The Pros and Cons of Genetically Altered Salmon
http://thedianerehmshow.org/shows/2010-09-22/pros-and-cons-genetically-altered-salmon
Salmon that grows twice as fast as conventionally farmed fish could become the first genetically modified animal approved for American consumption. The benefits and risks -- and concerns over how the product might be labeled.
Guests
Michael Hansen
senior staff scientist, Consumers Union, the publisher of Consumer Reports.
Andrew Pollack
biotechnology reporter, The New York Times.
Val Giddings
president, PrometheusAB Inc., and a former consultant to AquaBounty Technologies.
Comments
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If there is no real issue with the genetic fish vice a wild salmon - WHY is there resistance to labeling this "food" for what it is: "Wild," "Farmed," "Genetic?"
Why the resistance?...
I suspect it's because the labels DO MATTER to cuonsumers and it would negatively impact the projected SALES of these fish in the market.
LABEL THE FOOD AND LET THE CONSUMER CHOOSE!!!
if rBST treated cow milk has to be labelled, then why can't be GM Fish be.
if these salmon can breed, then we are creating an invasive species. Also, farm salmon often don't take the pressure off wild salmon. The farm populations spread disease.
Haven't caught the entire show so I don't know if this was brought up, but I am reminded of how well artificial levels of growth hormone went over with the public when the dairy industry tried it.
And 98% sterility and saying a fish too stupid to breed is not reassuring to me.
The glaring hole in the testing is that they didn't have tests that could measure the growth hormone levels in any of the fish. Zero may be a number but it is not data.
Diane,
I do not eat farm raised fish. The Omega-3 are washed out & the flavor does not even resemble wild salmon. The "industry" relies on new generations not knowing what real salmon naturally taste like. My goodness- they even dye some fish-raised to make them look like salmon.
Love you show.
Warm wishes,
Ernie
"Chaos" theory is simply a term related to control theory in mathematics. It has to do with formal modeling in order to understand and "control" the randomness (stochastic) for a system. For example, someone I know worked on a problem related to the design of a helocopter specifically related to the noise level. Some small changes in the design of the helicopter were found to adjust the noise which is composed of known and random elements. Small new adjustments to that design in the future could impact the level and so mathemeticians employed in this try to understand this problem.
Genetics has a mathematical element related to the four components of DNA - A,G,C,T - and their ordering. Mutuations occur in the sequence in a random fashion. Over a million years there is a certain understandable level to that randomness/variation but if you start altering these code relationships you can affect the gene pool at the level of a system. That's the concern from the control theory, or chaos theory as it is popularly known, level.
Of course human beings have been altering the order by cross-breeding and other methods for several centuries. But these changes are relatively slow compared to the new field of genetic modification. So while most of the changes could be for the betterment of human health at the level of the system we cannot appreciate their impact until decades after their introduction and it only takes one negative impact to create waves of problems throughout the environment. It is like the nuclear threat: low risk but high damage if does occur.
Because nobody ever gets pregnant on the pill, which is 99% effective.
Is Dennis Kucinich the only adult in DC??
Profits over People how many times do we need to see it before America catches on.
This was meant to be a reply to Sherri A. who replied to me. Not sure why it didn't appear under her comment.
We don't want GMOs and that is WHY they don't want to label them!!!! They don't want labels because then people could trace back any health issues that arise from GMOs. It is WHY they are changing the name of High fructose sugar to corn sugar! We need to stand up to these corporations and take back our government. How does Val sleep at night? You know not all psychopaths kill with guns and knives, now they can kill with food science and we the people pay them.
Michael Hansen is a senior scientist at CU? I'm a subscriber to Consumer Reports, but I think Hansen was an embarrassment to CU.
He said that in Table 15 of the FDA briefing packet, there is "NO DATA" (Hansen's exaggerated excitement) and that a high school student would get a failing grade by drawing conclusions from the table.
Well, I looked at the FDA packet. The table is full of data showing hormone concentration levels for the engineered and control fish, and for Growth Hormone the group size for computing mean hormone level is 0, zero--that is, no fish in either the treated or control groups had a detectable level of GH. That is NOT the same as NO DATA, Mr. Hansen
Genetically engineered fish may or may not be safe, but making inaccurate statements about the studies is not going to help the process of figuring it out.
Please refer to a documentary called "David vs Monsanto" where a Canadian Farmer's crops were damaged by genetically engineered canola which was blown into his fields. Monsanto sued the farmer and the farmer fought back over 10+ years about the damage these GMO seeds did to his fields. These GMO seeds do not germinate. If they spread we will no longer be able to save and germinate seed. This has incredible devasting implications for the food supply of the world. These are unintended consequences which are coming to light now on GMO seeds. What are the unintended consequences of GM salmon? Will we eventually create all sterile salmon? These are very important ethical questions about GM seeds, food, etc. Europe has banned GMO foods. I think we need to as well.
