but remember in Michigan, if your pregnant Jess, you can only consume 6 onces of Salmon a month because of the elevated levels of mercury :)
The big fish on the main page looks like the size of the fish we catch up here in Alaska ALL THE TIME. We don't need genetically altered, just buy the fish from Alaska.
Excellent idea here...I can't wait until there's a big fat sticker on this that says, "MADE IN CHINA".
MIC, for your recrod, most GMO stuff are MADE IN THE US!
Scary what they put in our food now-a-days. (you are what you eat) Eat the Frankenfish and become FrankenPeople!!! I don't want cancer or become obese. But they will find a way to slip these monsters into our food supply.
HELL NO TO GMO!!!! it is no wonder why we have so many people that are over weight – grocery stores are packed with modified food. Sad when something made to look or sound healthy is really bad for you.
I think you're attributing the obesity epidemic to the wrong things. The obesity epidemic is most likely contributed to a lack of exercise AND diets high in fat and calories. Salmon isn't on that list, unless you throw it in the deep fat fryer with a little batter. But I don't know about you - I've never seen salmon that way.
WOW- What do we have here now? If the growth hormones in cattle was bad for us , then what do you think this will do to the human system. If the FDA pass this MODIFIED FISH (we cannot call it salmon anymore) then we are in for more trouble. The FDA do not care for the HUMANS, only for the money making corporations.. This as one reader put it is an ABOMINATION. We cannot eat ABOMINATION, the end of the human race is nigh....Come on you FDA people have the Balls to say NO.
what exactly is dangerous about it? Tell me one piece of scientific evidence showing it is dangerous.
You won't be able to because there isn't one. You calling it an abomination sounds like you are a christian bible thumper.
This is safer than hormones, safer than mercury that is in NATURAL salmon (NATURAL SALMON IS UNSAFE FOR PREGNANT WOMEN), and safer than antibiotics.
go finish high school and college or at least get your GED and then go read an actual piece of scientific literature and come back here when you have enough information to talk with the grown ups.
You may be educated, but you are stupid.
Dear MedicalStudent, food is a form of drug to human body. When you introduce genes that are "unnature" to animals, they could very well be "unnature" to human body and cause unexpected chain reactions. If you insist GMO food is so safe for human consumption, PROVE to us it's safe first before putting them on shelf! If you can not prove that you are NOT murdering people using your GMO food medicine, then highly lightly you are murdering people by killing their kidney, heart, and immune systems. Haven't we seen many medicines causing so-called side-effects which could kill you early than the actual disease you wish to treat?
While I understand your passion for science, because I am a scientist as well, insults will get you no where when discussing your points. The FDA hasn't approved the fish and therefore a decision hasn't been made about its safety. Like the FDA said, they want to hear conversations from both sides to help make their decision. There are plenty of scientists out there, specifically wildlife biologists and veterinarians that are more concerned about the safety to wildlife than to us.
Mr. David Gong – there is no such thing as an unnatural gene (I think you meant unnatural when you repeatedly typed "unnature"). All of the genes are found in nature, they are just being combined in new ways. Try actually learning something about the topic before displaying your ignorance by commenting.
Hi Howie, in not so ignorant terms, could you explain how GMOed food is safe when combining different natural genes unnaturally? Would human/aninmal digestion system "see" differences and thus triggering different reactions when being fed with GMOed food? We are here having a "healthy" and constructive debate on general GMO food safety issues. You sounds very much like a GMO-foolproof person. However, I am wondering how did you come about your conclusions: by intelligent guessing or being associated with GMO companies, or God forbidden claiming you are the GOD, know it all?
FYI: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genetically_modified_food
Rarely one gene acts along by itself. We need to better understand how gene, switch gene and epigene (is it absolutely perfectly timed and triggered in exact deepth each time or some further mutations are inevitable?) all manifested themselves from other species perfectly into the genetically modified fat and big salmon in question. And why this will cause absolutely no harm or threat to env. or human body (gastrointestinal effect, allergy?) ?
ok john prove me wrong find one article.
one scientific article showing they are unsafe. ONE.
not 2 or 3. ONE.
Find one scientific article proving that they are safe. Science works both ways...in case you forgot.
No. Science doesn't work both ways. It is possible to prove something is harmful–one experiment is enough. It is, however, an impossibility to prove that something is safe. It would be necessary to test it under all possible conditions which cannot be done.
In a case like this you have to examine the evidence–is there evidence of harm? If not, you have to ask if what you know theoretically and empirically about the process produces a likelihood of harm. Probably not in this instance.
Daniel, you must work for the pharmaceutical industry if you think one experiment is enough to prove/disprove anything. Never in the scientific community will you find this. To infer any amount of safety, long term research needs to be done to see if said product is unsafe. Since none have been done it is equally impossible to state that this GMO salmon is safe or unsafe. Basically, they have no idea if there will be repercussions or not.
One experiment is sufficient to prove that cyanide is an unsafe food additive. But there is no number of experiments you could do to prove to the same level of certainty that GM foods are absolutely safe. So a demand for such a proof is unreasonable. As I say, you have to make the decision on other grounds–if the studies show an absence of harm over a range of conditions and there are no a priori grounds for suspicion, then you make the call. That's all you can do.
MedicalStudent,
you are so keen on the proof article that currently probably doesn’t exist. But just because it currently exist doesn’t mean anything.
"MedicalStudent,
you are so keen on the proof article that currently probably doesn’t exist. But just because it currently exist doesn’t mean anything."
It doesn't mean anything only if you are dismissing the relevance of science. Surely it matters if there are no demonstrations of the harmfulness of GM foods–and many people have tried. What other evidence is relevant?
Scientific research costs money, which those who had wouldn't invest in actual science or anything that might go against their way of doing things (like GM-engineered food to increase profits per acre).
I think the better question to ask is what will they be feeding these fish to get them to grow that large in the alloted time. How healthy do you think corn and hormone fed salmon are? Feeding them grains pretty much negates all the health benefits of eating fish. Say bye-bye to all those fancy omega 3's. This is already a problem in farmed salmon that are not genetically engineered. People shouldn't limit themselves to just being pro or anti-GMO but consider the actual reality of the situation that is not being openly discussed. Bigger and faster is rarely better when it comes to food.
—Exactly! Some people on here act like it is just as simple as that. They just grow bigger and faster and faster w/out any long term consequences. Like jc has pointed out, when it comes to food, faster and bigger are usually not always better for you.
—And I had to laugh at those who think there is no problem w/ corporations dictating how information should be carried out. Money shouldn’t be the deciding factor here when it comes to food label and a consumer rights to know. If a corporation cares more about profits than food safety and nutrional values, then it has no business producing food. But sadly many are doing so thanks to McDonalds’. Go watch Food, Inc. if you haven’t already. It is an eye opener to be reminded how far removed we are from what is considered whole foods anymore.
Sigh. This debate has been overrun with misassumptions and misunderstnading of what the process really is: cross-breeding, a technique that has been used for centuries to improve cattle, sheep, dogs, cats and sometimes humans. Adding or replacing genes in the DNA is not the same as adding hormones or chemicals. The fish is still a salmon, it still eats the same food, but it grows faster – presumably because it doesn't slow down during cold months.
All the naysayers should be far more concerned about salmonella contamination in chicken and eggs than salmon. That problem is far more pervasive and far more serious in terms of effect on those who consume the contaminated food. Be more concerned about all the recent beef recalls because of bacterial contamination, about "dirty" lettuce and other veggies because of poor agricultural practices. Those are afar more likely to affect your life than a fast-growing fish.
I'd rather eat cloned animal meat if it is raised organically than any of that packaged meat. Put it this way, the chicken that you eat from KFC has more chemicals in it than any cloned animal. If you are worried about eating something unnatural, you basically have to be on your own farm. A tootsie pop has more chemicals in it than a cloned animal. Stop trying to act all high and mighty when a majority of our mass produced foods have way more chemicals than this fish ever will. Being able to clone animals will mean we can eat healthier since the animals won't have to have steroids or any other chemicals and additives. I'm sure some places will, but the availability of organic animal meat will rise drastically, bringing down prices. You just have to look at the big picture.
EXACTLY
Genetic engineering is simply getting the traits you LIKE to be expressed more.
So traits that promote health and growth will be increased in expression, while traits that promote disease would be decreased.
Altering genetics is far safer than consuming mercury, hormones, antibiotics or pesticides. people need to clam down and read the literature.
The biggest problem is not related to health, it is the possibility of having these fish released into the wild (which will happen), and compete with native populations.
explain to me how a fish escapes into the wild from a food production facility where they are being captively bred...
don't have any rivers leading from the facility to the ocean. end of story.
Think soylent green!
fear of genetically engineered food is fear from ignorance.
most of our food is genetically engineered.
I'd rather eat captive bred salmon that's engineered to grow faster than wild salmon that is full of mercury.
I'd rather eat genetically engineered chicken than chicken pumped full of hormones and antibiotics
I'd rather eat genetically engineered fruit (engineered resistance to pests) than eat fruit covered in pesticides.
Genetic engineering is a SAFE CLEAN ALTERNATIVE to our current methods of farming plants and animals. There is no article anywhere for ANY genetically modified food showing they are dangerous. NOT ONE.
