Hungry For Genetically Engineered Fish?
AOL News
(Aug. 4) -- A major U.S. fish research company has tampered with the DNA of Atlantic salmon by adding a quick-growth gene that allows the fish to eat year-around and grow more quickly. And the Food and Drug Administration is about to allow these genetically engineered salmon to head to market, the company says.
But food safety activists insist that the FDA doesn't have adequate tests and regulations to ensure the safety of modified seafood, and others question whether consumers are even ready for it.
"Far from being a benefit to consumers or the environment, this merely allows factory fish farms to double production rates," said George Kimbrell, senior attorney for the Center for Food Safety.
Nevertheless, AquaBounty Technologies in Waltham, Mass., near Boston, is already producing tiny red Atlantic salmon eggs that have been injected with a gene from Pacific Chinook salmon and another gene from the ocean pout. This genetic modification gives the engineered fish the ability to grow to market size in half the time of salmon that haven't been messed with.
The fish would be the first transgenic animal application ever approved by the the FDA, according to the company, which has been developing the product and waiting for approval for 20 years.
AquaBounty says it has launched a "blue revolution," which brings together biological sciences and molecular technology "to enable an aquaculture industry capable of large-scale, efficient and environmentally sustainable production of high quality seafood. Genetically altered trout and tilapia are the next to be offered up to the nation's fishmongers.
However, the largest foreign breeders -- like Canada, which is the No. 1 supplier of Atlantic salmon to the U.S. -- say they see no reason to meddle with a good thing.
Current fish breeding practices are adequate to enable the production of a high-quality product, says the Canadian Aquaculture Industry Alliance.
The alliance "does not support the commercial production of transgenic fish for food production until it has been declared safe by all the relevant regulatory bodies and until the market demands it," Ruth Salmon, the group's executive director, told AOL News.
But food safety activists insist that the FDA doesn't have adequate tests and regulations to ensure the safety of modified seafood, and others question whether consumers are even ready for it.
"Far from being a benefit to consumers or the environment, this merely allows factory fish farms to double production rates," said George Kimbrell, senior attorney for the Center for Food Safety.
Nevertheless, AquaBounty Technologies in Waltham, Mass., near Boston, is already producing tiny red Atlantic salmon eggs that have been injected with a gene from Pacific Chinook salmon and another gene from the ocean pout. This genetic modification gives the engineered fish the ability to grow to market size in half the time of salmon that haven't been messed with.
The fish would be the first transgenic animal application ever approved by the the FDA, according to the company, which has been developing the product and waiting for approval for 20 years.
AquaBounty says it has launched a "blue revolution," which brings together biological sciences and molecular technology "to enable an aquaculture industry capable of large-scale, efficient and environmentally sustainable production of high quality seafood. Genetically altered trout and tilapia are the next to be offered up to the nation's fishmongers.
However, the largest foreign breeders -- like Canada, which is the No. 1 supplier of Atlantic salmon to the U.S. -- say they see no reason to meddle with a good thing.
Current fish breeding practices are adequate to enable the production of a high-quality product, says the Canadian Aquaculture Industry Alliance.
The alliance "does not support the commercial production of transgenic fish for food production until it has been declared safe by all the relevant regulatory bodies and until the market demands it," Ruth Salmon, the group's executive director, told AOL News.
Replies
Many countries around the world has Banned GMO Foods. GMO Foods has not been tested safe for humans! Notice that the GMO Products do not list that their foods are GMO. So it's hard for the peole to know which foods are GMO and which foods are not GMO.
About the only way is to look at the Fish that are caught in the Oceans.
KUE GMO PRODUCTS, o Pomai