Blue Revolution --GE Fish

[Guest guest]

Blue Revolution--GE Fish JoAnn Guest Sep 09, 2002 09:26 PDT

 

" Blue revolution " on the horizon as scientists develop genetically

engineered fish

 

Agribusinesses tamper with nature in the quest for ever greater profits

Coming soon to a supermarket near you:

 

genetically engineered salmon,

tuna, lobsters, shrimp and other sea critters.

 

Some scientists are calling this latest wave of sea-based genetic tampering the

" blue revolution " .

 

Unfortunately, this revolution may have dire consequences for human

health and the environment-even, possibly, leading to the extinction of some

species of fish.

The most imminent biotech seafood has been dubbed the superfish.

 

It's a salmon that grows twice as big - and as much as six times as quickly -

as its natural Atlantic counterpart, and it may be in stores as early as

next year.

 

A/F Protein, an American-Canadian biotech firm doing business on Prince Edward

Island, has genetically engineered more than 100,000 salmon so

far to include an antifreeze protein that allows the salmon to produce a

growth hormone year-round.

 

Normally, the salmon produce this growth hormone only during the warm

months.

A/F Protein is awaiting approval by the Food and Drug Administration to

begin selling the fish to the United States,

 

the biggest consumer of

farmed fish in the world.

 

Other companies are tinkering with genetic engineering techniques that

could produce the world's largest lobster, and giant chickens, sheep and

pigs. The goal is to produce animals with double the meat yield of

normal animals.

 

Proponents of sea biotechnology think it will do a lot to help their

bottom line. " We're aiming to reduce the time to market to 50 percent so

we're no longer having to feed these fish without getting any return, "

Michael Erisman, vice president of business development for A/F Protein,

told Fox News last fall.

 

Proponents of Frankenfish argue that it is an efficient way of feeding a

growing human population at a time when fishing stocks are declining

around the globe. But critics say mixing biotech and seafood may spell

disaster.

 

Risky business: " Trojan " genes may wipe out natural fish populations

 

 

Industry officials say that they will grow genetically engineered salmon

in " fish farms " - enclosed pens that are kept separate from wild fish.

 

But many scientists are terrified of the possible ramifications should

genetically engineered salmon or other marine life escape from

notoriously leaky fish farms.

 

Frequently, fish farms are kept in open

waters; storm weather and other factors often lead to fish escapes.

 

In one study, Purdue University scientists William Muir and Richard Muir

looked at what might happen if transgenic Japanese madaka fish were

released into the wild.

 

 

The pair discovered that 30 percent of Japanese madaka that are

engineered to produce human growth hormone-and thus grow much faster

than normal-don't survive to sexual maturity.

 

" In the market, this is not important. Fish can be sold and eaten before

they are sexually mature, " writes biotech fish critic Jean-Michel

Cousteau for the Environmental News Network.

 

" But in nature, surviving to sexual maturity is everything.

 

The

superfish may dominate the mating game, but if they are least likely to

produce viable offspring, the population will eventually decline. "

 

The Purdue scientists calculated that if 60 transgenic fish were

released into a population of 60,000 wild fish, in 40 generations, the

species would become extinct.

 

Biotech fish growers say they will render the biotech fish sterile, thus

preventing the extinction problem.

 

 

However, Cousteau argues, " complete sterilization of all fish is simply

not a reality.

 

Nor is it likely to be. No company has stepped forward to

guarantee 100 percent perfection in sterility. And nothing short of

perfection is acceptable, for it only takes one well-endowed superfish

in a population of wild salmon to start the process of decline. "

 

An additional fear is that Frankensalmon and other transgenic aquatic

species will wipe out food sources for their natural counterparts.

 

A/F Protein is not the first company to experiment with genetically

mutated fish. In the mid-1990s, NZ King Salmon, New Zealand's largest

salmon producer, tried to produce transgenic salmon.

 

The company has

confirmed, however, that some fish were spawned with deformed heads.

 

Last May, German zoologist Hans-Hinrich Kaatz made headlines when he

found evidence that genes used to modify crops can jump the species

barrier and cause bacteria to mutate.

