
Genetically modified salmons approved by the FDA - jaequery
http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn23035-approval-for-genemodified-salmon-spawns-controversy.html
======
jeffool
As someone who doesn't care at all about eating genetically modified foods, I
expect the argument over labeling will break out soon. To fire the first shot:
I really wish they'd label genetically modified foods. It seems a small
courtesy for those who do have concerns. And those who don't? Well, we don't
care. That's the point.

~~~
DanBC
You are rational. Many people are not. Labelling a food as "genetically
modified" is the same to them as labelling it as "radioactive" or "contains
excrement".

I'm not sure if labelling food as genetically modified is a useful warning, or
if it would be the same as saying "wifi used in this building". WIFI isn't
harmful, and eventually it's going to be everywhere and not avoidable. Yet you
still have people who claim that electronic smog causes all sorts of things.

I'm happy to eat these things. I'm gently worried about releasing organisms
into the wild with "exogenes" (or whatever they're called). Evolution is
amazing and powerful and wonderful. And human intervention in eco-systems
isn't filled with particularly great examples - a long list of invasive
species comes to mind.

~~~
malandrew
How many buildings in California do you regularly come across with the "This
building contains chemicals known in the State of California to cause cancer"
or something to that effect? They are everywhere. It doesn't stop 99% of
people from entering these buildings to work or live in them.

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earbitscom
Other animals bred to have fast-growing qualities typically suffer incredibly
painful problems supporting their unnatural weight. When are people going to
realize that:

A) just because you can do something doesn't mean you should.

B) animals are not playthings put on Earth for us to do whatever we want with.

~~~
unimpressive
We can eventually fix the pain thing if that's an issue.

And Christianity takes an opposing view, meaning that this attitude is deeply
ingrained in western culture. (Which I happen to agree with.[0])

"01:001:026 And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness:
and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the
air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping
thing that creepeth upon the earth." - King James Bible

Source: <http://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/30/pg30.txt>

[0]: The attitude, on this particular issue.

~~~
DanBC
Let's avoid the vegetarian arguments for the moment, because they are usually
more heat than light.

Are you saying that we can do whatever we like to animals?

Or that we can do whatever we like to animals so long as it benefits humans?

Or that we can do whatever we like so long as the benefit is significant?

Or what?

~~~
unimpressive
Okay.

>Are you saying that we can do whatever we like to animals?

Technically they can't stop us. But that's probably not the answer you're
looking for.

Inflicting unnecessary harm on semi-sentient life forms that feel pain is
probably immoral. So while we _can_ do whatever we want, certain things are
not _moral_ to do.

> Or that we can do whatever we like to animals so long as it benefits humans?

Right now current conservation efforts have the irreplaceable property of
extinct animals as an axiom. This is, for the moment, true. So we have to
measure decisions in something akin to utils. Killing off the zebra to cure
somebodies headache probably isn't a smart trade.

At the same time we need to be cautious, when we start playing large games
with the ecosystem, we incur the risk of large losses. (See: Just about every
invasive species introduced as a direct result of human intervention.) Right
now one of the large reasons for saving species from extinction is
biodiversity. The less biodiversity in the ecosystem, the higher the chance of
a key species being wiped out by disease or aggressive predation and
collapsing the whole system. (See: Pollinating insects.)

Right now the benefit to humans of saving as many species as possible from
invisible deaths by our machinations is a net positive. In the future, it may
make sense to "upgrade" organisms to give fitness for a particular purpose.
This process may involve organisms being out-competed to extinction by GMOs.

> Or that we can do whatever we like so long as the benefit is significant?

Well right now current meat processing procedures induce great pain to the
animals involved. This is an externalized cost that does not show up in
consumer prices. Meaning that even though the morally optimal solution would
be something like naturally grown animals on a large pasture, the
evolutionarily optimal solution ends up being animal death camps.

There are efforts to _grow_ meats independent of their traditional hosts
through bioengineering, but these efforts have not taken off yet. If
successful, they could save millions of animal lives, at the potential cost of
the majority of the species. (Or even all of it.) Is that worth it? Is it
selfish for humans to "obsolete" an animal it no longer finds useful? We did
this to horses.

We need to be careful about "benefit". The Soviets drained the Aral Sea in a
large irrigation project. [0] This of course resulted in the destruction of
the surrounding ecosystem, and is now apparently leading to health problems
for the people who live there locally. Was that worth it?

[0]:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Plan_for_the_Transformat...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Plan_for_the_Transformation_of_Nature)

tl;dr: Currently the only way to satisfy our demand for meat is to slaughter
millions of animals. Because of market pressures, these animals end up dying
painfully, or even living painfully. This is not an morally optimal situation
and I feel that certain aspects could be improved, with potentially disastrous
consequences for the species involved.

