GM Watch
  • Main Menu
    • Home
    • News
      • Latest News
      • Newsletter subscription
      • Daily Digest
      • News Reviews
      • News Languages
    • Articles
      • GM Myth Makers
      • GM Reports
      • GM Quotes
      • GM Myths
      • Non-GM successes
      • GM Firms
        • Monsanto: a history
        • Monsanto: resources
        • Bayer: a history
        • Bayer: resources
    • Videos
      • Latest Videos
      • Must see videos
      • Cornell videos
      • Agriculture videos
      • Labeling videos
      • Animals videos
      • Corporations videos
      • Corporate takeover videos
      • Contamination videos
      • Latin America videos
      • India videos
      • Asia videos
      • Food safety videos
      • Songs videos
      • Protests videos
      • Biofuel myths videos
      • Index of GM crops and foods
      • Index of speakers
      • Health Effects
    • Contact
    • About
    • Links
    • Donations
    • How donations will help us
News and comment on genetically modified foods and their associated pesticides    
  • News
    • Latest News
    • Newsletter subscription
    • News Reviews
    • News Languages
      • Notícias em Português
      • Nieuws in het Nederlands
      • Nachrichten in Deutsch
    • Archive
      • 2021 articles
      • 2020 articles
      • 2019 articles
      • 2018 articles
      • 2017 articles
      • 2016 articles
      • 2015 articles
      • 2014 articles
      • 2013 articles
      • 2012 articles
      • 2011 articles
      • 2010 articles
      • 2009 articles
      • 2008 articles
      • 2007 articles
      • 2006 articles
      • 2005 articles
      • 2004 articles
      • 2003 articles
      • 2002 articles
      • 2001 articles
      • 2000 articles
  • Articles
    • GM Myth Makers
    • GM Reports
    • How donations will help us
    • GM Quotes
    • GM Myths
    • Non-GM successes
    • GM Firms
      • Monsanto: a history
      • Monsanto: resources
      • Bayer: a history
      • Bayer: resources
  • Videos
    • Index of speakers
    • Glyphosate Videos
    • Latest Videos
    • Must see videos
    • Health Effects
    • Cornell videos
    • Agriculture videos
    • Labeling videos
    • Animals videos
    • Corporations videos
    • Corporate takeover videos
    • Contamination videos
    • Latin America videos
    • India videos
    • Asia videos
    • Food safety videos
    • Songs videos
    • Protests videos
    • Biofuel myths videos
    • Index of GM crops and foods
  • Contact
  • About
  • Links
  • Donations
  • 2021
  • 2021a
SUBSCRIBE TO REVIEWS

GMWatch Facebook cornfield banner

SCIENCE SUPPORTS REGULATION OF GENE EDITING

Plant tissue cultures

GENE EDITING: UNEXPECTED OUTCOMES AND RISKS

Damaged DNA on fire

GENE-EDITED CROPS & FOODS

Help stop the new threat

News Menu

  • Latest News
  • News Reviews
  • Archive
  • Languages

Please support GMWatch

Donations

You can donate via Paypal or credit/debit card.

Some of you have opted to give a regular donation. This is greatly appreciated as it helps place us on a more stable financial basis. Thank you for your support!

2011 articles

Undisclosed infection calls into question GM salmon claims

  • Print
  • Email
Details
Published: 21 December 2011
Created: 21 December 2011
Last Updated: 22 October 2012
Twitter
Coalition calls for FDA to halt approval of genetically engineered salmon
December 20 2011
http://truefoodnow.org/2011/12/20/coalition-calls-for-fda-to-halt-approval-of-genetically-engineered-salmon/

*Discovery of undisclosed infection of salmon eggs calls into question company claims that GE salmon are safe for the environment.

Washington DC Yesterday afternoon a coalition of 11 food safety, environmental, consumer and fisheries organizations sent a letter to the U.S. Food & Drug Administration (FDA) calling for a halt to its approval of a genetically engineered (GE) salmon after learning that the company’s AquaBounty Technologies, Inc. research site was contaminated with a new strain of Infectious Salmon Anaemia (ISA), the deadly fish flu that is devastating fish stocks around the world.  

“This new information calls into question the reliability of AquaBounty’s data and the validity of its claims that their fish are safe for the environment” said Andrew Kimbrell, Executive Director of the Center for Food Safety. “The FDA must respond appropriately and conduct their own environmental impact statement that looks at a broad range of environmental risks from these genetically engineered salmon, including the risk of spreading diseases such as ISA and antibiotic use for other diseases.”

AquaBounty has claimed that the company’s process for raising GE fish is safer than traditional aquaculture.    However, documents that were revealed last week indicate that their production site was found by Canadian Authorities to have been contaminated in Nov. 2009.  This information was hidden from the public and potentially FDA and other Federal agencies consulting on the GE salmon application.  ISA is a deadly disease and is classified as a ‘Listed’ disease by the World Organization for Animal Health (OIE) alongside diseases such as Anthrax, Bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE), Foot and mouth disease, rabies, sheep pox, swine fever, avian influenza, West Nile fever, scrapie, fowl cholera, bovine tuberculosis and myxomatosis. 

“Infectious Salmon Anaemia threatens wild fisheries around the world and the communities whose livelihood depend on those fish” said Erich Pica, President of Friends of the Earth US. “ISA infections in Chile cost the industry around two billion dollars. A similar infection in Canada and the U.S. could be the last blow to wild Atlantic salmon populations and bring a collapse in wild salmon fisheries.”

The December 19 letter urged FDA Commissioner Margaret Hamburg to release all health data on AquaBounty’s GE salmon and to suspend any approval actions until all the data is disclosed and the public has an opportunity to review the data. Additionally, the coalition asked the FDA to conduct a full environmental impact statement that includes review of the effect of fish diseases, like ISA, on wild fish populations that might contact the AquaBounty fish.  Currently, the FDA has only performed a less comprehensive environmental risk assessment.

This news comes on the heels of a Senate subcommittee hearing held last Thursday on the environmental risks of GE fish, the first hearing of its kind in Congress.  

Contact: Jaydee Hanson, Center for Food Safety, 202-547-9359 x24
Eric Hoffman, Friends of the Earth, 443-465-2219
  • Prev
  • Next

Menu

Home

News

News Archive

News Reviews

Videos

Articles

GM Myth Makers

GM Reports

GM Myths

GM Quotes

How Donations Will Help Us

Contacts

Contact Us

About

Facebook

Twitter

RSS

Content 1999 - 2021 GMWatch.
Web Development By SCS Web Design