These so called "watchdogs" are really just advocates for the small farmers. Why else would people be up in arms about genetically engineered mercury-free salmon when the most dangerous part of salmon IS THE MERCURY. Pregnant women should not eat salmon or sushi FOR A REASON.
do your own research people, this is safe and clean. Genetic engineering is being turned into a 4 letter word by producers who are just afraid of being put out of business. There is NOT ONE PIECE OF EVIDENCE QUESTIONING THEIR SAFETY.
NO amount of time would be long enough for these people to prove it to them.
Thanks MedStudent. Well said. Good luck on the Boards!
Nice to see someone has a brain and can write a coherent comment.
I fully agree with you, bring on the genetically engineered food and remove the pesiticides/hormones/chemicals we use today.
You will not find one scientific article to show that it is unsafe because no one would publish that information afraid to pick up battles and lawsuits of the companies that would have patented that technology. So rethink your opinion
You're given me a bad name...we are not the same.
A company that works with genetic engineering can successfully sue a scientist publishing a paper on the effects of consuming genetically engineered food?? Your ignorance of science is only surpassed by your ignorance of the law.
Farm-raised salmon have much higher levels of PCBs compared to wild salmon. While I'm not against genetic modification (in fact I do gene therapy research as a potential tool for fighting cancer), I think salmon is a poor model to adapt with the current standards of fish farms.
Here's a better Summary Headline: AquaBounty and FDA team together for Profit Over Health. AquaBounty wants the risk damaging the world's natural salmon stock so that AquaBounty and its owners can make money while the world takes an unknown risk that will more than likely be damaging in some way. Stop It Now!
Or how about "Ignorant people fear sound science?" :)
Lets try them in the africa or ethiopia and see how they respond
I just know I'm going to see these fish in a horror movie sometime soon:
"Attack of the Killer Salmon – they've spontaneously mutated and now crave HUMAN FLESH!!!" [Cut to scene of sexy lady in bikini relaxing on inner tube thinking her boyfriend is tickling her feet in the water...]
That's NOT her feet I'm licking!
let them do it!
leave all the natural salmon to the natives
There are quite a few disturbing reports in many developing countries cultivating GMO crops that local wild animal population has been seen dramatic decline and pig or cattle farms using GMO crop as feedstock have seen strange very high rate of birth defect and death rate of new born animals. It's very odd that we have seen quite an alarming rate of allergic symptoms amongst young adults and Alzheimer's disease in old population in countries using GMO food. Blaming the env is too clean would not cut it! FDA and scientific communities need to be serious about this and can not use 1-2 generations of people as guinea pig for expensive experiments. And those who have perpetrated the society by concealing information and deliberately "pollute" human body for making dirty propit should be held responsible and liable for potential criminal investigations. Those GMO companies have to prove (FDA needs to eventually safeguard it) that their GMO products DO NOT pose any harm to local ecosystem and human body before being allowed to "sell" their products!
Most people don't realize it but a LOT of the foods we eat today are genetically altered, both plants and animals. And technically, amost ALL foods are genetically altered if you count selective breeding which has been going on for thousands of years. I really don't see why there is any debate on this. It doesn't matter if it was genetically altered, it's a living animal and I'll eat it. If it's cheaper, better for the environment, then that's a big plus. But I'd eat it anyway. It's science people. Get over it. It's a good thing. Don't listen to the sciencephobes and the conspiracy theorists. They're stupid.
Holy cow someone with a brain! :)
I would rather eat genetically modified fish than a "0gr. transfat," cheeseburger.
Of course as long as they have their Lobbyist friends sure let the people eat it, man made cancer risk. Means more people with cancer and with that the pharmaceutical companies get their little research money and make more poison medicines that kill people. But when it becomes about the old naturally grow marijuana o-OOOOOO NOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!! THEY WON'T GO FOR THAT!
I love a good conspiracy theory....so who killed JFK? was 9/11 an inside job?
Actually 911 was controlled demolition.
OMG NOOOOOOOO, fish that grow, mature, develop, and live EXACTLY like every other fish – except they have a different set of DNA and are sterile. Yeah, this looks real harmful, because us intelligent people know that eating the DNA of another animal will mutate us into slave zombies, AMIRITE? /endsarcasm
Explain how an altered DNA combination makes any difference once it hits your stomach acid. It's no different than any other animals DNA. People fear-mongering this are unbelievable – following your logic, we'd all be mutants long ago from our crops, or all mooing from the beef we've eaten.
Tell you what – you keep paying more for natural salmon and continue decimating that resource, while the rest of us non-nut jobs use our brains to realize that this is a phenomenal new resource and mature/evolve as humans.
There is no shortcuts to making profits. This genetically-engineered salmon cannot even reproduces because of the abominations it has had to put up with just to get bigger and grow much quicker than a normal salmon. This kind of abomination is the first step toward cancers and various other diseases. The problems with theses diseases is that they will be discovered very later when millions of humans are infected for good and likely to infect other millions in various ways (sexual contacts, etc.)
KEEP YOUR ABOMINATION GENETICALLY-ENGINEERED SALMONS FOR THE LAB, NOT FOR CONSUMERS!!!
And what source can you cite for your wealth of knowledge (including prescient visions!) on this subject?
"Theses diseases", jesus
If GMO salmon is approved by the FDA,. I will never buy salmon again. We will never know for sure whether the fillets at the market are natural or genetically altered. Industry and the FDA by nature corrupt and greedy and put their own interests above that of the consumer. Beyond the article, introducing such modified species has worldwide implications on intentionally modifying our natural habitat and environment. From what I've seen of the way the FDA is BS'd by industry this is simply a bad idea not in the public's best interest. Stop It Now!
Folks, there seems to be a lot of HWFO (hand-waving freak-outery) going on about this, without any evidence either way about the health consequences of eating them. It's pointless to swear that you'll never eat one of these "monstrosities" until you have more facts.
Face it, with the human race's propensity to breed, the dwindling fish populations are not going to last forever. In fact, they probably won't last another 50 years, if traditional fishing continues its current trends.
So unless we eradicate a huge portion of the human race, or make fish so expensive that only the rich can afford to eat it, something else is going to have to be done. Nature is not going to be able to fix itself without some kind of help, and this is one possible solution.
Farm fishing is one option, but as many people know, since ground water is often contaminated with varying degrees of chemicals, those fish are possibly less "safe" than ocean fish... though even ocean fish are known to contain mercury and other toxins.
Ironically, it's possible that these genetically engineered fish may wind up being the safest source, if they are grown in truly clean environments, which may well happen early on to ensure proper growth and to monitor for any possible health hazards to people (whether a test group or the general population).
So just wait for more information. Time will tell whether or not these will be a good solution for the world's impending hunger problems.
All the new salmon are female, and all of their eggs are infertile – limiting any effect of escape to the life of escaped fish. That said, yes, it seems like the same argument made in Jurassic park.
Where in the world did you read that? I don't see that anywhere in the story.
You realize Jurassic park was a movie, right? Seriously?
I hope you realize that "Jurassic Park" was a FICTIONAL movie.
There's no reason not to eat this fish. It's not some sort of genetic mutation, or scientific experiment gone wrong. It's the utilization of scientific research to facilitate the growth of the human population, by creating a more efficient food source. Test it, make sure it's healthy, if it proves to be safe then there's no reason not to utilize this development to it's greatest potential: as a method of eliminating hunger in poor countries around the world
You are wrong, these fish are artificial genetic mutants made in a laboratory.
I think it's fairly simple: eat healthy (organics?), eat less, eat natural, and maybe live longer?
And for those that have nothing to eat?
Organic, all natural food is a vice of wealthy countries. We can all pat ourselves on the back about how natural the food we eat is, while millions starve, and technology that could be used to feed them is shunned and shutdown due to our ignorance.
This technology is not an option, but will be a neccessity if we are to meet the food demands of an increasingly overpopulated world. However, we shouldn't rush into things. If it's introduced into the market, I'm going to wait at least a few more years before I try it. Hopefully long enough to work any potential bugs out!
The issue here is not whether the science of genetics is an accurate picture of reality. The results genetic scientists can produce provides undeniable proof of their knowledge. Science is a wonderful thing. The issue here is the global agribusiness corporations.
Corporate science is to science as an art museum is to a whorehouse. What we have learned from Enron, HP, Blackwater, BP, Toyota, Halliburton, ADM, the makers of Tylenol, Arthur Anderson, and all the rest of the rogues' gallery of global corporations is this:
They fake test results.
They bribe regulators.
They destroy test animals that show some defect.
They hire scientists who prefer money to integrity and who are known to product user-friendly test results.
They hide product defects.
They conceal negative test results.
While I believe in science, I have zero confidence in corporate science. I do not know what test results were concealed and what defective salmon were destroyed. Maybe they are guilty of corporate hanky-panky and maybe they are not. No one will ever know.
I have 100% confidence that this product will not be labeled "Genetically Modified Frankenfish." It will be labeled "WILD PACIFIC NATURAL brand SALMON: From Nature to you, with love."
I'm hungry, bring some this way please. The vast majority do not know where their food comes from anyway, and never have. Live fast, stay young, enjoy life, and pass away before old age.
