FrankenFish is almost a go!

[Walter]

Although labeled safe for human consumption, is the release of these genetically modified fish safe for the wild fish genepool?

You can make public comment to the FDA still if you are so inclined.

http://vitals.nbcnews.com/_news/2012...rm-nature?lite

[Adam Grace]

This makes me nervous...

[Jgoding]

why? biochemically, you couldn't distinguish it from regular salmon.

[Adam Grace]

IMHO, I'm worried about about both health concernes and environmental concernes. These fish mixing and breeding with the wild fish, and altering what evolution has already bred into wild salmon. The chance for catastrophic consequences is too high for me. Man always thinks that he is god, he acts like good until something terrible and irreversible occurs, then he is left with the consequences.

If it's not broke, don't fix it.

[Walter]

At the beginning of this century there was a test field of GMO Corn in the Southern US. The pollen had been altered so that the grains of pollen, when they got on insects, ones that were preying on the corn...well this pollen cuts like razors through the cracks in the insect exoskeleton, killing them.

And so viola, a natural pesticide.

Unfortunately towards the end of this test run, with what was hailed as a dramatic sucess, there was a catastrophe.

Tens of thousands of threatened Monarch butterflies came across the border from mexico and flew right through this test field. They died in unfathomable numbers.

And the scientists with their phd's and the researchers with their job saving grants said, "oops," and "oh sh*t we didnt think of that!"


So what would have happened Nationwide if those GMO Corn genes had prolferated before this Monarch debacle occured?

Eat your frakenfish. I'm sure its fine for you. A cow is a GMO. But we've had decades to observe their impact on the envornment, which we still mitigate poorly.

[Darian]

Walter,.... I think maybe our memories are slipping a bit. Not absolutely sure but I think I read about that test/result during the early nineties. At any rate, from what I've read these fish are not likely to be fertile and they're supposed to be raised in commercial, "farm" type operations. Thus, reducing the chance of escapement/mixing/reproducing with native/non-native populations.

Certainly, there're always elements of risk in any advancement and anything can go wrong (as the statistician H. L. Menken believed/proved more than once) as they have at times in the past. It just seems to me that we've got to take on those risks in order to solve the concerns of feeding the world. Right or wrong, I'm of the opinion that controls/techniques in genetic modification have improved a great deal since the time of the test mentioned by Walter. Hope I'm not wrong....

[Mike O]

And with as many Atlantic Salmon escapees as we have had in WA & BC, the "not likely" to be fertile...still isn't worth the risk. The populations of escapees are not very viable, but the potential is still there, and it only takes a few to start a population.

http://wdfw.wa.gov/ais/salmo_salar/

[Jgoding]

You guys need to educate yourselves. The pollen does not cut up the insects. It's BT protein killing the butterflies as the ingest it incidentally on occasion. These Salmon are not going to be raised in an ocean in pens. They will be landlocked ponds and I think the company has taken extra precautions to eliminate any chance of escape and the fish are sterile, with a small chance of some being fertile as nothing is 100%.