Thread: Salmon first GMO animal OK'd for sale

Salmon first GMO animal OK'd for sale

Play

0:00 / 2:10
​Peter Parks/Getty Images


Salmon fillets shown at a sale at a fish market in Sydney. In the U.S., genetically engineered salmon has been approved for sale, without labeling, by the Food and Drug Administration.


by Mitchell Hartman
Monday, November 23, 2015 - 16:14

The extraordinary security around GMO salmon

The Food and Drug Administration has approved the first genetically modified animal product as safe for sale and consumption in the U.S. After years of review, regulators approved a GMO variety of Atlantic salmon, which was developed by Massachusetts-based AquaBounty Technology. The salmon is raised in inland fish farm pools to prevent genetic drift to wild salmon.

The salmon carries inserted genes from two other fish — Chinook salmon and ocean pout — that make the salmon grow faster than conventional salmon.

The FDA has also ruled — as it has for other GMO foods, like corn and soybeans — that the GMO salmon does not need to be labeled as such by AquaBounty, grocery stores, restaurants and other outlets where it is sold and served to consumers.

The new salmon won’t be on the market immediately — AquaBounty needs to ramp up commercial production, initially in Panama. Once it does hit the market, it will make up only a tiny fraction of the imported farmed Atlantic salmon Americans consume.

And marketing will be a challenge once it is available.

Only 37 percent of U.S. adults think GMO foods are safe, according to a survey by Pew Research. Many consumers are willing to pay a premium for brands voluntarily labeled "non-GMO." And Kelly Weikel, a food industry analyst at Technomic, said consumer reception and trust of GMO foods has, if anything, been declining in recent years, as Americans’ taste for food that is "unadulterated," "without additives" and "natural" rises.

Dominique Brossard, who studies science and communication at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, said: “People have a tendency to equate the (GMO) technology with something that they may not like — big monopoly from corporations and very modern agriculture.”

Brossard said "modern agriculture" could be used as a marketing tool to improve GMO’s image among consumers — by pushing the idea of science healing the environment and feeding the planet.

“That it’s more sustainable, since we are already overfishing the oceans,” Brossard said. “It could be salmon that’s much more affordable.”

Animal geneticist Alison Van Eenennaam at UC Davis studies GMO food and animals, and said her research shows they might be more disease-resistant than non-GMO breeds, which could in turn reduce the overuse of antibiotics in agriculture. She said that would benefit animal and human health. Her marketing message: stay away from the details of genetic science as much as possible.

“I think it does sound kind of frightening to be moving a gene from one species to another,” Van Eenennaam said.

“We spend a lot of time talking about the technology rather than how it might benefit people and the planet.”

But there is a big problem with telling a positive story about GMO foods — inside in-store ads, or on packaging.

There is no easy way for consumers to know a food is genetically engineered. The FDA has consistently rejected calls to require food makers to label GMO as fresh produce, and processed foods with GMO ingredients.

There is significant support in Congress to ban states from mandating labeling on their own, as Vermont has done. And the food industry has lobbied hard against mandatory labeling. Industry representatives claim the food is safe for human consumption, so labeling is unnecessary; they also worry that labeling will put people off their gene-enhanced corn, soybeans — and salmon, eventually.

http://www.marketplace.org/2015/11/2...nimal-okd-sale

AquaBounty Technologies

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Industry	Biotechnology aquaculture
Founded	1991[1]
Headquarters	Waltham, Massachusetts [1]
Key people	Ronald L. Stotish (President &CEO)
Website	aquabounty.com

AquaBounty Technologies is a biotechnology company, engaged in the research, development, and commercialization of products that aim to increase the productivity of aquaculture.^[2]

Products[edit]

The company has developed hybrid salmon, trout, and tilapia designed to grow faster than traditional fish.

Their hybrid Atlantic salmon incorporates a gene from a Chinook salmon, which bears a single copy of the stably integrated α-form of the opAFP-GHc2 gene construct at the α-locus in the EO-1α line (ocean pout, or eel).^[3]

AquaBounty has patented and trademarked this fish as the AquAdvantage salmon, a sterile Atlantic salmon female that can grow to market size in half the time of conventional salmon.^[4]

The company also produces antifreeze proteins; and conducts research and development programs related to the commercialization of cryopreservatives and the antifreeze gene constructs.^[2]

Finances[edit]

In 2012, a New York Times article reported the finances of AquaBounty were not in good shape and the company had to reduce staff from 27 to 12.^[5] In March 2012, AquaBounty raised US$2 million in new capital, but this would only last until the end of the year.^[5]

Georgian investor Kakha Bendukidze owned 47.6% of the company's stock before selling to American synthetic biology firm Intrexon in October 2012. Intrexon put up $500,000 in bridge financing and offered to buy the rest of the company.<sup>[4][6]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AquaBounty_Technologies</sup>

Bill Nye is now a supporter of GMO food. GMO is the way to agricultural industrialization.