And if you make it to old age, then what?
Ironically, it may be "greener" to farm fish with these genetic enhancements right?
They take half the time to raise to market, meaning the resource (water filtration, feed, shipping of feed, equipment maintenance) requirements to get them to market are much smaller as well.
Additionally, having these types of 'farm-only' species available for the food industry might take some pressure off of wild populations being overfished and exploited.
i think if this fish did make it into the wild with the ability to breed though it would likely rapidly be selected against. it is likely the growth hormone gene is turned off in wild salmon in the winter to conserve metabolic energy, so a fish in the wild who would need to eat at the "growing rate" of summer all year round would likely starve.
But it is the unintended consequences that are often the more dangerous, so as long as caution is used and solid science – not propaganda from either camp – is the guiding hand.
Americans have all about eating more for less. Now we have a obesity epidemic.
Now the same industry that has contributed to cause that problem is trying to move into healthy food.
Scary stuff, very scary stuff.
Let's get bigger and taller. Bigger cows, bigger fish, bigger kids.
How about bigger boobs and penis's
This only happens to GMO Females from Brazil!
"effectively rendering the vast majority of the fish sterile." So what happens to tiny minority? I'll tell you what happens – they escape and start breeding with wild stock and the entire species gets corrupted. This already happens. I worked in the fishing industry in Alaska and you see all sorts of weird crossbred salmon from escaped Atlantic Salmon breeding with Pacific species. This is pretty much GUARANTEED to occur. My main gripe with GMO is that it mixes with and corrupts the original species. Frankly, I don't want an entire world of GMO food. Because what if GMO turns out to be a bad idea? You can't turn back the clock on this crap people.
This will be to fish what Monsanto is to soybeans. Why so many of you are intent on defending this sort of modification is beyond me; this is not real food. Farm raised sterile fish (except for that pesky 5%) are literally the opposite of evolution; how is that even remotely natural?
You do realize very little of what we eat is natural anymore, almost everything we eat has been modified by selective breeding (both animals and plants). The vast majority of the foods we eat even organic foods would not be able to survive in the wild
You personally, eat GMO foods every day. They are all around you in the foods you consume. Saying how something is not natural is ridiculous, there is nothing natural about anything we have in our lives anymore. Vaccines aren't natural, birth control isn't natural, air conditioning isn't natural, people living to the age of 80 isn't natural. People adapt the environment to their needs, not the other way around.
Word.
now you know what i eat? i gotta get a restraining order, great. while most people may already be eating GMO food, that does not make it right...are we not already seeing the consequences (population spiraling out of control, obesity epidemics, earlier developement in girls, cancer rates soaring) of this enough not to know not to try to further the damage? but hey, whatever makes a buck quicker right?
Yes, you do eat GMOs. Here is why:
91% of soybeans grown in the United States are GMOs.
88% of cotton is genetically modified.
75% of corn has been genetically modified.
These items are all processed into the following things:
Cottonseed oil
Soybean oil
Soy protein
High fructose corn syrup
Corn oil
Canola (rapeseed) oil
Those ingredients are practically in EVERYTHING. It is estimated that 70% or more of the convenience foods contain GMOs. They are not required to be labeled either. Unless you eat 100% organic, which is basically impossible, you are eating GMOs.
There is also absolutely no link between puberty rates, obesity, cancer rates and GMOs.
There is a vast difference between selective breeding and genetic modification. Selective breeding leaves offspring able to breed future generations. Future. Genetic modification leaves the offspring sterile and unable to reproduce on their own. No future.
bad idea, bad idea...don't do it ...I hate that I'm gonna have to look back and say "told you" but I feel like that's inevitable
We all knew gentically montified food was coming at a greater rate into the food market, but what I don't understand is why they don't label it. I want to know if I'm eating GMOs and to have the choice to not if I please. I feel like they're trying to trick me into eating their GMOs by not labeling it.
The manufacturers fought this in court....it seems that they believe that by labeling the products as GMO, that consumers would be "afraid" to consume their.....crap!
You have been eating genetically modified food your entire life. Humans began modifying plants and animals about 10,000 years ago. Almost everything you eat is genetically modified. Sometimes the original, natural organisms can not even be eaten by humans; for example, the natural potato is toxic and closely related to deadly nightshade and tobacco. Sensational news articles like this cause people to irrationally fear GMO food; that is why Monsanto and other GM companies do not want to have to label their food items. Why should they lose customers to baseless fears when everything their customers eat is already genetically modified (even "organic" food is genetically modified)?
Selective breeding isn't even in the same neighborhood as genetic modifications these folks are employing in the labs. Secondly, Monsanto is a criminal organization, headed by criminals, and employing criminal tactics to subjugate farmers and control the food supply across the country. They are principally the reason why people will not buy GM foods.
"...rather those used for than food safety."
Thanks for the report, Yoda.
Don't be a p**sy – eat the fish.
This is terrible. Anyone who supports this is ridiculous
It's exactly the same Atlantic salmon, the genes have been altered to make it grow twice as fast. We eat GMO crops every day, corn, tomatoes, rice you name it. You eat it every single day. Have you mutated yet?
Anyone who is against it is simply reacting out of fear, not understanding. I find that to be ridiculous.
If GMOs are so safe/no threat to humans WHY do companies refuse to label their products as such? Shouldn't "We the people" have a choice in what we eat?
Companies don't label their products as GMO because doing so decreases sales. People want to buy it more if it's labelled "organic" and want to buy it less if it's labeled "Genetically Modified". So which label goes on a food has more to do with sales than it does anything else.
Because, as the responses to this article prove, so many consumers are complete idiots who are afraid of anything new or different. It's a wonder so many of them can operate a computer well enough to post here.
The biggest issue I have is that farm raised fish tend to have higher levels of unwanted chemicals (ie mercury, pcbs, etc) as these chemicals bioaccumulate due to fish essentially being fed bits of smaller, ground up fish that also have these substances. With larger fish being manufactured, more food will be required to maintain their health and weight and a greater amount of bioaccumulation will result. I expect these fish will have higher levels of dangerous substances in their meat and fat compared to an already iffy level in normal sized fish.
As for the genetic modification: I'm all for it. Perhaps not in the fish model, though.
Bioaccumulation increases as the age of the animal increases. Older animals eat more tainted meals over time. So by growing the salmon to harvestable size in a shorter amount of time, the bioaccumulated toxicity actually decreases.
Your biggest issue is based on a completely false hypothesis. Wild fishes – especially salmon, have a MUCH higher degree of contamination due to bio-accumulation of toxins. With farmed fish, the food supply can be regulated to exclude the contaminants. Wild Salmon is no longer safe to eat due to mercury levels. This fish will grow faster, therefore having less time to get contaminated, and will be raised in a controlled environment where (hopefully) the food supply will be monitored to prevent the toxins from getting in in the first place.
Unfortunately that is not true. Farm raised salmon tend to have higher levels of chemicals, namely PCBs in their systems compared to wild salmon. The food that is fed to fish at fish farms is often highly contaminated with PCBs, and as farm-raised fish tend to grow larger and live longer than in the wild, they have more time and space to accumulate adverse substances. A quick search through any bio-related scientific literature site will reveal plenty of studies that demonstrate that wild salmon are much healthier than farm raised for this and a number of other reasons.
Erica: Bioaccumulation is not correlated directly with time, but rather the amount of contaminated food consumed. Often the two coincide but in this case it is important to make the distinction. Regardless of what type of genetic information a fish has activated, it needs the resources to produce fat and muscle and to grow properly and that will be absorbed through meals. The fish may get larger in a shorter amount of time, but they will also be eating more to account for their new-found widened parameters. With the increase in consumption, you get an increase in adverse chemicals.
The news item that compared the Atlantic salmon to the King Salmon was very bias and misleading!
The salmon are two distinct species witth naturally different meat coloring and flavors.
The only meaningful test would be to compare modified and natural samples of the same species.
Smoke and mirrors can fool some of the people but most of us prefer factual relevant reporting!!
Agree with Boyd Smith. . Finally CNN puts a light on a topic worth while.
I'm sure I'll take a lot of flack for asking this question, but just what is the big gripe people have about genetically engineered food? Is it somehow especially toxic? I'm no biologist, but it seems to me that it's still an animal. It's still made of organic molecules. Molecules which are broken down in our digestive systems into compounds our bodies need. The DNA of these critters are not being somehow spliced into our own. So what exactly is the big deal?
One of the biggest problems is that scientifically modifying the DNA of any organism, HAS NOT proven to be without serious consequences. There is a HUGE difference between scientists modifying the DNA, and that natural process of selection of Mother Nature.
Monsanto is one of the biggest pushers of GMOs, and they have former executives running the FDA...kind of makes you wonder about the credibility and integrity of the people that are deciding what goes on the store shelves. Watch the documentary "Food, Inc"
People fear what they do not understand. No, the DNA of these organisms is not being spliced into our own. We digest their proteins just like we would any other animal. But it's new and different, so people are afraid.
Ask the Honey Bees about the insecticide that's genetically used in crop seed now. Wonder why the bees are dying off?
