Transgenic fish go large
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By Emma Marris
A genetically modified animal is on the brink of making an appearance on US dinner tables for the first time. The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is expected to approve a genetically modified (GM) Atlantic salmon that grows twice as fast as wild Atlantics, reaching market weight in a year and a half instead of three. Approval could come as soon as next week.
The fish contains a single copy of a DNA sequence that includes code for a Chinook salmon growth hormone and regulatory sequences derived from Chinook salmon and the eel-like ocean pout. Whereas Atlantic salmon normally stop growing in the winter, the GM fish produces growth hormones throughout the year. Developer AquaBounty Technologies, based in Waltham, Massachusetts, has spent more than a decade shepherding the fish towards approval in a new regulatory landscape. In 2009, the FDA decided to classify GM traits in animals as veterinary drugs. Some have criticized this decision, as it allows companies to shield some details of their product from public view as proprietary information (see Nature doi:10.1038/news.2008.1120: 2010).
To appease critics, the FDA has posted all the information behind its decision on the salmon online, and has opened much of the deliberations of an advisory body--the Veterinary Medicine Advisory Committee (VMAC)--to the public. Next week the VMAC will hold public sessions to hear about the science, safety, environmental impact and possible labelling of the fish. The FDA's Center for Veterinary Medicine, which will decide on approval after hearing from the VMAC, has already released a favorable report.
Some environmental groups are concerned that the fish might escape from their pens and mate with wild Atlantic salmon. "There is always going to be a possibility of escape," says Peter Bridson, aquaculture research manager at the Monterey Bay Aquarium in California. "We would oppose the approval of the current application."
AquaBounty's chief executive Ronald Stotish says those concerns are misplaced. More than 99% of his salmon are triploid, which renders them sterile, and the fish are farmed inland, in large tanks fitted with filters and baffles to imprison eggs, smolt and fish. "The possibility of an escape or an event with any possibility to interact with the wild population is infinitesimal," says Stotish.
According to Mark Abrahams, a biologist at Memorial University in St John's, Newfoundland, Canada, the transgenic fish's ramped-up metabolism is maladapted to life in the wild. "They are willing to incur huge risks to gain access to food," he says, allowing predators to pick off the fish easily.
The next GM animal on dinner plates may be the Enviropig, developed at the University of Guelph, Ontario, Canada, and submitted to the FDA for approval. The pig can better absorb phosphorus from its food, reducing the phosphorus content of its manure. High-phosphorus manure can induce algal blooms in waterways.
There are no requests for authorization of transgenic food animals pending in the European Union, and the European Food Safety Authority, based in Parma, Italy, is just beginning to draft regulatory guidelines. For now, AquaBounty plans to market its salmon only in the United States. "Other countries are interested but they are all looking to the United States for the regulatory imprimatur," says Stotish.
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14 Comments
Add Commenti wont eat it dont trust them, where are the lab results from actuall testing the "product" did they feed it to cats or lab rats? dont think they have not mentioned anywhere in the article, not that i would trust those results anyway big industry is like politicans most are amoral .
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Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI'm not
Damn SciAm comment system... Anyway, I'm not so worried about the salmon itself, I'd eat this fish and probably love it. I'm not even worried about the cross-breeding. Fish evolve very quickly under environmental stresses human or otherwise, we have seen this in nature from cave fish to salmon. Rather, I am worried that the industry really does not understand how its going to feed these super-growth fish. Currently salmon food comes from fish emulsion and fish oil, which is itself harvested from wild sources. Already these populations are being strained by Omega and George Bush's old company, Zapata Oil (I just had to throw the connection out there).
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI highly doubt the developers of these GM fish are coordinating with the suppliers of menhaden and other fish oil stocks, but I'm sure the solution will go something like "just make GM menhaden that grow twice as fast!" Filter feeding fish, the ones that billow across the ocean in great clouds, effect the ocean's ecosystem in ways we do not completely understand. Simply plundering them more thoroughly so that salmon production is doubled seems a dangerous experiment.
Perhaps a salmon could be made that feeds on algal solids only, from fertilizer runoff. Or maybe we could have Salmonhaden? I don't see why GM has to be diametrically opposed to the goals of environmental conservation.
So Aqua Bounty is able to speak for all the other companies who will eventually be able to make these fish, now and in the next thousand years?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisRegulations will remain in place (if they are even there now) and no one will ever shortcut them? Good, there's nothing to worry about.