Up until now we have relied on evolution to weed out poorly designed species, it is a fairly reliable system. Aqua Bounty has created a new design and so long as similar standards are used they should be allowed to market it. However, accurate, unbiased, and scientifically relevant studies need to be performed. Also a period of time, to test their fishes viability, needs to elapse, say 50 million years.
I agree...if in fact the FDA approves the fish for sale at least label it as genetically engineered and let the public decide.
Comparing Biotech crops to this Genetic altered fish brings to mind how Monsanto now owns the patents on most seeds. Could this same senerio happen with fish?
Won't producers voluntarily label their fish? Nothing prevents other marketers from advertising their fish as wild or non-GM, and it seems to help sales based on the previous comments. Why require the labeling when it will happen naturally?
GE salmon is only the beginning. Check out the following Web sites.
http://www.physorg.com/news178869104.html
http://petridishtoplate.wordpress.com/2009/12/04/gm-foods-and-in-vitro-m...
As more and more food products become genetically modifies, labeling is absolutely essential. Moreover, many people prefer not to eat GM products, particularly salmon.
FDA = captured agency
NPR = captured organization
Money talks, truth is lost.
Organic dangerous, GMO safe hahahahahahahahahahaha!
Pathetic!
This is bigger than salmon. Organically grown food is not sustainable, it takes more labor and land than "conventionally" grown food. We are going to need more food for a growing population of hungry people. Genetically modified food is the best way to keep us feed. We have been engineering our food since we moved away from hunter gathering, the next generation of food needs to go beyond our old ideas...love organic but we aren't feeding the third world with swiss chard from our back yard.
"Organically grown food is not sustainable" -B Simpson
really i thought that was the point?
maybe you should educate everyone about the sustainability of conventional food production
human gut bacteria producing pesticides, superweeds that biotechs best chemicals cant kill, terminator genes spreading into the wild. that's a beautiful sustainable world you must dream of. maybe we should engineer a way that humans can live by eating oil directly then we could just spray oil over third world populations to satiate them.
No group of fish live in a gated community. The Earth is one Biome and we all are in it. What can get out and displace natural species will. You are fooling yourself if you think buying "organic" in a posh shop keeps you safe. Everything interacts and mixes on this planet even if food producers were honest and caring. Most are not.
People are co-evolved with the foods they eat. When you produce artificial species the body cannot use them as well. There are unforseen outcomes.
A Theosophist will tell you that when you consume an animal you consume its experiences. Biochemically, this may be true.
Maybe the fat in our guts and thighs is made of terror. I'm a vegetarian who will not eat storeboughten tomatoes. They could start talking in my sleep. Don't pay attention to me: It may be the tofu talking.
I'm not kidding!
What specie provided the "on/off" switch for the growth gene ?
The guy against the bigger salmons sounds a bit extreme.
In 1989-90. at least 40 people died suddenly from ingesting the food supplement L-tryptophan, and this was the first moment that the bacteria used to produce L-tryptophan were genetically engineered. Thousands of others who took the genetically engineered food supplement became ill with a constantly painful and debilitating autoimmune disease. The toxin causing the disease (eosinophilia myalgia syndrome or EMS) was never identified. Genetic engineering was never found conclusively to be the cause, but it was never found conclusively to not be the cause.
It is outrageous that the FDA will not even PERMIT the labeling of GE salmon. Why are we consumers not even allowed to know this?
Lois Vierk
see nemsn.org for more information on EMS
Practically every comment on this site is against GMO salmon, yet it seems the govt and food industry is trying to force this on the public and even NPR seems to act like there is a legit question that GMO is worth discussing.
I think this shows the scary reality that the USA has lost it's democracy to a growing fascism and I fear that soon food will be unsafe to eat or that we won't even know what they are doing to us. That should make people angry ..
Those who oppose labeling have ulterior motives. There are bigger issues than "merely" transparency and consumers' right to know. Labeling will help us track the consequences of these pioneering endeavors, and to trace, learn from, and even possibly correct unanticipated problems.
I wholeheartedly agree with mudpie about food as IP. We must make use of technology, GM included, if we are to produce enough food to feed earth's inhabitants. But we can't have Monsanto or AquaBounty Technologies holding for ransom basic human rights.
The salmon is genetically modified with a growth hormone from the Chinook salmon and a genetic on-switch from the ocean pout (a distant relative of the salmon). And lets be completely honest, wild salmon may not be altered but think about what is in the waters that the salmon has consumed; waste, pollution, feces and the list goes on. The area where the salmon are caught may be the dumping site of a company. And environmental damages to wild salmon could be worse, if we stick to consuming wild salmon then we could hurt the environment which mind you, we have done with numerous other species of animals. Frankly the worlds food source is running out, there are currently 7 billion people living on this earth, land is running out and becoming arid, where are we going to get food from now? Obviously farm lands aren't going to cut it. The next spot to support the human population and if we don't figure out how to keep the abundance sadly, we'll have very little anything to eat. So when you think about irradiated foods (which are harmless) and genetically modified organisms and all of those types of foods you have to ask yourself, what else is there?