10 ms·

Genetically Engineered Salmon Approved for Consumption

45 points by Amorymeltzer 11y ago

puppetmaster3 11y ago
Ah, none of that is an issue. The issue is in USA only, GM is not a required label. That's it.
Zikes 11y ago
I don't know what I'm supposed to be scared of here. The concept of genetically engineered food doesn't put me off in the least, and the risk of these salmon escaping to the wild doesn't sound particularly dangerous to me. I know there're lots of "unknown unknowns" when it comes to messing with the natural order, but if for some reason they wind up thriving and supplanting the existing salmon population then, what, we wind up with faster-growing wild salmon? I'm sure the local fishermen won't mind.
- AdmiralAsshat 11y ago
  My concern, oddly enough, would be copyright. Suppose the AquAdvantage Salmon escapes into the wild, reproduced, and flourishes. Suppose that it flourishes so well that it displaces the native population of salmon. Then, finally, suppose that Aqua Bounty starts suing everyone and everything who attempts to fish, catch, or farm these salmon, which are now the only thing left. Such behavior would not be unheard of. See similar accusations against Monsanto: http://www.monsanto.com/newsviews/pages/gm-seed-accidentally-in-farmers-fields.aspx http://www.monsanto.com/newsviews/pages/gm-seed-accidentally...
  - falsestprophet 11y ago
    My concern, oddly enough, would be copyright. You mean patent infringement.
  - x1798DE 11y ago
    First of all, it would be patent protections, not copyright. Huge difference. Second, I highly doubt anyone would succeed with such a dubious legal strategy. Catching fish in the wild with your patented genes in them is not a violation of your patent rights - who is the violator? The fish?
    - pfisch 11y ago
      What happens when you sell the fish?
      - vectorjohn 11y ago
        You earn money from the consumer?
        gnaritas 11y ago
        You get sued.
    - gregcrv 11y ago
      "That case concerned Percy Schmeiser, who discovered that canola growing on his farm in 1997 was Roundup resistant. He had initially discovered that some canola growing by a roadside along one of his fields was Roundup resistant when he was killing weeds along the road; this led him to spray a three- to four‑acre section of his adjacent field and 60% of the canola survived. Schmeiser harvested the seed from the surviving, Roundup resistant plants, and planted the seed in 1998. Monsanto sued Schmeiser for patent infringement for the 1998 planting. Schmeiser claimed that because the 1997 plants grew from seed that was pollinated with pollen blown into his field from neighboring fields, he owned the harvest and was entitled to do with it whatever he wished, including saving the seeds from the 1997 harvest and planting them in 1998." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monsanto_legal_cases https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monsanto_legal_cases edit: TL;DR: Monsanto sues farmers, not seeds ;)
      - tptacek 11y ago
        Schmeiser was found to have deliberately created a Roundup-Ready crop --- he weaned out the non-RR crops by spraying them with glyphosate, preserved the patent-encumbered plants, and then cultivated them so that his fields were ultimately 95+% encumbered, in such a way that he could spray them with Roundup at any point he felt it would be profitable and only then pay the licensing fees.
  - deleted 11y ago
    [deleted]
  - tptacek 11y ago
    Every time this Monsanto story comes up, people leave out the part where Monsanto has only sued people who grew Roundup-Ready crops and then sprayed them with glyphosate, which would kill non-Roundup-Ready crops.
- unclebucknasty 11y ago
  Honestly, that's pretty naive when we're talking about biology and complex ecosystems. Yes, there are a lot of unknown unknowns, as you stated. So, not quite sure how you're concluding it's all good.
- glibgil 11y ago
  What if they escape, thrive and naturally select for some advantage that has the side effect of making them taste like shit?
  - vectorjohn 11y ago
    Then we make GE shit fish that taste good!
- munificent 11y ago
