Frankenfish is Here and Unlabeled

The FDA announced it considers the Genetically Engineered AquaAdvantage salmon safe before Labor Day. The Alaskan Senator Mark Begrich called it "frankenfish." The approved GE AquaAdvantage will be the first genetically engineered animal in the U.S. food supply.
This fact will raise the stakes of the FDA’s approval process, as it is a precedent for all future GE animals. Because of a regulatory decision in the 1980s that no new laws are needed to regulate genetically engineered foods, the FDA is actually regulating the GE salmon as a drug. The number of groups, including the Food and Water Watch, the Center for Biological Diversity, Friends of the Earth, and Organic Consumers Association have written to President Obama, urging him to discontinue the approval process for GE salmon.
The company that developed the GE salmon, AquaBounty Technologies, claims the fish grow to market weight in 16 to months instead of the usual 30 required for the farmed Atlantic Salmon.
The fish was created by using by inserting genetic material of both Chinook (the largest variety of Pacific salmon) and ocean pout )an eel-like fish into the genome of Atlantic salmon. The commercialized fish will all be females making them unable to breed. AquaBounty’s intellectual property will be further projected because all the fish will be sterile, as they will be triploids )fish with three complete sets of chromosomes instead of the usual two).
How to Make Frankenfish: To create the fish, AquaBounty begins with eggs of genetically engineered salmon females and fertilizes them with irradiated sperm of another similar fish species, Arctic char. The eggs are then pressure-treated, causing them to produce diploid offspring (i.e. two complete sets of chromosomes) with both sets of chromosomes originating from the GE female salmon. The all-female GE female diploid salmon will then be treated with 17 methyl testosterone, a hormone that turns all the fish into what AquaBounty calls "neomales"—genetically female fish that produce milt (sperm) instead eggs. The milt from the GE neomales will fertilize the eggs of non-GE Atlantic Salmon, and the resulting fertilized eggs will be treated with pressure to produce the final product, a line of all-female triploid GE Atlantic salmon.
According to AqualBounty’s plans, the GE salmon will begin their lives at a hatchery to Prince Edward Island, Canada and then transfer to a grow-out facility in Panama. Unlike most salmon, which begin their lives in fresh water before transferring to saltwater, the GE salmon will spend their entire lives in freshwater. The good news is that currently there are no plans to raise the GE salmon in open net pens in the ocean, a method of salmon farming that has resulted in massive damage to wild salmon populations as well as frequent escapes of farmed salmon into the ocean.
Science
While farmed salmon has been an environmental disaster in countries like Canada and Norway, it seems that environmental concerns over AquaAdvantage take a back seat to safety concerns. The science that AquaBounty provided the FDA was sloppy in a number of ways, and yet the FDA accepted it and declared the fish safe. Because the
approval of AquaAdvantage will set a precedent, it is important that the FDA set its bar for solid science high, signaling to any company that wishes to commercialize a genetically engineered animal that it must completely prove its safety, if it intends to put its product on the market. Instead, according to senior scientist Michael Hansen, the FDA appears to have set its bar an inch from the ground.
Even more worrisome is the science used to justify the salmon’s safety, which Consumers Union senior Scientist Michael Hansen calls "sloppy."
Beware the food you are eating. Even the local BJ sells colored Atlantic Salmon and sells Trout that looks much like the red salmon. When Tops market sells red Pacific Salmon for $9.99 a pound as compared to the $19.99/lb. that other stores were selling it for ~ it raises an antennae that causes me to wonder if we are not already being sold GE salmon. In the current economic environment, will people simply by the least expensive, look-alike salmon? Will Americans question the credibility of Supermarkets as opposed to reputable fish stores selling fish with the same name at twice the price?
We have more cancer in the U.S. than the entire rest of the world combined. We have more Alzheimer’s Disease than all other countries and more quadruple bypass surgery and yet we continue to allow news media to brag about contests pitting young people against each other for the number of "Buffalo" chicken wings they can eat at one sitting.
"Make Eating A Lifestyle Change" will spell out the many obstacles to healthy eating and suggest the foods that best suit our bodily functions. This book can only be purchased from the author. Research is expensive but an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. My intention is to identify herbs, vitamins and minerals~what they do for you and what foods you need to eat to obtain them.