Oversized, Aggressive, Genetically-modified (GMO) Salmon (Frankenfish) Coming Soon to Your Neighborhood Fast Food Chains, Markets and Favorite Restaurants – The Biotech Industries’ Latest Man-made Invention

The FDA is on the verge of final approval of genetically modified transgenetic Franken-Salmon. This will be the first of a new line of Frankenfish that mirrors the beginning of changing every fish in the ocean to an industrial-made, intellectually property-owned profit center for the biotech industry giants.

If the world is not careful, a handful of American biotech companies will soon own the rights to every eatable fish in the ocean and fresh waters. Monsanto alone already holds more than patents on gene modified species. If you are shocked by this, consider the following.

Despite limited and inadequate safety-testing, the FDA ruled that industrially-raised salmon, genetically engineered to eat constantly and grow rapidly are safe for human consumption – even though the FDA found that these fish contained elevated levels of growth hormones, including insulin-like growth factor-1 (IGF-1), a proven carcinogen. Elevated levels of IGF-1 in humans are linked to colon, prostate and breast cancer.

The FDA used a “secret process” (designed to review veterinary drugs) to rule on the safety of AquaBounty’s genetically engineered salmon. The confidential drug evaluation process does not fully assess food safety or environmental impacts and blocks public input. It is a review process designed by the industry foxes in the public henhouse.

According to Jaydee Hanson, policy analyst for the US-based Center for Food Safety, “The FDA is relying on an environmental assessment done by private consultants hired by the company. Under U.S. law an environmental assessment requires a much less rigorous review than a full environment impact statement.”

Frankenfish are trans genetically modified fish that often combine more than one species. It can be compared to genetically crossing two types of sheep or a sheep with cattle to create a high bred animal to be used for food.

From the beginning, there were serious issues regarding the consequences of “messing” with nature. A 2002 National Academy of Sciences report expressed concern that GE fish pose health risks to consumers. They opined that if a person, who was allergic to scallops, ate Frankenfish with a scallop gene spliced into its DNA, it would cause anaflactic shock. After 18 years, those opinions have not changed.

AquaBounty (the FDA applicant) claims that its Franken-salmon are indistinguishable from normal Atlantic salmon in terms of taste, color, vitamins, minerals, fatty acids, proteins and other nutrients. They ignore the fact that Franken-salmon are engineered to grow twice as fast as normal salmon, reaching its full size in 18 months.

But the public isn’t being told how the Franken-salmon would be produced or what impact the Franken-salmon could have on human health and the environment.

A TV documentary by PBS showed Franken-salmon that were several times bigger than normal salmon. Not only did the oversized, aggressive, gene-modified salmon gobble up most of the feed when raised in tanks with ordinary salmon, they also gobbled up their weaker competitors – including their own type – like something out of science fiction movie.

According to lead author Robert Devlin of Fisheries and Oceans Canada in a 2004 study, conducted by British Columbia scientists, reported in the June 7, 2004 online edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the breeding of Frankenfish has resulted in dramatic population crashes. Only one or two of the Frankenfish survived in tanks that originally held 50 fish.

AquaBounty admitted that its Franken-salmon was gene spliced with eel and another salmon. AquaBounty claims that their Frankenfish is “nature-identical” while ignoring scientific data indicating that the chemicals used in the GE fish could make it potentially hazardous to humans.

The public never sees, nor has an opportunity to rebut, the information AquaBounty submits to the FDA. Nor is the FDA conducting independent research to determine whether the salmon is safe to eat or be released into the environment. It is a closed-door backroom political deal made by the pro-biotech FDA.

Under current law, Frankenfish are not required to be labeled as GE or GMO thereby depriving consumers of their right to choose. This is sad because public opinion surveys show that Americans are even more wary about GE animals than about the GE or GMO crops now used in a huge number of foods. Surveys show that more than 98% of Americans would reject GMO foods if labeled.

As a result of the FDA’s shroud of secrecy, AquaBounty was not required to provide any information that shows how they employ a promoter-virus, such as the contagious Cauliflower Mosaic Virus, E. coli bacteria or Bt Toxin to split the salmon’s genes. To split any gene, a scientist must use a promoter virus, bacteria or toxin – an on/off switch that controls where and how the gene is changed. Finally, a selective marker gene must be inserted to identify cells which have successfully integrated the transgene.

One way to achieve the desired result is to use viruses, bacterias or a toxin to “infect” cells with the new DNA. Many doctors and scientists state that if a virus is used as a vector, a cancer risk is created.

The one remaining constant is the bacteria and the virus. This means that it cannot be destroyed. The mutation (splitting with a bacteria, toxin or virus) of genes causes a permanent change in the DNA sequence of a gene. Mutation in a gene’s DNA sequence can alter the amino acid sequence of the cell’s protein. It is this alteration of amino acids and sequence of proteins that contributes to disease and illness

Once consumed, the transgenic DNA of Franken-salmon will be incorporated into the genomes of the bacteria in the human digestive tract. A human study conducted by the UK’s Food Standards Agency found that a single serving of GMO soy can result in “horizontal gene transfer.” This is defined as the human gut absorbing bacteria derived from the gene-modified DNA in the gene-split soy.