  > the risk of these salmon escaping to the wild doesn't sound particularly dangerous to me. It should. You can think of a GM species as akin to introduce a foreign species to a new environment. Except in this case, instead of coming from some other continent, it came from a lab. So, how does introducing foreign species go? Often, it's fine. But often, it's catastrophically destructive. Think kudzu in the Southeast, rabbits and cane toads in Australia, killer bees, carp in the Mississippi, and rats pretty much everywhere they've been introduced. A new, aggressive species that the ecosystem hasn't had time to get used to can decimate an area and cause species to go extinct before they have time to adapt.
  - blacksmith_tb 11y ago
    Except these are sterile females, farmed in inland pools[1]. I agree in general that we should consider the possibility of GM species interbreeding with or out-competing existing species, but this case seems exceptionally safe. 1: http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/science/2015/11/genetically_engineered_aquabounty_salmon_safe_fda_decides.single.html http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/science/201...
  - enraged_camel 11y ago
    The risk of this GM species escaping into the environment is infinitesimally small. http://arstechnica.com/science/2015/11/fda-approves-first-gmo-food-animal-atlantic-salmon/ http://arstechnica.com/science/2015/11/fda-approves-first-gm... Key part: "The agency also assessed potential environmental effects and the proposed containment method. In accordance with the FDA’s approval, the fish must be kept in inland tanks, specifically tanks at two facilities—one in Canada and the other in Panama. The Canadian facility will keep the breeding stock, and the Panama site will be used to raise the fish to market-size. Both facilities have multiple, redundant physical barriers to keep the fish and eggs from escaping, the agency noted. Tanks have covers, nets, jump fences, covered drains, and closed septic systems. In addition, conditions of natural water systems surrounding the Panama site, particularly the warm temperatures, are expected to be lethal to the salmon. The Panama site will raise all-female, sterile fish."
pazimzadeh 11y ago
From Wikipedia: > AquAdvantage salmon are triploid (having three chromosomes instead of just two) female Atlantic salmon (Salmo salar), with a single copy of the opAFP-GHc2 construct, which codes for a promoter from ocean pout and a growth hormone from Chinook salmon., 8 These transferred genes allow the genetically modified fish to achieve accelerated growth rates, which confer longer survival and reproductive success. At what point do we stop calling it salmon? Reminds me of the Ship of Theseus: > The ship wherein Theseus and the youth of Athens returned from Crete had thirty oars, and was preserved by the Athenians down even to the time of Demetrius Phalereus, for they took away the old planks as they decayed, putting in new and stronger timber in their places, in so much that this ship became a standing example among the philosophers, for the logical question of things that grow; one side holding that the ship remained the same, and the other contending that it was not the same. — Plutarch, Theseus Plutarch thus questions whether the ship would remain the same if it were entirely replaced, piece by piece. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AquAdvantage_salmon https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AquAdvantage_salmon https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ship_of_Theseus https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ship_of_Theseus
- nickbauman 11y ago
  The ship is not the same as what happens to it. The river is not just the water that's streaming in the channel. You are not just what happens to you. State is not identity, if it were, the past would always change and there would be no history. State is not identity, in programming and in real life.
  - unclebucknasty 11y ago
    Not sure what that means. If a ship is burned to ashes, then is it still a ship? If those ashes are then mixed with other substances to form construction material from which a home is built, is it still a ship? If wood from a forest is never assembled into a ship, is it still a ship? State and identity seem intrinsically linked.
    - mkehrt 11y ago
      Relatedly: http://www.npr.org/sections/krulwich/2011/10/03/140815154/dissolve-my-nobel-prize-fast-a-true-story http://www.npr.org/sections/krulwich/2011/10/03/140815154/di...
sushisource 11y ago