The FDA does not care about our health.
so that's why they are having these hearings? just to put on a show?
yes
It's genetically altered NOT chemically.
Monsanto corn has a gene splice with e. coli bacteria! Do you really want to eat that?
everytime a baby is born there is slight genetic mutations thats why some people are 8 feet tall and some are 3 feet tall.....i have no problem eating GE fish i eat GE crops everyday and if they happen to escape into the wild well that means big catches next time i go fishing plus i wouldnt doubt they could modify it so they cant breed with regular salmon...just like global warming people have to understand the planet and wildlife will not stay the same forever some will die out others will not...peta im sorry but u cant save everything seems some people have a problem with change
Humans becoming extinct is a problem.
I would have no problem with these fish...IF....I repeat....IF......they were certified as being safe by an agency that has an unblemished record in such certification. It's not the fish that causes fear so much as the certifying agency. Their record speaks for itself.
What, you mean like the same agency that gave a thumb's up to thalidomide? Good luck with that.
And all the drugs that are recalled AFTER people have died from them?
WHO CARES?! I MEAN REALLY, WE EAT ALTERED FOOD ALL THE TIME..AND YEARS LATER WE WILL FIND ITS CAUSING CANCER AND IT WILL LEAD TO THE END OF THE WORLD...
dude it doesnt matter its a freaking salmon thats extra large it actually helps the environment by allowing salmon not to be caught for food (besides i dont eat salmon much anyway)
So does anybody else find it fittingly appropriate that the story of "Frankenstein", where the portmanteau in the title comes from, is the story of a creation that is baselessly feared by those around it? This misunderstanding and fear cause a lot of pain and suffering that could have been avoided with a little education and understanding. Life imitates art, indeed.
Most people haven't read Frankenstein, but yes, I appreciate that too. :) Frankenstein's monster was feared for no reason by the people around him. He really just wanted to be loved, but they all shunned him. Sad. And a fitting name for this fish.
You mean the fish just want to be loved?
Supreme observation, cheers.
Well, Frankenstein's monster does (accidentally) kill Frankenstein's brother, so I wouldn't use that metaphor too much.
Great so in 20 years my grandchildren will pop up with problems due to this 'safe' food. Does anyone have any common sense anymore. You people are killing me
It's just a salmon that grows twice as fast because the gene that produces the growth hormone is turned on ALL THE TIME, instead only 1/3 the time. It's exactly the same salmon. It's just instead of getting 1 fillets you get 2 in the same time. Your grandchildren will be much more prone to disease because of all the sodium, cholesterol and sugars they consume, not GMOs.
P.S. You probably eat genetically modified corn every day in form of fructose syrop.
There is absolutely no reason to be afraid of this salmon. Here is why:
1. It's exactly the same species of salmon
2.The growth gene hormone from the Chinook "King" salmon is turned on
3. The scientists used the DNA from the ocean pout that functions as a switch to keep that gene producing growth hormone on as a "promoter gene"
4. Results in a fish that reaches market size in 18 months instead of 3 years
5. All fish are bred female and sterile and are farmed in separate tanks
6. They did taste tests. People said they tasted fine.
TL;DR It's exactly the same fish nutritionally.
Then you eat it !!
5. You're wrong. The company stated that MOST of the fish are sterile, not ALL! Big difference when it comes to accidental releases into the wild.
Yes, they do keep some of them non-sterile, to breed them. However, the breeding populations are tightly controlled. The chances for them escaping, surviving in the wild and contaminating the wild populations are minuscule compared with the benefit of the product.
Am concerned with this but I'm guessing it will be approved. I'd ask for the fish to be labeled as GMO (unlike other types of food) and see if people purchase it vs other salmon. It won't happen though....
For me personally I purchase wild caught salmon a few times every fall when it is "is season"....
Fisher
Much ado about nothing in my opinion.
As someone already has said we have been doing this for a long time.
I am all for selective gene modification. Grow fish faster, bigger with less time sounds like a great idea. I would have no problems eating it.
Hey guys, will you visit SaveStan.ORG a friend of mine with 4 young babies is fighting for his life....... Thanks
Simple solution, the aqua bounty executives and scientists become legally AND criminally liable if any escape into the wild. We don't need any new ones to go along with Asian carp or any of the other non native species that have gotten loose from flooding, mistakes or just plain greed.
Um... Rich, many Asian carp are, indeed, overgrown released goldfish. Yes, goldfish. They have nothing to do with genetic modification or fish farming. They are the result of the carelessness of individuals, not the carelessness of corporations. The next time you see someone flushing a goldfish or releasing their fish tank into a local pond, you can rightfully blame them for the epidemic of invasive Asian carp.
Most of the intentional releases of nonnatives species which turned out to be destructive in the US were done originally on purpose by various US government programs or industries. The gypsy moth, for example, was brought over by US business in an attempt to create a new silk industry. It went horribly awry and created a huge problem. Now similarly fallible scientists want to put things inside our bodies. Let idiots do whatever they want but it damn well better be labeled.
Once again the FDA shows that it is the corrupt little stooge of the food industry. This issue cannot stop at concern or disapproval. As we saw with GMO corn once the defective (GMO) genetics are unleashed on the natural world they, quickly spread into the natural populations. As we learned with Superfund cleanups it is important to know who was responsible for the pollution so, when it comes time to clean up their mess the public knows who to pursue for compensation. I think that the public needs to know exactly who is behind this new salmon so when the environment is dammaged the public will be able to hunt them down and bring them to justice. We need to know the names of those involved in the manufacture of the GMO salmon and the names of their cronies who are pushing their agenda at the Federal agency! How sick do you have to be to go to work at a consumer protection agency to collect a paycheck and to then deny the public the right to even know what they are putting in their bodies. NAMES!!!
Well put. My 9 year old is getting a figure and I am suspect as to why.
I never imagined how much little understanding people have of science or how little they do research about topics such as this. These fish will be grown in inland nurseries with little possibility of ever going out into the wild. Not only that but they are genetically engineered to be sterile thus pose no threat of breeding with local population or breeding in the wild. Also for those who think that the salmon genes will be incorporated into our cells, go read a science book instead of pouting nonsense. The GH (growth hormones) for these salmons are peptide based thus will get digested into its components in our stomachs. So for all those who start pouting nonsense go read a science book or get a basic understanding of genetics before you make a fool of yourself
"I never imagined how much little understanding people have of science or how little they do research about topics such as this. ... Not only that but they are genetically engineered to be sterile thus pose no threat of breeding with local population or breeding in the wild."
Wow, I never imagined how little comprehension some people have. Did you even read the part about the sterility of the Salmon? It doesn't say they are sterile, it says the "majority" of them are sterile. So yes, they absolutely CAN breed with the wild population. You think this company wouldn't mind throwing a few of their salmon into the wild so they can own all fish that contain their markers?
AMEN
Derek, I hate to break it to you, but there is no such thing as wild corn. Genetically modified corn, therefor, cannot have possibly spread through the "natural world." Also, you do realize that, unless you're eating corn-kernel sized fruits, the strawberries you eat to day have been genetically modified. And I'm not talking about selective breeding. Modern strawberries are the result of scientifically interrupted mitosis, resulting in polyploidy that leads to larger fruits. Even Europe with its "strictly no GMO" stance allows modern strawberries to be sold and consumed. BUT THEY ARE GMO! Countless other examples of GMO foods abound, but nobody cares about them, many are even now considered "organic" foods. And nobody has died or gotten sick from consuming them!
TY,
The point is not only whether GMO food and plants are dangerous for health.
The point is that the taste is not the same. You were talking about those huge strawberries, apples...you name it. They are all huge so that they could sell better. But, they do not taste like anything. You ever tried a blueberry from the forest as opposed to that big ball blueberry from the store? Wild blueberries or the ones grown without all this chemical genetical BS taste like real taste ok. So, now the salmon will taste like shit too because americans just like everything BIG and more of it. Dumb
Wrong. Wild corn is called teosinte. The poster was right. GMO Monsanto genes have now been found not only in teosinte, the ancestor of corn, but also in native South American stocks that've been nearly unchanged for hundreds or thousands of years.
I hate to break it to you but there are "natural" corn plants. Check out Mexico and Peru. These are the ancestors of our modern crops. The modern corn crops have been selectively breed for their current qualities and (until Monsanto) not genetically modified in the same sense that these fish have been changed. The fish genes like Monsanto's corn have been artificially mixed in a laboratory and would not occur in nature. The results are sterile indeed. Which only makes the companies with patents rich. And world hunger more likely to occur. Look out people the world manipulators are coming!!!!!!
Say NO to GMO if you are a fat uneducated American with a full stomach.
hey 1st of all the salmon only grows bigger and doesnt stop growing It wont cause cancer like people think, And second BEING AMERICAN DOESNT MAKE PEOPLE IDIOTS
being american does increase your chance of being idiotic. you see, how many applaud did sarah palin receive?
As a sustainable environment consultant since 1995 I applaud CNN for covering this once taboo topic. If the health and environment costs for commercial or GMO foods were calculated at the checkout stand they would be over ten times the price of natural or organic food . Thank you CNN for the coverage.
As a person who has been literate (and fairly cynical) since well before 1995, I'd like to see your source for that assertion.
