Blue revolution on the horizon as scientists develop genetically engineered fish

[Guest guest]

http://www.thecampaign.org/education/brochure_fish.php

 

 

" 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.

 

 

 

 

 

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