According to an expert panel from the Royal Society of Canada, scientists have documented “deleterious consequences to fish morphology, respiratory capacity, and locomotion associated with the introduction of growth hormone (GH) ... in notably Pacific and Atlantic salmon.” Franken-salmon raised in containment pools will also have an increased level of Omega-6 (same as factory farmed livestock) which leads to cancer and heart disease.

The Royal Society of Canada expert panel concluded that this “is the rule rather than the exception in fish … [and] has been manifested by changes to enzyme activity, gross anatomy, behavior and, in all likelihood, hormonal activity. The human health impacts of producing food from salmon that are deformed by genetically engineered growth hormones is unknown.”

Recent studies disclose a significant decline in the nutritional values of farmed fish versus “wild-caught” fish. When GMO Franken-Salmon are finally tested like farmed fish, there will likely be a significant decline in the levels of nutritional vitamins and minerals also.

AquaBounty’s marketing material claims their Franken-salmon are sterile. Nature does not intentionally create sterile salmon that grow twice as fast as normal salmon. To save a few dollars, Frankenfish farmers received permission to farm the salmon in fenced off sections of the ocean. Unavoidably, some will escape based upon simple error factors and a history of negligence at fish farms.

The reality is that if, even if a few escape, it could mean the extinction of salmon who prefer to mate with larger salmon, assuming them to make better mates. There are also legitimate concerns that Franken-salmon thought to be sterile may succeed in reproducing in the wild, increasing fear that the unexpected offspring may be a monster worthy of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein.

They also believe that, if escaped sterile GMO salmon cannot succeed in mating, they may cause the extinction of wild Pacific salmon. This could lead to the total extinction of the world’s salmon within a few years. Especially given the GMO salmon’s propensity for cannibalism and self-annihilation.

Consumer groups, commercial fishermen and some scientists say studies, such as Devlin’s and the PBS report, show the potential ecological consequences of unleashing man-made breeds of Frankenfish. “We should not be taking a risk like this at a time when native salmon stocks are already in trouble,” said Doug Gurian-Sherman, senior scientist at the Center for Food Safety.

Fenced-off pens used to raise Frankenfish and farmed fish have created “dead zones” in the ocean where the sum total of fecal waste and excess fish food have resulted in insufficient oxygen in the water for undersea plants and other fish to survive.

This has already affected the Chesapeake Bay, the runoff areas of the Mississippi and the Gulf of Mexico resulting in a “dead zone” the size of New Jersey and a significant decline in oysters. In the Baltic sea, there is a dead zone the size of Denmark. Every continent and every ocean-bordering country are wrestling with solutions to this crisis.

People should be aware that the fish they are purchasing in stores is either farmed (and fed carcinogenic red dye for coloring and synthetic nutrients) or soon to be Frankenfish unless labeled “wild”. Although the FDA has banned the carcinogenic red dye, it is permitting the industry to exhaust its 35-year supply before enforcing its ban. Costco and other markets now list red dye on the labels of their factory farmed fish. But you need a magnifying glass to read their labels.

We have found that restaurants often lie about where their fish come from knowing that disclosing the use of farmed fish will stop customers from ordering fish. The industry would suffer the same result with Frankenfish.

It should make you wonder if future fish dinners will have feasted on other Frankenfish or just wallowing in a pool of fecal matter and red dye.

In the 1990s, the term “Frankenfear” was coined to describe scientists and others afraid to eat genetically modified fish. If scientists are afraid to eat GMO fish, why aren’t others? Cloned and/or genetically modified fish, with all its bacterias, viruses and toxins threaten to become the food of the future.

The simple question is who do you trust? Mother nature or a greedy corporation trying to create a new product to market for profit. Do you trust the marketing materials published by a large for-profit corporation who is trying to sell you something or the time-honored product of mother nature created through a million years of evolution?

Frankenfish are not sold yet in stores and restaurants. But the approval of Franken-salmon is at its eleventh hour in the approval process with other species soon to follow. Within a blink, there will be Frankenfish sold everywhere without warning or labels. Without warning, Franken-Salmon will be put into baby food further exposing babies to a growing cascade of health problems.

All “farmed” or Frankenfish should be carefully and boldly marked on the packages and restaurant menus. But as long as the FDA permits AquaBounty and others to claim that the Frankenfish is “nature-identical”, it is unlikely that there will ever be labels.

It is our opinion that the general public should not be required to ask questions that result in lies and deceptions by stores and restaurants. The choice to eat Franken-salmon should be ours after an informed and truthful disclosure.