 

Under that theory, if genetically

engineered fish escape into the wild, it could lead to contamination of

many natural species of fish.

 

Who's minding the fish pen? Government policy " full of holes "

 

 

The U.S. government, which already has a reputation for kowtowing to

industry when it comes to genetically engineered fruits and vegetables,

has not inspired confidence that it can handle the vast implications of

biotech fish any better.

 

Laws on the books are more appropriate for an earlier era, and some

people say the present situation is akin to using 19th century

transportation laws to regulate air travel.

 

" Here we are on the brink of remaking life on Earth through genetic

engineering, and we do not have a thorough process for reviewing the

environmental impacts, " said William Brown, former science advisor to

the Clinton Administration's Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt. " The

system is full of holes. "

 

" My sense is that the current system is not going to be OK and that

there are going to have to be changes--or a whole new system put in, "

said Bill Knapp, a senior fisheries official with the U.S. Fish and

Wildlife Service.

 

Federal officials, according to a January 2nd Los Angeles Times report,

say there are no laws on the books requiring people who alter fish genes

to keep the fish isolated from natural fish.

 

Additionally, they say, it

is unclear whether federal law prohibits a person from releasing

genetically modified animals into the wild.

Critics also charge that the FDA, whose domain is food and drug safety,

does not have the expertise to gauge the environmental implications of

biotech seafood.

 

The Environmental Protection Agency and the Department

of Agriculture bowed out of the salmon case.

 

 

" Having the FDA assess environmental risks would be like having the Fish

and Wildlife Service assessing food safety, " said Rebecca Goldburg, a

senior scientist with the environmental Defense Fund. " It's absurd. "

 

Many fishermen around the world are worried about the implications of

transgenic fish as well.

 

In Scotland, an estimated 700,000 salmon

escaped from fish farms over a three-year period. In 2000, the trade

group representing the country's salmon industry voted to reject any use

of transgenic salmon within the country's borders.

" We are very worried, " said Glen Spain, Northwest regional director of

the Pacific Coast Federation of Fishermen's Associations.

 

" Once you let

the genies out of the bottle, you are at the mercy of the genies. "

 

Food pharm: Biotech land animals on the way as well

Biotech companies also are working on bringing genetically engineered

land-based animals to market.

 

On the drawing board are pigs engineered

to have less fat, cattle that grow twice as fast on less feed, and

chicken engineered to resist disease-causing bacteria.

 

 

" The most striking of the new creatures being concocted by plucking a

gene from one organism and inserting it into the DNA of another, "

according to a New York Times article last May,

 

" are what are known as

pharm animals.

 

These domesticated beasts - cows, pigs, goats, sheep and chickens -

have been given the ability to produce pharmaceuticals and other

valuable substances in their milk, eggs or semen. "

 

 

If you think these developments sound like they come out of a

frightening sci-fi novel, you're not alone.

 

The New York Times continues:

 

" Endowed by scientists with foreign genes,

often taken from humans, these animals, or bioreactors, as they are

known, earn their keep as living chemical factories. "

 

 

One company is developing a goat that includes genes from a spider,

allow the goat to produce spider silk in its milk.

 

The extremely strong spider silk would then be extracted from the

goat's milk, and may be used in bulletproof vests and other products.

 

A Canadian university team is trying to create chickens engineered to

produce antibiotics in their eggs.

 

 

Animal rights supporters say there are troubling moral issues

surrounding the use of animals as chemical factories.

 

And some

scientists say there are food safety issues as well.

 

" Those goats are not going to just get a decent burial after they grow

old and stop producing silk, " John Matheson, senior regulatory review

scientist at the Center for Veterinary Medicine at the FDA, told the New

York Times. " So we have to look at them as potential food and as

potential feed ingredients. "

 

Matheson also told the Times that some genetically engineered animals

already have been approved for use in animal feeds,

 

but said he was

unable to reveal any details because the biotech animals are still

experimental and under confidential FDA review.

 

 

JoAnn Guest

mrsjoguest

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http://www.geocities.com/mrsjoguest/Botanicals.html

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