Bill Nye had a super-weird experience in New York City that helped him go pro-GMO

Earlier this year, Bill Nye made a surprising move from anti-GMO (which stands for genetically modified organisms) to pro-GMO. Around the same time, a political rally he attended only helped to convince him of his decision to switch stances. The rally was in New York City with an anti-GMO theme.
Nye recounts the memorable experience in his latest book "Unstoppable: Harnessing Science to Change the World," which explores the many pitfalls of climate change and the numerous available technologies that could turn things around:
"When one speaker insisted that the US president Barack Obama was part of a conspiracy sponsored by large agriculture companies to control minds — and received a great many cheers — somehow that passionate man at the microphone crossed a line for me," Nye writes.
For years, Nye had voiced his concerns against GMOs, saying that scientists could not possibly know how these novel organisms were going to impact the environment, food, and our bodies.
But he changed his tune after a fateful visit to Monsanto headquarters in St. Louis, Missouri — one of the world's leading GM seed manufacturers — and the Boyce Thompson Institute for Plant Research at Cornell University.
At both locations, Nye watched as scientists scanned and sequenced the genetic make-up of crops that they planned to modify. He also saw how that modification is performed.
“This is what changed my mind,” Nye told famed astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson on his podcast series StarTalk Radio last July, “Being able to [sequence genes] 10 million times faster than they used to be able to do it … and being able to eliminate the ones not suitable for farming and susceptible to diseases and so on.”

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/bill-n...220837031.html

1/9/16

Campbell Soup becomes first major company to start GMO labeling

3/18/16

http://www.alipac.us/f19/general-mil...ountry-330332/

Bill Nye the Science Guy wants to put labels on GMOs — but not for the reason you'd think

• Lydia Ramsey

• Jul. 20, 2015, 1:06 PM
• 7,271

Thomson Reuters

Bill Nye wants to see signs that read "Proudly GMO."


Bill Nye the Science Guy has a lot to say about GMOs.

Since flipping his stance on them recently (he said he opposed them in his latest book, then changed his mind after visiting a lab where they were produced), Nye has taken a stab at explaining his new view.

In the second of a two-part series for StarTalk Radio recently, he said that although he's in favor of GMOs, he would also support the idea of labeling them. This idea has been very controversial in pro-GMO circles, with supporters of GM food saying it could unfairly steer customers away from buying them.

But Nye doesn't think we should label GMOs as a warning.

Instead, he thinks we should do it as a marketing strategy.

Co-host Chuck Nice asked why corporations push back against labeling genetically modified produce, and Nye gave this response:

"I told those people at Monsanto ... I told them, why don’t you just put on there ‘proudly GMO?’

Go for it. ... Let the market sort it out."

In other words, Nye thinks people would buy GMOs regardless of the label. In fact, he thinks GMOs have a shot at selling better than organic foods, because they tend to be cheaper and more nutritious. A lot of the food we eat is already genetically modified: According to the USDA, 94% of soybeans and 92% of corn were genetically engineered this year. So if companies simply put all the cards on the table and let consumers figure it out for themselves, GMO foods would do just fine, Nye suspects.

In the past year, Nye has dramatically changed his own opinion on GMOs. He originally took a stance against genetic modification because he was concerned scientists didn’t have a good idea of their longterm effects on the ecosystem.

But as he started to explain last week, he changed his mind after seeing firsthand how research behind today’s plant engineering is moving at what he calls an acceptable pace: Not too fast that it’ll get ahead of itself, but not too slow where there are too many questions left unanswered.

All of these changes came only after meeting with scientists at the companies who make genetically modified products, including Monsanto and Pioneer Seed, two of the leading GM corporate giants. Anti-GMO activists have called this development questionable.

Listen to the full podcast to hear more of Nye’s opinions about GMOs, including what he thinks of genetically modified animals.

http://www.businessinsider.com/bill-...el-gmos-2015-7

CHECK OUT: The real reason Americans are worried about GMOs is actually a way bigger problem


DON'T MISS: The war against GMOs is full of fearmongering and fraud