~~~
earbitscom
"Semi-sentient"? "Smart trade"?

This attitude toward animals is just sad. We're talking about other beings
with emotions and desires. I wish scientists could GMO humans into not being
so arrogant toward other species. That's a genetic experiment I could get
behind.

~~~
unimpressive
I use the former term to clarify that I don't ascribe human levels of
consciousness to animals, do you?

As for the latter, since you brought it up:

The thing about stuff like "How many Zebras are worth a headache." is that if
you think about it enough, you end up at questions like "How many zebras are
worth a human?" and then "Are all human lives equal?". When trying to answer
such questions things get fuzzy and icky and hard to answer satisfactorily.
Then theres versions of those questions where you ask if the answer changes if
it's _your_ life being weighed.

Even though it's intuitively obvious that somebodies fleeting minor pain is
not worth the cost of losing an entire species of large mammal, talking about
"fair trades" with sentient creatures gets weird and frustrating very
quickly.[0]

[0]: I personally like the phrase "Infinite Hair" to describe situations like
this. (ftp://ftp.trailing-
edge.com/pub/rsx11freewarev2/rsx81b/374001/jargon.txt)

~~~
earbitscom
No, I do not feel the need to differentiate between the varying consciousness
of animals in a discussion such as this. I feel they are owed the basic right
to life, freedom from suffering, and an equal right to that which they have an
interest in, such as raising their young. For every qualification you could
find to rationalize treating animals poorly, aside from the species label we
have applied to them, the same qualifications can be found in certain people.
That's why it gets fuzzy and icky to start calculating "smart trades" that
compromise the rights of some for the good of others.

You should check out Animal Liberation by Peter Singer. I'm not saying I agree
with everything he supports, but he makes a bullet proof argument supporting
the fact that speciesism is just like any other discrimination, and relies on
the same logic as racism, sexism and so on.

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adulau
[http://www.fda.gov/downloads/AdvisoryCommittees/CommitteesMe...](http://www.fda.gov/downloads/AdvisoryCommittees/CommitteesMeetingMaterials/VeterinaryMedicineAdvisoryCommittee/UCM224760.pdf)

"The potential hazards addressed in this EA center on the likelihood and
consequences of AquAdvantage Salmon escaping, becoming established in the
environment, and spreading to other areas. These hazards must be addressed for
the production of eyed-eggs, grow-out to market size, and disposal (i.e., of
fish & fish wastes)."

and

"As discussed in §2.4.2.1, the estimated escape rate of salmon from sea cages
is about 1%. Sea cages, or net pens, have a direct connection with the aquatic
environment."

1% of 50.000-90.000 fish in sea cage it's not something negligible, the first
direct impact might be against the non-GE Atlantic salmon (salmo salar).
Especially that salmon eats salmon eggs and so the dominant specie might
become the GE one.

You might say, oh it's fine it's not touching the diversity of Salmon, it's
just replacing the Atlantic salmon with another one. Wait, they took some
coding sequence from the pacific salmon (and especially from the oncorhynchus
tshawytscha) and added the "anti freezing" protein from zoarces americanus. So
this "subspecie" got an interesting level of properties to find its place in
the atlantic and/or in the pacific (where the diversity of salmons
(Oncorhynchus) is much higher) region. Those risks are without any spreading
of the genetic modification (assuming that triploid induction is effective
with a probability of 1, another point where the scientific literature is
lowering down the probability of effectiveness).

