Aquabounty, the developer of the genetically modified salmon studied by FDA, has been trying to win approval for three years—after seven years of development, testing and paperwork filings, according to Dr H. Sterling Burnett, senior fellow with the National Center for Policy Analysis at the Heartland Institute.
Preserves wild salmon stocks
Aquabounty's salmon can grow to market size in 18 months rather than the 30 months farmed Atlantic salmon currently require.
Aquabounty achieved this result by introducing a growth hormone gene from the Chinook salmon that is kept active all year round by a genetic on-switch from a different fish, the ocean pout. Normally, salmon produce growth hormone only in warm weather. With the hormone produced year-round, the AquAdvantage salmon grow faster.
A successful launch of Aquabounty's salmon would reduce pressure on wild salmon stocks currently threatened by over-consumption. Similar genetic modifications to other types of fish could alleviate malnutrition among human populations and reduce stress on global fish stocks.
Gregory Conko, director of Food and Drug Policy at the Competitive Enterprise Institute, said: "We as a society are rightly concerned about overfishing of the ocean fisheries. But these farmed fish relieve pressure on natural stocks."
Less environmental impact
Dr Conko pointed out additional environmental benefits of the genetically modified salmon.
He said: "When you improve the efficiency of fish farming, you also reduce the amount of animal waste released into the waters. In short, this provides cheaper, nutritious food for people, with less environmental impact."
FDA rejects activists' worries
Despite the promised benefits, 31 interest groups, including environmental and animal rights activist groups, announced their opposition to the genetically modified salmon. They say they fear the modified salmon could escape into the wild and out-compete wild salmon for food or mates.
Such a scenario is highly unlikely, Aquabounty says, because the modified salmon will be grown only in isolated, inland waters and only sterile females will be sold. FDA agrees with Aquabounty that there is little threat of the modified salmon escaping into the wild and reproducing.
Genetic modification is not new
The salmon will be completely safe for human consumption, Dr Conko noted.
He said: "The Aquabounty salmon has been reviewed by the FDA for over a decade. Probably no food item that has ever been consumed has received more scrutiny by federal regulators. The change to the salmon just means that there will be more of a particular protein in the fish that people are already exposed to when they eat fish; a protein that is perfectly safe for human consumption. This protein, like other proteins, won’t build up, but rather is destroyed by digestion."
Biologist Henry Miller, a research fellow at Stanford University's Hoover Institution agreed, saying: "The fears raised by opponents of genetically modified salmon, as with other genetically modified foods, show a fundamental lack of understanding of the extent to which humans have manipulated the existing food supply using traditional crossbreeding and selective breeding techniques.
"Except for wild game, wild mushrooms, wild berries and fish and shellfish, virtually all the food in European and American diets is already derived from genetically modified organisms. Yogurt, beer, tofu and bread, for example, are made with microorganisms that have been painstakingly modified and optimized over many years or even centuries."
Biotech increases precision and safety
In the Heartland Institute report, Dr Miller notes animals have also been genetically engineered by laborious and imprecise trial-and-error breeding techniques.
He explained: "It is not genetic engineering of food that is new, but rather the techniques for accomplishing it. And the newest techniques – recombinant DNA technology, or gene-splicing – are far more precise and predictable than their predecessors. It is noteworthy that the imprecision of the earlier techniques led to several prominent mishaps, including a disastrous susceptibility of maize to mould, and new varieties of potatoes, squash, and celery with inadvertently elevated levels of endogenous toxins. These kinds of unforeseen problems are vastly less likely with the newest techniques."
Further Reading
 |
- | Go to our previous news item on this story by clicking here. |