IMO, the most important section from the article: But some scientists have dismissed these concerns. William Muir, a professor of animal sciences at Purdue University, said the fish posed no risk to the environment. “In contrast, the current practice of using wild caught salmon as a food source is not sustainable; our oceans are overfished,” he said in a statement. “This development provides a safe and sustainable alternative.”
walterbell 11y ago
From a brief by Food & Water Watch, http://www.foodandwaterwatch.org/sites/default/files/GE%20Salmon%20IB%20Jan%202013_0.pdf http://www.foodandwaterwatch.org/sites/default/files/GE%20Sa... "AquaBounty has radically altered Atlantic salmon by inserting genetic material from an eel-like fish and a chinook salmon, designed to make the fish grow faster … an advisory panel of scientists … found major errors in AquaBounty's science and the FDA's data analysis. Scientists were especially critical of the small sample sizes used by AquaBounty — often only six or seven GE fish were used in comparisons. … The FDA has chosen to regulate GE animals as a veterinary drug rather than a food, a decision that severely limits the scope of the agency's risk assessment. For example, the agency has not conducted a single feeding study to assess health risks associated with eating GE salmon … Before AquaBounty researchers physically examined GE salmon for health problems, they selectively killed off irregular fish, biasing the data set and severely compromising the integrity of the data. … Acknowledging the threat of escape, AquaBounty has attempted to render GE salmon sterile, which would prevent sexual reproduction in the event that the fish are released into the wild. However, the company's regulatory submissions indicate that up to 5 percent of GE salmon will not be sterile … AquaBounty appears to be the biotech industry's sacrificial lamb — securing regulatory approval of a product that will likely be a market failure, but that will pave the way for other bioengineered food animals."
- tptacek 11y ago
  FWW also opposes rBGH and irradiated milk.
- shostack 11y ago
  Is there any info on what labeling will be required on packaging and in restaurants for this fish or anything that contains it? I like to think I'm not overly paranoid about genetically modified things as long as proper due-diligence is conducted, but these quotes here make me think that is not the case, or is being intentionally subverted. At the very least, I'd take reassurance in my ability to avoid eating this.
  - trhway 11y ago
    no labeling.
BuckRogers 11y ago
As long as this is labeled as genetically modified, I'm ok with it. I generally trust the biologists on this subject that don't have a conflict of interest. That said, I'm uninterested in GMO food for my family and we don't eat it whenever we have the power to choose.
- seccess 11y ago
  "The officials said the fish would not have to be labeled as being genetically engineered, a policy consistent with its stance on foods made from genetically engineered crops." As an aside, what is your reason for not consuming GMO foods if you also trust that many biologists feel that they can be safe? Genuinely curious not trying to be snarky.
  - BuckRogers 11y ago
    I think the distinction is unclear on level of modification. Generally, you can have 3 kinds of modifications. From least likely to be dangerous to most- 1) gene sequence removal; 2) gene splicing from two different species; 3) whole new organism. If I were to purposefully consume GMO, I would like to know what exactly the severity is of what has been done. Since we can't even get basic labels, let alone information on how extreme the modification is- I just choose to outright avoid.
  - jnellis 11y ago
    If they can genetically engineer a fish then they can make them easily identifiable so that they can't be passed off as other fish which is already a huge problem. Black light markers on the skin or flesh perhaps. Having some really bad genetic trait that makes them easy prey or die quickly if they escape into the wild is another idea instead of 'top men' just saying 'trust us.'
seccess 11y ago
"making it the first genetically altered animal to be cleared for American supermarkets and dinner tables" What is the definition of "genetically altered"? I assume that cannot cover selective breeding, for example.