Your statement made me curious. If there is no cost advantage, how do they sell these fish? Or do you mean the cost to soceity or government agencies... Personally, I am still reading about this revolution in food. I think the arguments on both sides are interesting, but the truth is we are all just guessing... Like so many things...
With all of the man-made things that are blamed for illness and cancer (asphestos, cigarettes, pesticides and vaccines; to name a few) why is it even a debate? Stay natural, be healthy
Humans have been genetically modifying crops and animals for thousands of years (through selective breeding). The only concern I see is when GMO salmon escape to the wild.
Selective breeding is different from selecting genes. Selective breeding has limits and is subject to natural order. If the breeding doesn't work, it doesn't work. With GMO we can FORCE organisms to take genes from other organisms that could never breed together.
I agree with you though about the concern of GMO animals escaping. That concern shouldn't be taken lightly by anyone.
This was my issue, too, but the article says they are unable to breed.
You cannot compare the natural process of selective breeding to the scientific manipulation of genes in animals. There are many studies that show the industrialization and scientific manipulation of plants and animals over the past 60 years has led to lower quality food and more health problems. Go natural or go to McDonald's – I know what my choice is.
From other CNN article:
"The company will only sell female eggs and raise the fish within contained, inland systems. However, despite these assurances, the FDA indicates that up to 5% of the eggs may indeed be fertile, and the company's claims in this regard are 'potentially misleading.'"
Considering that the flesh from any animal is considered edible, it if swims, flies, or walks or crawls it is likely edible. I fail to see what the discussion is about. I also agree that it shouldn't be introduced into the wild and am opposed to creating animals that cannot reproduce without a key genetically introduced element as a replacement for wild animals or grains, etc.
9 year old girls are mature now. thanks to growth hormones in cattle. so is this really a good idea... not!
Horse, selective breeding is the same as selecting genes...it's just GMO gets it done quicker. Regardless, this could open pandora's box for GMO animals and an equally strong reaction for organic foods. I'm also getting the feeling that most do not know the extent of GMO crops in our diets.
Thats what they said about the dinosaurs on jurassic park.
"stupid people
9 year old girls are mature now. thanks to growth hormones in cattle. so is this really a good idea... not!"
9 year olde girls were maturing before they started introducing HGH to cattle. The reason you hear about it now is there is easily acessable media to spread stories aroud the world and in the past there were only local newspapers.
There was a study I dont have the exact details but something like 33 girls were chosen all were fed the same ammount of beef some with and some without hormones over a period of like 5 years. A only a couple of the girls developed breasts early one of them was fed only non hormone beef. If the hormones are the cause how do you explain this?
Well, perhaps the Luddites do represent the future, as it would appear from many of the posters here. Just be ready to give up your food so the additional two billion people on this planet (UN estimate for 2050) can be fed. I guarantee you that people will readily kill for food. If you think that is outrageous, take their foiod away for a week asn see what happens.
For all of you who would like to return to the natural way of things, that is, hunting and gathering, this planet can support ,at the very most ,one billion people in that mode. Will the six billion volunteers who will now agreeably commit suicide please raise your hands? Anyone? Looks like you might be short six billion volunteers on this one.
“Genetically altered animals considered harmless because they can’t breed in the wild”. Hmm. Wasn’t that the same process the scientists used in Jurassic Park? “Nature will find a way…”
"stupid people
9 year old girls are mature now. thanks to growth hormones in cattle. so is this really a good idea... not!"
old age used to be 30's. so what are you blaming in society making 80+ old age now?
"I also agree it shouldnt be introduced into the wild"...did you even read the articles?! it's never going to be introduced...idiots also, 9 year olds...I'm pretty sure that they are in the minority considering I'm a baby from the 80s and I grew up normal and fine, those hormones didn't just get miraculously introduced in the 90's...
on a brighter note, I'm in favor of Darwinism....Survival of the FIttest!
Yes, I love the careful subtlety used to describe the fishes "inability" to breed with other fish. Read the paragraph again. "This allows the AquAdvantage® Salmon to grow to twice the size it normally would, in half the time, as well as effectively rendering the *VAST MAJORITY* of the fish sterile – which both prevents the altered fish to breed with wild populations of fish, and protects the company's intellectual material." Thanks for the honesty ABT, please keep your BFF out of the ocean!
i agree. while i generally stay away from genetically enhanced food, this could go a long way in terms of providing nourishment to those in disadvantaged situations. that being said, the thought of frankenfish ending up in the salmon environment bothers me immensely.
I echo that selective breeding and cross polination of plants are different than genetic engineering. I think some are using the term genetic engineering a bit loose around here.
All you scientist are sick humans.... You actually think when you are producing GMO anyting its actually SAFE.. It causes sickness and disease in the long run.. WAKE UP GMO'S ARE A SOFT SLOW KILL......
Your name Scientist needs to be revoked.
really Will? There is also more than one "Scientist" screen names in this thread. Sorry for the confusion. Besides, I'm right.
Sorry, selective breeding is not the same as genetic alteration at the DNA level. As a self proscribed 'Scientist' you should be able to understand that but don't.
The only way I would eat these is if the CEO/Board of Directors/Scientists/Everybody involved will stuff themselves with this Salmon for the next 25 years and live to tell abou it....greedy people....anything for a buck...
@Michael Crichton, @gnome:
Jurassic Park? Really? Thats your big argument to this? You are referencing something that never really happened to combat things that your insecure, afraid of change and progress, minds can not seem to see is an excellent idea. As many people in the comments have pointed out, the earth can not support the amount of people that are now living on it naturally. Either people stave to death in greater numbers than what they are now or we are going to have to start expanding research in this field.
GE salmon VS wild salmon: http://www.organicconsumers.org/articles/article_21655.cfm
@Mattp
It was a joke, dont take the internet so seriously! its full of dicks.
You seem to show no concern if we eat this, but are concerned if it is released to the wild. If there is no issue than why the concern? It is not healthy for human consumption on any level. It may be true that genetic altering has been a part of society for many years, but it was done without manufatured chemicals. I grieve for the overall health of our society because there is so much distortion.
Sorry, you got lumped in with those are really using that as an argument.
What kills me is the people crying "Frankenfish" and "Greedy Corporations" while at the same time crying "We're overfishing and depleting species!!!!"
Get a clue. The reason why this is being done is very very simple: There are too many people and not enough food to supply the demand.
You have a few choices:
1) Reduce the human population and hence the demand for food
2) Get everyone to eat less
3) Search for ways to produce more food quickly to meet growing demand
4) Blindly reject efforts to increase food production and just use up all our resources because that is "real" food
If you won't eat modified foods, that is your choice but don't be a flaming hypocrite by blaming corporations while stuffing your faces with "real food" that is not sustainable and is only affordable to your privileged lifestyle.
I can't believe people on this forum have low enough intelligence to not understand the different between genetic modification and crossbreeding... Nature can mix all sorts of things, and there are many things it cannot mix... GMO is generally taking the things that nature will not mix/create, and forcing the genes into this unnatural state. While it MAY be safe in some cases, depending on the changes, when you are forcing nature to do something that it refused to do on its own, you are probably playing with fire. I definitely wouldnt want to introduce it into my diet! To understand if it is safe or not will take decades, meanwhile you could be poisoning your entire population and damaging the human genes.
RE: "Horse, selective breeding is the same as selecting genes...it's just GMO gets it done quicker. "
This is completely false... Nature would NEVER do much of these things, and REFUSES in many cases which is why we force it at the genetic level. When genes change in nature, they do so gradually. Not a single genere changes, the entire body and structure changes over time, this is sometimes considered "natures balance". When you force some huge genetic change without the gradual process, its very likely you will end up with genes that your body is not adapted to handle. Foods that your body never was exposed to and does not know how to break down properly, and genetic modifications that can be deadly. Maybe health problems, maybe cancer, maybe death... who knows? but do YOU want to be the guinea pig for these new 'foods'.
Soilent green coming soon!
Whether the GM Salmon is allowed to be put in the food chain is questionable, BUT I have no particular disagreement with that as long as it is clearly ALWAYS to be advertised as GM. The market will rid itself of the fish if it deserves such a fate.
HOWEVER, will the fish breed if it escapes to the wild? "They" say no, BUT that doesn't mean anything to me. Our "God-like" scientists THINK they know everything there is to know about how genetic material effects the modified item, but the truth is, they are only guessing. There is no way to know the ultimate effect of a genetic modification after the item, be it animal or plant, undergoes a single growth cycle after a natural mutation. Look at the speed with which virii and bacteria are mutating these days. WHY do these people still believe they can control the outcome of any form of genetic modification when obviously, there is something that is causing unusually rapid mutations in nature? It would be nice to once again see life take precedence over profit.
Exactly my fear. If and when the fertile GMO salmon find a way to breed in the wild, will we be ask to injest their offspring unknowingly? Will Aquabounty claim intellectual property rights over the sale of wild salmon that have hint-traces of its patented technology their DNA? I’m starting to feel De-ja-vu of Monsanto’s takeover of the seed market.
Here we go again...
