Courtesy of Andrew Pollack at WSJ
A salmon genetically engineered to grow quickly is safe to eat and poses little risk to the environment, the Food and Drug Administration said Friday. The assessment makes it more likely that the fish will become the first genetically modified animal to enter the American food supply. Food from the salmon “is as safe as food from conventional Atlantic salmon,” the F.D.A. said in its analysis, which was posted on its Web site Friday.
“There is a reasonable certainty of no harm from consumption of food from this animal.” The salmon can grow to market size in 16 to 18 months instead of the 30 required for a regular farmed Atlantic salmon, according to its developer, AquaBounty Technologies of Waltham, Mass. AquaBounty has been trying for years to win approval for the salmon, a goal that now appears within reach. The analysis by the F.D.A. staff was in preparation for three days of public meetings on the salmon that will start on Sept. 19. The F.D.A. is expected to make a final decision on approval in the weeks after the meetings.
The company has said it will take two to three years after approval for the fish to reach American supermarkets. A coalition of 31 consumer, animal welfare, environmental and fisheries groups announced opposition to the approval last week, citing, in particular, concerns that the salmon could escape and possibly outcompete wild salmon for food or mates. But AquaBounty said the fish would be grown only inland. And only sterile females will be sold, limiting any ability to reproduce. The F.D.A., in its analysis, basically agreed that the chance of escape or ecological disruption was small. The salmon “are not expected to have a significant impact on the quality of the human environment,” it concluded. But the analysis is not likely to satisfy critics, in part because much of the data upon which the F.D.A. based its conclusions was submitted by AquaBounty.
Jaydee Hanson, a policy analyst at the Center for Food Safety, a Washington advocacy group, said that only a handful to a few dozen fish were used for some of the studies on the safety of the fish flesh or its potential to cause allergic reactions. “We’re actually pretty amazed at how small their samples were,” he said. He also pointed to information in the documents suggesting that up to 5 percent of the fish might not be sterile because the process is not perfect.
The AquAdvantage Atlantic salmon contains 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. So with the hormone produced year round, the AquAdvantage salmon grow faster. One issue that might attract some discussion at the public meetings is that the engineered salmon have slightly higher levels of insulinlike growth factor 1, a hormone related to growth hormone. Some studies suggest that high levels of the insulinlike hormone in the bloodstream are associated with greater cancer risk, though it is not clear how much food contributes to hormone levels in the blood.
However, the F.D.A. did an analysis that concluded that even if people ate a lot of the salmon, it would not make a significant difference in the amount of the hormone they would consume. Genetically engineered animals are regulated by the F.D.A. under rules covering animal drugs. The agency’s Veterinary Medicine Advisory Committee will discuss the application on Sept. 19 and 20 in Rockville, Md. The next day the agency will hold a public meeting to discuss whether or how food from the salmon should be labeled.
Steve - here we go again. We did not learn enough about the negative effects from growth hormones in cows, now we have to deal with salmon? If you would like to make your voice heard, you had better do it quickly at http://www.fda.gov/NewsEvents/PublicHealthFocus/ucm224089.htm
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