45 points by Amorymeltzer 11y ago

Ah, none of that is an issue. The issue is in USA only, GM is not a required label. That's it.

Zikes 11y ago

I don't know what I'm supposed to be scared of here. The concept of genetically engineered food doesn't put me off in the least, and the risk of these salmon escaping to the wild doesn't sound particularly dangerous to me. I know there're lots of "unknown unknowns" when it comes to messing with the natural order, but if for some reason they wind up thriving and supplanting the existing salmon population then, what, we wind up with faster-growing wild salmon? I'm sure the local fishermen won't mind.

AdmiralAsshat 11y ago
My concern, oddly enough, would be copyright. Suppose the AquAdvantage Salmon escapes into the wild, reproduced, and flourishes. Suppose that it flourishes so well that it displaces the native population of salmon. Then, finally, suppose that Aqua Bounty starts suing everyone and everything who attempts to fish, catch, or farm these salmon, which are now the only thing left. Such behavior would not be unheard of. See similar accusations against Monsanto: http://www.monsanto.com/newsviews/pages/gm-seed-accidentally-in-farmers-fields.aspx http://www.monsanto.com/newsviews/pages/gm-seed-accidentally...
- falsestprophet 11y ago
  My concern, oddly enough, would be copyright. You mean patent infringement.
- x1798DE 11y ago
  First of all, it would be patent protections, not copyright. Huge difference. Second, I highly doubt anyone would succeed with such a dubious legal strategy. Catching fish in the wild with your patented genes in them is not a violation of your patent rights - who is the violator? The fish?
  - pfisch 11y ago
    What happens when you sell the fish?
    - vectorjohn 11y ago
      You earn money from the consumer?
      - gnaritas 11y ago
        You get sued.
  - gregcrv 11y ago
    "That case concerned Percy Schmeiser, who discovered that canola growing on his farm in 1997 was Roundup resistant. He had initially discovered that some canola growing by a roadside along one of his fields was Roundup resistant when he was killing weeds along the road; this led him to spray a three- to four‑acre section of his adjacent field and 60% of the canola survived. Schmeiser harvested the seed from the surviving, Roundup resistant plants, and planted the seed in 1998. Monsanto sued Schmeiser for patent infringement for the 1998 planting. Schmeiser claimed that because the 1997 plants grew from seed that was pollinated with pollen blown into his field from neighboring fields, he owned the harvest and was entitled to do with it whatever he wished, including saving the seeds from the 1997 harvest and planting them in 1998." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monsanto_legal_cases https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monsanto_legal_cases edit: TL;DR: Monsanto sues farmers, not seeds ;)
    - tptacek 11y ago
      Schmeiser was found to have deliberately created a Roundup-Ready crop --- he weaned out the non-RR crops by spraying them with glyphosate, preserved the patent-encumbered plants, and then cultivated them so that his fields were ultimately 95+% encumbered, in such a way that he could spray them with Roundup at any point he felt it would be profitable and only then pay the licensing fees.
- deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]
- tptacek 11y ago
  Every time this Monsanto story comes up, people leave out the part where Monsanto has only sued people who grew Roundup-Ready crops and then sprayed them with glyphosate, which would kill non-Roundup-Ready crops.
unclebucknasty 11y ago
Honestly, that's pretty naive when we're talking about biology and complex ecosystems. Yes, there are a lot of unknown unknowns, as you stated. So, not quite sure how you're concluding it's all good.
glibgil 11y ago
What if they escape, thrive and naturally select for some advantage that has the side effect of making them taste like shit?
- vectorjohn 11y ago
  Then we make GE shit fish that taste good!
munificent 11y ago
> the risk of these salmon escaping to the wild doesn't sound particularly dangerous to me. It should. You can think of a GM species as akin to introduce a foreign species to a new environment. Except in this case, instead of coming from some other continent, it came from a lab. So, how does introducing foreign species go? Often, it's fine. But often, it's catastrophically destructive. Think kudzu in the Southeast, rabbits and cane toads in Australia, killer bees, carp in the Mississippi, and rats pretty much everywhere they've been introduced. A new, aggressive species that the ecosystem hasn't had time to get used to can decimate an area and cause species to go extinct before they have time to adapt.
- blacksmith_tb 11y ago
  Except these are sterile females, farmed in inland pools[1]. I agree in general that we should consider the possibility of GM species interbreeding with or out-competing existing species, but this case seems exceptionally safe. 1: http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/science/2015/11/genetically_engineered_aquabounty_salmon_safe_fda_decides.single.html http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/science/201...
- enraged_camel 11y ago
  The risk of this GM species escaping into the environment is infinitesimally small. http://arstechnica.com/science/2015/11/fda-approves-first-gmo-food-animal-atlantic-salmon/ http://arstechnica.com/science/2015/11/fda-approves-first-gm... Key part: "The agency also assessed potential environmental effects and the proposed containment method. In accordance with the FDA’s approval, the fish must be kept in inland tanks, specifically tanks at two facilities—one in Canada and the other in Panama. The Canadian facility will keep the breeding stock, and the Panama site will be used to raise the fish to market-size. Both facilities have multiple, redundant physical barriers to keep the fish and eggs from escaping, the agency noted. Tanks have covers, nets, jump fences, covered drains, and closed septic systems. In addition, conditions of natural water systems surrounding the Panama site, particularly the warm temperatures, are expected to be lethal to the salmon. The Panama site will raise all-female, sterile fish."

pazimzadeh 11y ago

From Wikipedia: > AquAdvantage salmon are triploid (having three chromosomes instead of just two) female Atlantic salmon (Salmo salar), with a single copy of the opAFP-GHc2 construct, which codes for a promoter from ocean pout and a growth hormone from Chinook salmon., 8 These transferred genes allow the genetically modified fish to achieve accelerated growth rates, which confer longer survival and reproductive success. At what point do we stop calling it salmon? Reminds me of the Ship of Theseus: > The ship wherein Theseus and the youth of Athens returned from Crete had thirty oars, and was preserved by the Athenians down even to the time of Demetrius Phalereus, for they took away the old planks as they decayed, putting in new and stronger timber in their places, in so much that this ship became a standing example among the philosophers, for the logical question of things that grow; one side holding that the ship remained the same, and the other contending that it was not the same. — Plutarch, Theseus Plutarch thus questions whether the ship would remain the same if it were entirely replaced, piece by piece. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AquAdvantage_salmon https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AquAdvantage_salmon https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ship_of_Theseus https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ship_of_Theseus

