BIOTECH-ROOM2-L Archives

Moderated conference on GMOs in the pipeline, hosted by the FAO Biotechnology Forum in 2012

Biotech-Room2-L@LISTSERV.FAO.ORG

Options: Use Classic View

Use Proportional Font
Show Text Part by Default
Show All Mail Headers

Topic: [<< First] [< Prev] [Next >] [Last >>]

Print Reply
Biotech-Mod2 <[log in to unmask]>
Sun, 2 Dec 2012 07:30:11 +0100
text/plain (19 lines)
This is Tim Schwab again, from Food & Water Watch, responding to some of Henry Clifford's concerns (message 85) regarding the benefit claims of GE salmon, namely its purported fast growth rate. 

Henry Clifford acknowledges that commercial (non-GE) salmon growers have impressive growth rates. Are they faster than GE salmon?  He says we don't know and we can't know because we can't do the studies because of zoosanitary rules. From both a scientific and risk-assessment point of view, this is unacceptable: if we are going to take the unprecedented regulatory action of approving the first-ever food animal in the world, this fish should be thoroughly studied. We should have answers to fundamental questions like, does this fish offer any benefit to producers/consumers/society. Henry Clifford is right that we can only speculate on which fish grows faster. But it seems wrong-headed and irresponsible to approve this product in the absence of the necessary science. The only way to get beyond speculation is to get the data. In the absence of data, we are also left to speculate on whether GE salmon can really feed the world, revolutionize aquaculture, and improve protein production as the company claims. Again, the growth-rate graph from one commercial grower in Norway, Salmobreed: www.salmobreed.no/newsletters/en/newsletter_5_2011.pdf

On feed conversion, the only study that AquaBounty offered to the FDA in its environmental assessment regulatory filing suffers the same problems with its comparisons--it compared GE salmon to an only "partially domesticated" Canadian salmon, not the fast-growing commercial salmon in places like Norway that have benefitted from decades of selective breeding and which have made vast improvements in a variety of characteristics. This severely limits the value of this feed-conversion data (see: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0044848600003318). Moreover, the feed-conversion study was 1) written by AquaBounty employees, 2) published 12 years ago and 3) observed a 10% improvement in gross feed conversion ratio over the very limited period that the fish were studied, from 8g-55g. Given that market weight of Atlantic salmon is, generally, around 4 kg, we should be looking at the entire life of GE salmon. And we should be using a real-world comparator. The limitations of this data are simply too great to make conclusions about GE salmon's feed conversion (or, by extension, to speculate that the feed conversion ration (FCR) will make GE salmon production economically feasible in developing countries).

Finally, Henry Clifford mentions the "strong scientific indications" that GE salmon's maintains advantageous dietary protein utilization, which will also give it a benefit over non-GE salmon. I'm simply not sure how to respond to this, but I would very much like to see whatever published data is backing up these "indications." It sounds like another example where we need further study, just as the growth-rate claims and FCR claims do. So, too, do a variety of environmental risk-assessment questions, which are described in this excellent radio debate between Professors Alison Van Eenennaam and Anne Kapuscinksi. (http://www.npr.org/2011/12/09/143453487/debating-genetically-modified-salmon).

Tim Schwab
Food & Water Watch
1616 P St NW
Washington DC 20036
United States
e-mail: tschwab (at) fwwatch.org
########################################################################

To unsubscribe from the Biotech-Room2-L list, click the following link:
https://listserv.fao.org/cgi-bin/wa?SUBED1=Biotech-Room2-L&A=1

ATOM RSS1 RSS2