There are always two sides in a controversy. Let's face it, without the experiments with food production, a good portion of world would be starving.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisOf course this doesn't mean we can solve problems by endangering people's health (and perhaps decimating the salmon population if the fears described here are real). The problem is that this sets a precedent that can and will be used in future adventures, and unless the FDA is careful enough, we're bound to witness a few catastrophes.
Some have criticized this decision, as it allows companies to shield some details of their product from public view as proprietary information
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this-Shield! More like CONCEAL!!
-I don't care what they do to food, so long as THEY TELL THE CONSUMER exactly (1) what the food contains (cal, sodium, etc.) and (2) How it differs from the same product produced 100 years ago.
-We should be allowed to know if there are hormons, antibiotics, grassfeed, pestisides, etc,etc,etc used in our food. This should be law.
-Right now, most of the plant food you eat is already genetically modified, but they aren't required to tell you.
Some environmental groups are concerned that the fish might escape from their pens and mate with wild Atlantic salmon. "There is always going to be a possibility of escape,"
More than 99% of his salmon are triploid, which renders them sterile, and the fish are farmed inland, in large tanks fitted with filters and baffles to imprison eggs, smolt and fish. "The possibility of an escape or an event with any possibility to interact with the wild population is infinitesimal,"
-Good to here your growing them on land and that most are infertle, but what did you do to them to make them infertle? My guess would be a poison in the early stages of development... there will be hidden side effect.
JUST TELL US WHAT YOU DO TO OUR FOOD AND LET THE MARKET SPEAK FOR ITSELF!!!.
"The possibility of an escape or an event with any possibility to interact with the wild population is infinitesimal," says Stotish."
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWorked out great for Monsanto when... whoops, look at that, it did! Now they've got an entire industry bent over the barrel and can screw everyone coming and going. It's a great business plan. The only casualty is life itself, but who cares.
This whole conversation is screwy. Companies like Monsanto never went the extra miles required to prevent cross contamination according to accepted best practices, and have undertaken many monopoly-like business abuses that would be equally shady if they were selling cars or paint thinner. So comparing every GM food to Monsanto is like comparing every utilities company to Enron. Unless 20% of the entire population are willing to work in organic co-ops like in Cuba, some sort of mass production food is inevitable.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisUltimately sustainability is going to be about weighing the relative pros and cons. Does this impact the environment less than farmed Salmon, factoring in the small chance of cross contamination? I have no idea, and I'll defer to experts like the Monterey Bay Aquarium who think about such things for a living.
BTW, for scaremongers like gunslongoer who are too lazy to click on any of the links in the article, the step that makes them infertile is pressure treatment, not poisons. Generally, known poisons are not added to foodstock.
You quoted the statement saying why the fish are sterile and then ask why the fish are sterile...if you don't understand what "triploid" means then try doing a little research of your own to discover the meaning before guessing at something ludicrous like "poison in the early stages of development"
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisOh forget it...triploid refers to the number of sets of chromosomes. Haploid is one set, Diploid is two sets (like humans), Triploid means three sets (rendering the majority of the fish sterile)
And we are going to let these loose on the world? And then wonder why all the fish are different? Or do we really think we are going to keep them separate from wild stock for eternity?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWhy not decrease demand rather than amending nature. It is incredibly obvious in most articles regarding public health or improving human life that the real problem is that there are too many of us. Why isn't this discussed on a daily basis?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisCButeruf, although I share your attitude I have found that the subject of culling the human population is not a popular a conversation in most social settings.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisTo all who decry the "unnatural manipulation" of animals and plants I suggest you consider a world without dogs, cows, wheat, corn, rice...
My question regarding the salmon breeding is "will they taste like salmon?" My recent experience with a number of fruits leads me to the conclusion that the large size and bright color has been gained at the expense of taste.
Let’s see…we’ve gone through fresh farm food ☺, canned/processed food, frozen food, microwave food… Within these, we’ve become accustomed to transfats, saturated fats, pesticides… These man-made salmon, or as I’d prefer to call a robo-salmon, can appropriately described as just another example of the artificial world America is exponentially approaching. I’m not really worried about the effect this GM salmon will have on our health. The company has spent over a decade modifying the fish to meet regulatory standards; it can’t be worse than all the other man-made food we’ve already let into our society. I’m worried about this growing trend that is allowing plasticity to drown our society.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisDo you even understand what triploid means? It means that they have 3 copies of each chromosome. Your comment that young fish are poisoned makes no sense.
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