Good God, reading some of these posts makes one realize just how incredibly ignorant a lot of people are regardng genetics, DNA, and what is really going on here. NO, selective cross breeding is not the same as genetic modification, but in accomplishes exactly the same thing, namely a change in DNA coding and alterations in genes (I suspect some people are not aware that genes and DNA are the same thing). Alterations in DNA are occuring NATURALLY all the time. If the resultant gene modification leads to a suvival advantage in the host, it will be more likely to be passed on to future generations, if not it wont. This is how nature works. Its called natural selection and leads to evolution.
Selective cross breeding is no more natural that genetic modification. What you are doing here is taking the environmenrt out of the equation and "forcing" survival of genetic modifications that would not naturally survive. With genetic engineering you are doing the EXACT same thing, but are skipping many steps. These "frankenfish", as they are called, could just as easily have been created through selective crossbreeding as well. I t would just take a lot longer.
But as soon as the words "genetic engineering" appear people become afraid, and have visions of mad sceintists manipulating nature, creating 3 headed babies and monsters. All for thier own personal gain of course. And dont forget the nasty "big business" who are obviously trying to destroy the earth for their own personal gain. Why else would they spend billions supporting a science that has potental to be one of the greatest achievments of all human history,?
Scientist, you are incorrect. Forcing genes to into producing a phenotype will yield results that selective breeding could not achieve. ASDFGHJKL, brings a valid point to the thread with sustainability, however I fail to see how this helps feed more people when these monsters will inevitably eat more food. If we want to feed the world, we're going to have to eat lower on the food-web.
smart guy, selective breeding is not selective IN-breeding... theres no way you can naturally mix species... duh. You numbnutts stick with the steril purell every 5 minutes "if the FDA says yay it must be ok!" syndrome and eventually die out. I'll stick with my raw milk, organic pasture fed MEAT lifestyle and we'll see who gets sick first! lol
First off, this other scientist is not much of a scientist. I have noticed people do not differeniate between genetic engineering and genetically modified organism.
people need to read better...selective breeding is the same as selecting genes. that's it. there is a difference between selecting genes and modifying genes.
Read up on donkeys and horses – together they make mules. Mules do NOT repoduce. Same thing happens here. A "thing" created from two differ species, for some crazy/good reason cannot reproduce.
Scientist my aching A$$ – Hybrids are not a result of Genetic engineering. If the fish folks could attain this same fish from cross breading then it would probably be safe, but artificially introducing genes from another species can have unforeseen consequences.
1. What specific deleterious effect will consuming these organisms have upon human beings?
2. What positive effect will this have on feeding more people for less money?
3. Which political/corporate entity is objecting to this practice and why?
When I have these answers, I will make an informed decision. Don't try to scare me. I don't buy it.
I want to point out to you GMO proponents trying to claim that a GMO organism is just a way to make something nature would do.. faster...
Nature would not add by force the following (pulled directly from the article)
genetic material from an eel-like fish called ocean pout
This is NOT genetic material from another species of salmon, this is genetic material from an entirely DIFFERENT species, forced into the genome of the salmon. Creating in effect, an entirely NEW and TOTALLY Unnatural species of fish that nature never intended, or would do (otherwise it would likely have done so already).
So no.. This is not selective breeding, just faster. This is, 100%, a Frankenstein creation. If you GMO proponents are so sure it's safe to go around and mix and match genetic material from every living creature out there, then why don't you go and mix and match some genetic material from an elephant, and the unfertilized egg of your next child. Surely this is just improving the species as nature would do eventually right?
yeah I didn't think so.
Dragon, people like yourself really need to understand the context of my comment. I was referring to selective genes (not modifying) as in selecting genes in population genetics (not molecular genetics). Need an example of selecting genes or genetically modifying population genetics?...dogs.
Also, how would mixing an elephant with a human result in something good? I guess ignorance is bliss.
Sorry but back to work now...
Sadly, so many people are missing the major point in all of this and through these comments I see what has gotten this planet into the irreversible mess it is in now: those who are only concerned with money and profit and never concerned with the long term effects of mankind trying to create new solutions to old problems he created and never properly addressed. The utter selfishness, ignorance and greed! Do you not see where they are going with this? SOON WE WILL NO LONGER HAVE ANY CONTROL WHATSOEVER OVER OUR OWN FOOD PRODUCTION. MOST OF EVERYTHING GENETICALLY ALTERED IS STERILE OR HYBRID. YOU WONT BE ABLE TO GROW YOUR OWN FOOD IF YOU TRIED. BIG CORPORATIONS WHO CONTROL FOOD PRODUCTION ALSO RUN THE GOVERNMENT BECAUSE MONEY RUNS THE GOVERNMENT. BIG CORPORATION OWN THE PEOPLE AND WILL SOON HAVE ABSOLUTE POWER. THERE IS YOUR COMMUNIST STATE, NOT PRESIDENT OBAMA OR TERRORISTS YOU IGNORANT MASSES!
I agree with Biologist, way back up the thread. If you make more/bigger animals as a food source, remember that they, too, need to eat more. In this case, we'll probably end up feeding them corn, antibiotics, and scrap meat just like we feed other farm-raised fish, cattle, pigs, chickens, etc. Anyone who thinks that's okay should do a little research on how the corn/antibiotics effect the cows, and subsequently effects our bodies - and by "research" I mean actual scientific data, not reading one or two articles you found on Google.
In theory, yes, we need to feed more people, the Earth can't support us all, bla bla bla. Do you really think that they are designing these fish so they can donate them to third world countries? I highly doubt it... privileged countries (like the U.S.) have always been hesitant to offer any kind of actual assistance - not just to other countries, but to their own population as well. These fish will hit the market (unlabeled, I'm sure), and AMERICANS, who already overeat horrendously, will continue to overeat, with these fish on their plates instead. Who is eating them will not change.
That's the part that irks me the most about this argument. The theory of genetically modified food is a good one - in practice, it does more harm. I agree that eating naturally, in a market where unhealthy food can be bought so cheaply, is extremely difficult. I am not wealthy and am forced by my circumstance to eat food that not only makes me feel shitty, but that I know to be harmful/at the very least not helpful to my body. If I could eat organic/gluten free/whatever, I certainly would. I understand that, by not doing so, I just support the part of the food industry that I hate. That doesn't mean I don't push for a change in it. If more people were ACTUALLY educated about what is okay to eat and what isn't, and why, I think the natural foods movement would really pick up speed... but as it is, people are perfectly content with assumptions. Despite the fact that I don't really see that changing anytime soon, it doesn't mean I can't argue for what I think should happen. I say this last bit to avoid the "so ditch your computer/car/etc." argument.
And speaking of assumptions, if you don't actually have data to back you up when you make a specific point (and again, by data I mean something published in a scientific journal - there's plenty of places you can find them), then you're defending your own assumption. Most of you are getting offended because someone else's OPINION threatens your own. Stop acting like your comment is going to be the deciding factor in whether or not these fish actually get sold, comments like that belong on 4chan.
Bring it on!! I love Fish and this looks NICE !!
r u a bear?!
WHAT ILLNESSES HAVE VACCINES CAUSED? VACCINES ARE RESPONSIBLE FOR THE STOP OF MASSIVE DISEASE OUTBREAKS. SINCE YOU HAVE SUCH HATRED TOWARD MAN-MADE THINGS, MAYBE YOU SHOULD GIVE UP YOUR TELEPHONE, TV, INTERNET, COMPUTER, AND YOUR CAR. ITS SAD THAT YOU HAVE NOTHING BETTER TO DO WITH YOUR TIME THAN TO WORRY ABOUT EVERYTHING.
grammatically speaking, it would be "you're dumb" ... but who's paying attention to that sort of thing anyway
You chose your name well. Bravo!
What, are you 10?
Please calm down, you are going to burst a blood vessel. Please use the proper contraction...it's YOU'REDUMB. A knowledge of good English always helps. Thank you.
Do you really expect these hypocrites to give up all their tech? They wouldn't last a minute without them.
Oh – and while you're at it – please STOP SHOUTING!
yor're all dumb. it always easy to find the dumbest ones in a convo cuz they too busy pointing out grammar and spelling due to they too dumb to have an opinion.
if u aint gunan eat them fishes then stop taking meds to counteract illness heal naturally
your a dumbass
"WHAT ILLNESSES HAVE VACCINES CAUSED"
Guillain–Barré syndrome would be one off of the top of my head. Its relatively rare but it and other side effects should be noted as issues with vaccines, along with their varying effectiveness with different age groups (40%-75%).
Yeah, asbestos and tobacco ARE naturally occurring... Keep on keepin' on, hippie.
as is uranium. too bad more people dont find it
I totally agree Mary K ! Seriously, go to this link: http://www.prisonplanet.com/food-the-ultimate-secret-exposed.html
Call it conspiracy theory, but all I see is FACTS
i went to click yor link then realized u r a liar
Posting links to scumware is very uncool.
Thanks for the link, maybe one or two will get an education.
Thanks. We are going to die with this kinds of Food soon!!!!
People have always been afraid of that they dont understand, and I fear the vast majority of people have no or very liminted understanding of genetics or the science behind it. These fish are salmon. Nothing more. They simpy grow faster and larger than "normal" salmon. They wont cause you to grow an extra head, they wont destroy the environment (they are sterile and cant reproduce or crossbreed) and they wont cause fire from heaven to come to earth. They simply have a gene that makes them grow faster, and they are identical in structure to fish without this gene, only larger.