nickbauman 11y ago
The ship is not the same as what happens to it. The river is not just the water that's streaming in the channel. You are not just what happens to you. State is not identity, if it were, the past would always change and there would be no history. State is not identity, in programming and in real life.
- unclebucknasty 11y ago
  Not sure what that means. If a ship is burned to ashes, then is it still a ship? If those ashes are then mixed with other substances to form construction material from which a home is built, is it still a ship? If wood from a forest is never assembled into a ship, is it still a ship? State and identity seem intrinsically linked.
  - mkehrt 11y ago
    Relatedly: http://www.npr.org/sections/krulwich/2011/10/03/140815154/dissolve-my-nobel-prize-fast-a-true-story http://www.npr.org/sections/krulwich/2011/10/03/140815154/di...

sushisource 11y ago

IMO, the most important section from the article: But some scientists have dismissed these concerns. William Muir, a professor of animal sciences at Purdue University, said the fish posed no risk to the environment. “In contrast, the current practice of using wild caught salmon as a food source is not sustainable; our oceans are overfished,” he said in a statement. “This development provides a safe and sustainable alternative.”

walterbell 11y ago

From a brief by Food & Water Watch, http://www.foodandwaterwatch.org/sites/default/files/GE%20Salmon%20IB%20Jan%202013_0.pdf http://www.foodandwaterwatch.org/sites/default/files/GE%20Sa... "AquaBounty has radically altered Atlantic salmon by inserting genetic material from an eel-like fish and a chinook salmon, designed to make the fish grow faster … an advisory panel of scientists … found major errors in AquaBounty's science and the FDA's data analysis. Scientists were especially critical of the small sample sizes used by AquaBounty — often only six or seven GE fish were used in comparisons. … The FDA has chosen to regulate GE animals as a veterinary drug rather than a food, a decision that severely limits the scope of the agency's risk assessment. For example, the agency has not conducted a single feeding study to assess health risks associated with eating GE salmon … Before AquaBounty researchers physically examined GE salmon for health problems, they selectively killed off irregular fish, biasing the data set and severely compromising the integrity of the data. … Acknowledging the threat of escape, AquaBounty has attempted to render GE salmon sterile, which would prevent sexual reproduction in the event that the fish are released into the wild. However, the company's regulatory submissions indicate that up to 5 percent of GE salmon will not be sterile … AquaBounty appears to be the biotech industry's sacrificial lamb — securing regulatory approval of a product that will likely be a market failure, but that will pave the way for other bioengineered food animals."

tptacek 11y ago
FWW also opposes rBGH and irradiated milk.
shostack 11y ago
Is there any info on what labeling will be required on packaging and in restaurants for this fish or anything that contains it? I like to think I'm not overly paranoid about genetically modified things as long as proper due-diligence is conducted, but these quotes here make me think that is not the case, or is being intentionally subverted. At the very least, I'd take reassurance in my ability to avoid eating this.
- trhway 11y ago
  no labeling.

BuckRogers 11y ago

As long as this is labeled as genetically modified, I'm ok with it. I generally trust the biologists on this subject that don't have a conflict of interest. That said, I'm uninterested in GMO food for my family and we don't eat it whenever we have the power to choose.

seccess 11y ago
"The officials said the fish would not have to be labeled as being genetically engineered, a policy consistent with its stance on foods made from genetically engineered crops." As an aside, what is your reason for not consuming GMO foods if you also trust that many biologists feel that they can be safe? Genuinely curious not trying to be snarky.
- BuckRogers 11y ago
  I think the distinction is unclear on level of modification. Generally, you can have 3 kinds of modifications. From least likely to be dangerous to most- 1) gene sequence removal; 2) gene splicing from two different species; 3) whole new organism. If I were to purposefully consume GMO, I would like to know what exactly the severity is of what has been done. Since we can't even get basic labels, let alone information on how extreme the modification is- I just choose to outright avoid.
- jnellis 11y ago
  If they can genetically engineer a fish then they can make them easily identifiable so that they can't be passed off as other fish which is already a huge problem. Black light markers on the skin or flesh perhaps. Having some really bad genetic trait that makes them easy prey or die quickly if they escape into the wild is another idea instead of 'top men' just saying 'trust us.'

seccess 11y ago

"making it the first genetically altered animal to be cleared for American supermarkets and dinner tables" What is the definition of "genetically altered"? I assume that cannot cover selective breeding, for example.