GE SALMON COULD HARM OUR FISH STOCKS: SCIENTISTS

U.S. company seeks Canadian approval for sale of table-ready modified fish

There’s a risk Canadian fish stocks could be harmed if the world’s first genetically engineered salmon is approved for commercialization, federal scientists suggest.

Internal records obtained by Postmedia News also indicate experts from the Department of Fisheries and Oceans (DFO) are concerned about ”limited” and possibly ”constrained” regulatory powers around the approvals for GE fish.

The analysis, from senior scientists specializing in biotechnology and aquaculture, comes as a company called AquaBounty Technologies works to bring GE salmon to the dinner plate.

Hoping to get approval in the United States to sell the first genetically engineered fish that people can eat, the company cleared an important hurdle in August, when the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s preliminary analysis concluded that the salmon, engineered in Atlantic Canada to grow twice as fast as normal fish, are safe to eat and not expected to have a significant impact on the environment.

The AquAdvantage salmon contains a growth hormone gene from the Chinook salmon and a genetic on-switch from the ocean pout (an eellike fish), resulting in the continuous production of the hormone. The salmon grows to market size in 16 to 18 months instead of three years, but does not grow any bigger than conventional salmon.

The company plans to produce the eggs in Prince Edward Island, home to AquaBounty’s research facility, where the Massachusetts-based company now grows sterile female GE salmon for research purposes. It uses technology developed by scientists at Memorial University in Newfoundland.

The eggs would then be shipped to Panama, where the genetically engineered Atlantic salmon would be raised at an inland fish farm and processed before getting shipped as table-ready fish to the U.S. for sale. The FDA’s preliminary environmental analysis concluded it is ”extremely unlikely that AquAdvantage Salmon would ever be able to survive and migrate to the Pacific Ocean.”

The Canadian connection means AquaBounty must undergo a separate regulatory approval process in Canada. During early consultations a year ago involving AquaBounty officials and scientists from the Department of Fisheries, Environment Canada and Health Canada, fisheries officials voiced concerns.

”DFO clarified that while the risk assessment will focus on potential effects in Canada, there is potential risk of fish migrating back to affect Canadian fish stocks,” according to the minutes, redacted in many places and released under access-toinformation legislation.

”DFO requested that containment and limitations to which companies in other countries will have to comply be clearly outlined in the notification.”

In separate correspondence about draft minutes of this meeting, two government experts raised issues about the regulatory approvals process in Canada to approve GE fish.

Key passages of email correspondence between Caroline Mimeault, a scientific adviser at DFO’s Biotechnology and Aquatic Animal Health Science, and Robert Devlin, a world renowned DFO scientist who studies risk assessment of GE fish at the department’s Centre for Aquaculture and Environmental Research in West Vancouver, are redacted.

But the correspondence refers to limits and possible constraints of the current Canadian regulations for GE fish.

Mimeault wrote that she ”totally agreed” with Devlin, ”but we are limited by the current ... regulations.”

The concerns contradict newly released internal DFO media lines, prepared in May 2009 in case of journalists’ questions about AquaBounty.

The Canadians regulations ”currently provide an effective regulatory framework for protecting the environment from potential risks of GE fish,” state the media lines.

SOURCE: Montreal Gazette, Canada

AUTHOR: Postmedia News, Canada, by Sarah Schmidt

URL: http://www.montrealgazette.com/technology/salmon+could+harm+fish+stocks+...

DATE: 23.02.2011