This science can help SAVE the envrionment as they will lessen the need to take natural fish out of their ecosystems as a food source. WIth increased food supply, less land must be farmed for crops. And of course they represent a victory in the fight against world hunger.
As Einstein once said: "great ideas have always met with violent opposition from mediocre minds". I hope this wonderful new science of genetifc engineering, which offers so much potential to cure disease, save the environment, and feed people, does not meet the same fate.
I'm vegan so I'm excused from the argument – but when it comes to fruit and vegetables and grain I have an issue with it. Many farmers have been sued and put out of business because the GMO crops were not self contained and started to grow on their land. A court found them guilty of stealing a companies patent. This should not be happening in the USA. Corporations will be owning our food. Small farmers will be extinct.
no matter how you word something a moron will never get it. you could explain this 69 different ways to sarah palin and she would just cock her held and tell u she is a maverick.
Hey dummy, the story doesn't say they can't cross breed and it doesn't say they are sterile. It says the "majority" of the fish are sterile.
Jim: read the article again. The fish are not all sterile. Don't let them trick you that easily. Jeez.
Actually I am not a dummy. In fact I am an MD with a specialization. That was very rude and indicates the mentatlity of the writer
And yes the fish are effectively sterile. If only 5% of a population can breed, it is impossible genetically to propagate that species.There is not enough genetic diversity, and that population group will die out due to inbreeding, which mpst people are aware leads to progressively non-viable offspring-like in "Deliverance".
This is not speculation, it is mathematical fact- ask any geneticist. And again, th is another plain example of how ignorance leads to fear, which is almost always groundless.
Looks safe and is safe are two completely different things. You might want to do some research on how cancer starts. Spoiler alert – it is by genetic/cell mutation. You think cancer will make a distinction because corporations are using the phrase "genetically engineered" as opposed to "genetic mutation"? Sure. And the Radium Dial Painter women were told that the paint was harmless too! Of course the scientists and corporate owners took great precautions around radium.
"Will not take fish out of the natural systems?" Most of these franken-fish are sterile. Where do you think they are going to get the eggs to make these? These monsters will escape and will decimate the native populations and when salmon go on the endangered list they will have learned a valuable lesson.
Veggiedude – Provide a case number and court for this alleged case of a farmer being sued. Obviously if the GMO strain hopped to a different field then the GMO maker can be sued for contaminating a non-altered crop.
That's the point. NO ONE understands what this will do. The fact these animals have been applied through a DRUG process should tell you something. All drugs have side effects, however great, however small. Science likes to pretend it is smart when it is stupid. Genes are not perfectly understood. They understand very few functions. We don't truly understand the genetic basis of most human disease for example. Therefore they would not understand if they were transplanting a gene allowing disease susceptibility to jump from one organism to another for example. Just about any time man has played God the results haven't been good. Look at the history of introduction of destructive nonnative organisms in the US – most of them were done by scientists in the US government who insisted they knew precisely what they were doing and anyone who disagreed with science was a moron. Here we go again only this time in people's bodies.
Oh my gawd, how I hate ignorance. Yes, natrures wisdom, l am perfectly aware how cancers start and thier relationship to genetic mutations. That you wouold even SUGGEST that the subject matter here is related to cancer indicates your profound ignorance of what is going on. You've heard of genes, mutations, DNA and the like, but you have no clue what any of them are or how they operate. Just what you read in popular press from other ignorant people and science fiction movies. Read a basic biology text before you commemt.
And as for these fish being introduced into the wild and destroying the earth, it has been pointed out that they are STERILE. This fact is ignored and replaced with "well how do they KNOW". They KNOW because of some knowledge of basic biology and genetics. Its quite simple. IF only 5% can breed, they cannot sustain a population. Genes code for protein production, the proteins then catalyse (make happen) chemical reactrions that allow the organism to live. Each individual has TWO copies of each gene. So if one is altered by a natural process (UV lite causing base pair substitutions in the DNA leading to a nonsesnse protein being coded) one half of all the sperms and eggs (as the case may be) will contain the defective gene. If there are only 5% of other organism in the species that can mate (ie be fertile) the odds of a sperm and an egg each containing a defectifve gene become large. The offspring wont survive or will be defective. Soon the species will die out.
As for breeding with other species, the vast majority of offspring of an interspecies mating are sterile. Again this is because each individual contains TWO of each chromosome (which carries the genes). When producing sperms or egss, the chomosomes pair up with thier mates, and ONE chromosomed is passed to the sperm or egg. In a creature caused by and interspecies breeding (assuming it survived, which most wont), there are not pairs of compatile chromosomes, as each comes from a different species. Normal production of sperms and eggs cant occur- each would contain genetic "nonsense" and would be incapable of producing viable offspring..
You don t need to worry about frankenfish taking over the world.
And I like salmon (which is all they are) so I am certainly going to eat them, assuming the ignoant masses dont get thier way and have them banned.
Don't worry Vegi-dude the lazy people always ask for proof instead of looking themselves.
I know it is true because I am in the agriculture industry. Monsanto put several farmers in Canada out of business and have confiscated the crops of several farmers in America.
Jim just pointing out a simple fact you over look. This fish is not entirely a "salmon" as it contains genes from a totally unrelated fish species on top of the Pacific salmon species its been spliced with.
@veggiedude I'd be interested in hearing about those cases as well. I have heard of cases like this but the seed provider did not win. They have won in cases where farmers have deliiberately planted similar crops next to fields of GMO plants. I haven't come across any cases where accidental contamination resulted in a farm being shut down.
you win for most idiotic statement i have heard today.
cocaine is natural.
I rest my case
Beg to differ with you but Coca leaves are natural. Cocaine is a refined product that ends up with all kinds of nasty crap in it once it's cut
stay natural so you mean be like the natives throw down all medicine? the mindset makes no sense.
so stop laser surgery cuz its not natural? stop any surgery cuz its not natural. let mother nature kill you.
stop driving go back to walking its healthier. I'll keep this in mind my next 500+ mile trip.
I like the way you think. We should hang out some time. Not that I'll ever let you know who I am because that would be creepy.
We as a people need to make some hard choices.
A. Start more wars to reduce global population
B. Accept mass starvation in 3rd world countries as necessary.
c. Let science feed the people because nature can not.
That's it, pick one. No matter how you cut it nature alone cant feed the current population much less what it will be 2-10-20 years from now.
May be if Americans consumed less food there would be a bit more to go around... and that also might resolve some of the obesity issues we are facing here. Just a thought.
These fish will not arise from selective breeding. They contains genes from the Ocean Pout which don't naturally breed with Atlantic Salmon. They will grow during the winter, when Atlantic Salmon don't grow. Does that mean they will eat the food supplies of naturally-occurring wild salmon when they inevitably make their way into the wild? If that does happen, will wild salmon no longer have resources, since these enormous GM salmon are eating it all, and then wild salmon die off, and then...horror scenario, we are all forced to pay for GM salmon, since there isn't any wild salmon? Oh, it's patented, so prepare to pay. Since when does a company which stands to make a profit give food away? Science has potential for great things, but the bottom line pushes business. And it isn't stupid to question the motives of a corporation with a registered trademark animal.
CJ, choice (c) is not a real solution. I don't care how big those salmon get, if population continues to increase we will eventually run out of food. Even schools of Godzilla-sized salmon cannot compete with an exponentially increasing population curve. The REAL choice is birth control.
The problem is that as we've become more industrialized, we've abandoned small-scale subsistence farming in favor of massive profit-driven factory farming.
A) is a sound solution!!!!
...and by the way, what about all the food (gourmet, no less) being given to CATS & DOGS, which nature has completely prepared to be able to fend for themselves? I'm sure a lot of third world humans would love to have some of food we waste on "pets", and some of those commercials look a lot better than last week's leftovers...besides, pet ownership is nothing less than animal slavery, anyway–if it's not right for people, it's not right, right?
You're absolutely correct! Be natural, be safe! Say no to immunizations, vaccinations, pasteurized dairy products! Let's blindly resist all progress so society can remain stagnant in our current state!
You're just silly
The more we play with things the more we come to find out that it was better as it was originally. Just look at how the food industry is changing back.
That really makes no sense. There are millions of "natural' things that will kill you just as dead as factory produced cyanide.
And think about all the 'artificial' things that keep you alive. How about antibiotics, for instance?
If we didn't have antibiotics we wouldn't be having issues with the food supply....... Cold but true
I don't see how anyone can complain when they have a full belly and choices for food. Perhaps we should ask some of the starving folks how they would like to have full bellies every night. 1 fish could feed their entire family.
The average "starving" family wont be eating this fish. It will be a "boutique" fish likely with a premium price (remember that "intellectual property" line in the story? And the inventor gets to cash in continually because the fish cant reproduce. That is not sustainable. Also, remember to consider the well documented negative environmental impact of "fish farms." If we want to feed the world with fish: (1) grow average fish in a hatchery and release them in the wild to breed and grow. In this way, we can help nature, not highjack it! (2) consider limiting catch #s for a few years until populations can rebuild. Just stop overfishing.