I suppose those risks are not really considered by the FDA as critical because
the F is for Food in FDA. So the risk of changing the whole profile of wild
salmon with such "GE" salmon is not negligible.

~~~
allerratio
> As a precaution, the fish are all female and contain three copies of each
> chromosome rather than two, rendering them sterile.

They won't replace atlantic salmon

~~~
jaequery
"But the sterilization process is not perfect; up to 5% of treated salmon
could still reproduce."

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rjzzleep
i've stopped eating salmon a while back, the way theyre farmed is nothing
short of disgusting. I think a deathrate of 20% is considered good in those
tanks.

But seriously who wants to eat animals that live on corn? for a subtle
introduction on where the us meat comes from i suggest
<http://www.eatinganimals.com/>

~~~
mitchi
Everyone should rethink their meat consumption. First, if you read nutrition
books, you realize that in the long term, it's not healthy. It's much better
to eat vegetables. Secondly, you can get all the nutrients and vitamins you
need from whole foods. Thirdly, it can be cheap. A can of chickpeas is around
$1 and it really fills you up for many hours. I'm not saying everyone should
be vegetarian. But if everyone was 70 % vegetarian things would be very
different.

~~~
enraged_camel
>>First, if you read nutrition books, you realize that in the long term, it's
not healthy. It's much better to eat vegetables.

As someone who is eyeball-deep in nutrition science, I demand a credible
citation.

~~~
Borkdude
Read the books by Joel Fuhrman, Eat to Live being his most famous one,
[http://www.amazon.com/Eat-Live-Amazing-Nutrient-Rich-
Sustain...](http://www.amazon.com/Eat-Live-Amazing-Nutrient-Rich-
Sustained/dp/0316206644/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1356857742&sr=1-1&keywords=eat+to+live)

He's not against eating meat, but portions should be very low (5-10% of
calories from animal products, no more, and this is a veeery small piece of
meat). A (near-)vegan diet with B12- and DHA-supplements is the healthiest
(DHA can be derived from algae instead of fish oil - the fish get it from
algae too). An objection may be: but eating pills isn't natural. Well, eating
GMO-fish surely isn't natural either.

A website with a lot of little video's about the same nutrition principles can
be found here: <http://nutritionfacts.org/>

~~~
sliverstorm
If you say, "5-10% of your diet should be meat" you will find your audiences
much more receptive than if you say "You shouldn't eat meat". In my case this
is because I don't trust extremist _anything_ , particularly when it comes to
food.

If the former is your belief and not the latter, please open that way.

~~~
Borkdude
I was reflecting the message of Fuhrman MD. He's not saying 5-10% should be,
but COULD be meat or animal products (including eggs, dairy, etc). 0% is also
fine or even better. He allows this percentage because some people find it too
restrictive to be vegetarian or vegan. So optimally you should keep it as low
as possible, but there isn't much lost if you still keep it around 5%. Most
people don't realize one egg is already that amount. You'd have to eat vegan
the rest of the day to stay within limits. Animal products can be used as
condiments to flavor your food, not as a substantial part of your diet. If you
want to have a look at the scientific data, read his book(s).

------
jaequery
Upon further research, here are a few things that caught my attention:

#1) There was a bit of Congress lobbying to get it approved.

#2) There is a 5% chance that these fishes could actually become fertile.

#3) These fishes have an extra chromosome and a novel protein not found in any
other salmons.

~~~
cpa
Could you share your sources? (I'm genuinely interested vs. trying to be a
dick)

------
Surio
Dan barber's <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dan_Barber>

TED talk might be relevant to this discussion ;-]

[http://www.ted.com/talks/dan_barber_how_i_fell_in_love_with_...](http://www.ted.com/talks/dan_barber_how_i_fell_in_love_with_a_fish.html)

------
tomkinstinch
There are legitimate concerns surrounding genetically modified foods. Some
potential problems include the creation of monocultures that permit rapid and
more complete devastation from disease, selective pressure that creates
superior pests and predators (positive feedback toward creating monocultures),
negative ecological network effects, overuse of pesticides, and reliance on
commercial seed (you think software patents cause problems...). Food safety is
one, but it's a given for crops intended for human consumption.

