I am Tim Schwab, a researcher at the non-profit consumer organization Food & Water Watch in Washington DC. I have been following the genetically engineered (GE) salmon issue closely and noticed the comments on this issue, and I wanted to make a contribution regarding the purportedly fast growth rates of the fish, which relates to environmental impacts, food security implications and potential economic growth that this pipeline product can offer. This subject may also add valuable context for framing questions around the risks the fish poses, including the less-than-100 percent sterility rate. After it was widely reported (and repeated a few times in this conference) that GE salmon reach harvest weight in half the time as traditional salmon, commercial salmon growers have challenged these growth-rate claims. The fast growth rate claims of GE salmon are this product's real raison d'etre, so it would seem critical that we be able to scientifically substantiate real-world growth comparisons before we start talking about feeding the world and before we begin thinking about how to manage and mitigate the risks of this fish. However, it appears that AquaBounty's growth-rate studies compared GE salmon to a wild-type Atlantic salmon, which fails to offer a meaningful, real-world look at growth rates. Traditional salmon growers say their salmon--which are already in commercial production and which have benefitted from decades of selective breeding--grow as fast or even faster than GE salmon purports to (www.salmobreed.no/newsletters/en/newsletter_5_2011.pdf, 285 KB). There has never been a head-to-head comparison between these fish. This begs a question about the benefits of GE salmon--in terms of reducing the environmental impact of protein production or driving economic growth in aquaculture in developing countries (or elsewhere). We should also look at this in the context of food security: farmed salmon is an expensive protein source whose high price already limits its accessibility outside of the Western diet. Even if GE salmon could demonstrate fast growth rates, which it has not, the product doesn't appear to be an accessible food source in developing nations. The unclear growth-rates also reframe the risks of GE salmon within the larger regulatory context: GE salmon is the first GE food animal to move this far pipeline toward regulatory approval. We absolutely must set a high bar, insisting that the right questions be asked and thoroughly answered. Tim Schwab, Food & Water Watch 1616 P Street NW, Suite 300 Washington, DC 20036 United States P 202-683-2500 F 202-683-2501 http://www.foodandwaterwatch.org/ e-mail: tschwab (at) fwwatch.org [To contribute to this conference, send your message to [log in to unmask] For further information on this FAO Biotechnology Forum, see http://www.fao.org/biotech/biotech-forum/] ######################################################################## 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