If you really want to feed the starving masses, focus on foods lower in the food chain (plant based). No starving person in Africa (or the US) will be enjoying this fish but they can eat whole proteins in plant form.
I'm really baffled as to how so many people would be willing to eat this hormone pumped frankenpoison knowing that there has been no food safety testing? Get ready for yet another rise in obesity and digestive illnesses. You are what you eat folks.
That's just it though, these aren't hormone pumped up fish.. they aren't fed antibiotics by the gallon, they aren't given steroids, they are just using the dna of fish we already eat and that already exist to improve the growth rate of the salmon.
What hormones are mentioned? You do realize there's a difference between genes and hormones right?
Based on the info in the article, the fish isn't pumped with hormones, it is genetically modified. Also, it has been tested by the FDA, and so far, has been found harmless. That is not to say that they shouldn't do more testing. One of the biggest problems with new drugs, genetic modifications, etc. is that the testing doesn't predict what problems could turn up from long-term use/exposure. Unfortunately, businesses want to profit off their creations as fast as possible, and since money talks, they often get their way.
Hey Josh... these fish are required to be farmed fish= unhealthy fish r/t confinement, sea lice, and junk manufactured food being fed and antibiotics to keep them alive.
Facts: The Environmental Impacts of Fish Farming Include:
1. Farmed fish are grown in floating netcages and impact wild fish and other marine species by spreading sea lice, disease and parasites.
2. Farmed fish are given antibiotics, other drugs and pesticides. The drug-laden wastes from surplus food and feces pollute the marine environment and cause marine mammal deaths and waste build up.
3. The introduction of exotic species is extremely harmful to local ecosystems, causing algae blooms and is one of the greatest threats to nature.
4. Farmed fish escape from their netcages—often by the thousands—and can displace fragile wild stocks from their habitat.
http://preventdisease.com/news/09/082009_farmed_fish.shtml
"effectively rendering the vast majority of the fish sterile" – Jurassic Park anyone?
Jurassic Park is a fictional movie about dinosaurs, are you really trying to use it to prove your point? That is retarded.
I believe he's using the movie as an analogy. The dinosaurs weren't supposed to reproduce, but did. These genetically modified fish aren't supposed to reproduce, but it is possible. At least we don't have to worry about being hunted by giant salmon...
We are eating these, not injecting them into our systems... how this is different than breeding salmon to be bigger and grow faster (like we've done with beef cattle, chickens, and pigs) is beyond me... when I eat a steak or pork chop I'm not worried that I'll take on some of the genetic traits of the food, so why should eating a salmon scare me? The advantages of letting salmon continue to exist in nature and not be fished to extinction (while we maintain these salmon farms for the "frankenfish") far outweigh any risk IMHO. josh
"like we've done with beef cattle, chickens, and pigs"
They've been injected with growth hormones to grow bigger, and problems stem from this as a result. For example, cattle treated with rBGH/rBST suffer from a variety ailments – such as chronic mastitis and need to be further treated with antibiotics. Both the hormones and the antibiotics wind up in the tissue and milk and contribute further problems to those consuming them (early sexual maturation, hormone problems, and so on). Not good for the animals or the people consuming them, but good for the bottom line! AquaBounty Technologies is another Monsanto waiting to wreck havoc on the natural order of things with their fish.
Eat natural till no food left, then die. Great plan for a short lifespan.
Amen.
Humans will have to embrace and perfect this kind of science in the near future in order to supply food for the ever increasing population. We have to start somewhere.
Though I am wary of the initial applications, I'm sure we need to support this science for the good of the future of humanity.
MaryK these genetically altered fish would be by far healthier than the normal fish. 1) the diseases, flaws would be corrected 2) these fish would be brought up healthier. EX: no mercury in them.
Finally something good is being created and people are not embracing it for the logical step forward it truely is.
TwM, those are some interesting assertions you're making. I don't recall seeing any mention in the article about disease resistance or lack of heavy medals in the fish. Where did you find this info?
I hate to break it to you, Mary, but asbestos is a naturally occurring mineral. In fact, there have been numerous problems with it in my area, when the land was disturbed to, for instance, build a school or playground using earth moving equipment, which disturbed the asbestos that was lying just underground. For more info, here is a good web page:
http://www.wellsphere.com/healthy-living-article/natural-asbestos-is-a-hazard-too/752397
Please don't spout that "natural equals healthy" crap. There are lots of "natural" foods and herbs that can kill you! Also, vaccines have not been shown to cause cancer-that is a myth. But thanks to contributing yet another ill-informed post to the blog-o-sphere! :)
All I can say is that MaryK is Man is destroying this planet left and right a lot faster than our mother earth has a chance to recover all in the name of profit.
Just watch! one day we will go extinct just like many species have on Earth.
Heed my warning humans. It's coming. When it hits us, it will be too late.
Have you found your nose yet? Don't want the GMO salmon eating any of those Hyperbaric Boogers.
Because if you read the article this is natural DNA. they did not 'create' new DNA from scratch. most likely you have already eaten all of this DNA. besides, EVERYTHING CAUSES CANCER!!! INCLUDING 100% FRESH AIR!!! so try not to worry to much about what does and what does not cause cancer. cuz every single thing around you (including yourself) is putting off radiation right now. just eat the fish, I'm sure there are millions of people all over the world that would literally kill for it
It's this type of ignorance that makes these debates so difficult.
Tobacco is natural, it grows (it's a plant). Ditto marijuan, psilocybin, peyote, alcohol.
Vaccines don't cause harm.
Some of the deadliest poisons in the world are natural, as is the bubonic plague, HIV, etc.
Remember the Middle Ages? They were all natural then.
I agree with Mary K. I am not interested in GMO fish or anything else. We don't know enough about long term effects on humans and if they think I'm gonna feed this to my kids, they are mistaken. These fish *will* escape and get into the wild and we don't know enough about the long term impact of that either. This is all about money not about the public's health or the public having better access to healthful foods. Just say no!
"Just be ready to give up your food so the additional two billion people on this planet (UN estimate for 2050) can be fed."
Dave, if we stopped wasting food raising domesticated animals for only 1/10th the return, we'd have enough to 8 billion and still have a surplus.
If you want to "stay natural," you'll have to give up a few years of your life. Don't use any drugs. And no clean water either. Of course, I'm being facetious.
The problem with genetically modified ANYTHING is twofold, Quality Control and OPENNESS. There needs to be independent third party testing as well as strict government regulations on ALL genetically modified plants and animals. Who knows what a private company will put out there to make a buck.
Geneticly modifying food is just a faster and more aggressive way of selective breeding, and human have been doing it eons. For example wheat is not a natural plant it was bred from wild species into a plant that bears more grain. And even if its organic/natural some people, such as myself, can't eat it because it was modifyed and we get sick when we do. There is risk in every thing we do but with out wheat civilization would not be what it is. (And don't go all conspiresy on me and say celiac sprue is brand new, its actually extremely old.)
I agree. Eat natural, stay healthy! The industry is offering you a cheaper price salmon but you will pay with the heavier price of your health...
This is just another scheme to corner the market on one more food sources. Monsanto has been pushing genetically modified crop seeds on farmers for years and like these fish, the patents only belong to one company. These hybrid fish are like mules, they produce no offspring. So every time one of these fish are caught another one has to be released. That's good marketing strategy for the company but isn't very logical in terms of a sustainable food for the masses.
Asbestos is 100% natural; technically so can be cigarettes. Vaccines do not cause cancer and indisputably save lives. Quit holding to fear based in ignorance and pay attention to the science instead.
Drink up, Socrates, it's natural!
For those who are "less than informed" about food availability in the WORLD... these GM fish are not needed to prevent starvation and there actually is MORE production than consumption of food. We still farm a surplus every year (globally).
The world today produces enough grain alone to provide every human being on the planet with 3,500 calories a day.1 That’s enough to make most people fat! And this estimate does not even count many other commonly eaten foods—vegetables, beans, nuts, root crops, fruits, grass-fed meats, and fish. In fact, if all foods are considered together, enough is available to provide at least 4.3 pounds of food per person a day. That includes two and half pounds of grain, beans and nuts, about a pound of fruits and vegetables, and nearly another pound of meat, milk and eggs.2
Abundance, not scarcity, best describes the supply of food in the world today. Increases in food production during the past 35 years have outstripped the world’s unprecedented population growth by about 16 percent.
(-Insitute for Food and Development Policy)
"Natural" does not necessarily mean "good for you". You'd still get fat if you ate tons of natural cane sugar instead of processed candy. And hemlock is 100% natural, and definitely not good for you.
between this and Soylent Green i think the fish is looking pretty good..
Let me simplify your logic. Because there exist bad man-made things, every man-made thing must be bad.
Any farm raised fish? JUST PASS ON IT.
When has man every kept anything contained? Sounds like another Monsanto scheme. This company wants the fish to breed and thrive. The fish will be released and bred with wild fish in the ocean. Then the comapny will demand a percentage of the profits from any fish with their igenetic imprint. Monsanto is suing countries and local farms as we speak over the grain. Do the research.