That said, the real problem is fear from people who do not understand the
science. We've been modifying what we eat for thousands of years. Selective
breeding has allowed us to feed today's world. Development of short-stalk,
high-yield, disease resistant wheat by Norman Borlaug in the 1950s secured a
food supply for Mexico and India. His cultivars are now credited with saving
more than a billion lives. Where selective breeding got us to where we are
today, genetic engineering will carry us into the future. We need higher
yields per acre to support a growing population. That means industrialized
farming and cultivars that support industrial methods. So-called "Roundup-
ready" varieties of plants allow mass spraying of herbicides over fields, and
let desirable plants crow without competition from weeds (the plants have been
made resistant to the herbicide). Corn engineered to carry the "Bt" gene for a
bacterial endotoxin produces its own insecticide. In each case the
modification allows for a higher yield per acre. Some may say that selective
breeding is different than recombinant methods, which is true. Introducing
exogenous DNA into an organism is different than crossing two parent
organisms. The introduction of new DNA or new alleles does occur in nature
however, via viral insertion or mutation. Somewhere between 5% and 10% of our
own DNA is the result of viral insertions. Plants and salmon are effected by
viruses too. We are only accelerating evolution down particular paths (albeit
perhaps down very unlikely paths).

So genetic modification is not inherently harmful, and it can confer
wonderfully advantageous benefits. Baseless fear is unwarranted, but cautious
concern is justified. When having debates or reporting on GM foods it is
important that we discuss both the benefits of GMO foods along with the
concerns I mentioned above. It is prudent that any new organism be fully
studied and understood before it is deployed in the outside world, and at a
large scale. Environmental impact needs to be understood. In the US, GMO foods
must clear many regulatory hurdles before being approved. Among these are
complete characterization of the genomically integrated transgene(s) and
demonstration that the transgene(s) remains stable over multiple generations.
Apparently these and other criteria have been met to the satisfaction of the
reviewers examining the farmed salmon. Here is the environmental impact study
provided to the FDA by the salmon company:

[http://www.fda.gov/downloads/AdvisoryCommittees/CommitteesMe...](http://www.fda.gov/downloads/AdvisoryCommittees/CommitteesMeetingMaterials/VeterinaryMedicineAdvisoryCommittee/UCM224760.pdf)

Even though I support genetic engineering of foods, I am against labeling of
GMO foods as currently proposed because I think _a simple statement is
inadequate_. Saying "GMO food" says nothing about the modification, and only
serves to incite fear. In a time of rapid whole genome sequencing, I want to
be able to scan a QR code on a package and get a link to the GenBank entry for
the food organism in question, along with the impact studies and a plainly
worded overview. I want to see notes for which insertions, deletions, or other
changes were made. I want to see the DNA diff on the genomic source code.
Public food should be open source.

A few years ago I had lunch with Richard Stallman (a fun story itself), and
wanted to get his take on gene patents and "closed source" organisms. While he
expressed an understandable disapproval of corporate monopolies on crops and
biopharmaceuticals, he did not seem to have a strong desire for Freedom in
genetically engineered products. I found that surprising. He thought the
barrier to entry was too high for people to make their own genetic changes as
they might make changes to software. I think we need to consider that genetic
engineering is only going to get easier.

From some cursory reading it looks like the salmon in question in this article
has been modified with a promoter (kind of like a compiler flag to enable
production of a gene product) from the pout fish, and a subsequent growth
hormone gene from a different salmon species. It grows faster, is more
aggressive, and is sterile. It seems that the aquaculture companies interested
in using the fish intend to keep it isolated from the outside environment, but
even in the event of a release the fish would merely eat prey. They would
ultimately die. Since they are sterile, the likelihood is low that they would
be able to outcompete unmodified variants in their single generation. It seems
they are safe all around.

If anyone is curious, the inserted gene construct is known as opAFP-GHc2, and
its CDS source is available:

<http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/nuccore/56691717>

~~~
mitchi
Thank you for this information. And your statement "Public food should be open
source". That's something worth discussing as a society. Food is so
important... What do you think about Genetic Engineering for Humans. Is that
also the future? We can cut medical costs for everyone by engineering humans
to be immune to many known diseases. And better stuff.

~~~
tomkinstinch
Gene therapy is inevitable and is the future. Performing genetic engineering
on new human offspring is different, and is a debate perhaps best left to
ethicists.

