January 2022
Super-fast growing GM salmon have been trying to emerge from the lab since 1989 [1,2,3].
Having gained regulatory approval in America in 2015, GM salmon are now legal to produce and sell there despite being declared unlawful in 2020 due to the absence of any environmental risk assessment.
This contradictory situation has arisen because of America's failure to draft specific legislation for GMOs. The result is a fragmented regulatory system in which GM animals have become novel DNA and protein 'drugs' overseen by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA).
In its approval of GM salmon, the FDA was only required to consider the effect of the GM DNA and protein on the animal hosting it (i.e. the GM salmon) and on any humans consuming it. Containment measures are only specified by the FDA where an escape would compromise the integrity of the 'drug' (i.e. the GM salmon), not the effect of that 'drug' on the environment. The Agency therefore took the position that it 'lacked authority to consider the adverse environmental impacts of GE (GM) animals, including salmon". It concluded that the engineered salmon were highly unlikely to escape from the two facilities where the producers initially planned to raise them, and that even if the salmon found a way to escape they were unlikely to survive or establish themselves as a population in the wild.
The court was not impressed that the FDA failed to analyse what might happen to 'normal' salmon if the mutant ones did escape, or what might happen when GM fish rearing expanded into additional facilities. It therefore ruled that a full environmental risk assessment must be prepared.
In Canada, the first country to build a GM salmon farm, there are no GM labelling laws so their presence or absence in the market is uncertain. The mutant fish seem to have briefly appeared for sale in 2017, but the big release was planned for 2020, later revised to June 2021, and 2028 is the current target date for an annual production level of 55,000 tonnes. However, the producers have declined to answer queries on the current state of GM salmon play.
To summarise the GM salmon situation: the fast-growing fish can be sold in the US but must be labelled; they may or may not be on sale in Canada; and they can't be bought or sold in the EU.
Then, there are GM pigs, the only other animal the FDA has approved. These aren't the green 'enviropigs' of a decade past [4], but are 'GalSafe', people-friendly porkers. GalSafe pigs are genetically engineered to prevent them producing 'alpha-gal' sugars which a small number of people are allergic to. They have been approved for use as food (a very limited market) and for potential therapeutic uses, in particular to produce tissue and organs for human transplants (a very lucrative market).
Then, there were GM cattle [5]. After an attempt to pass off gene-edited horn-free cattle as simply mimicking nature (which turned sour when the FDA pointed out that these natural 'drugs' had spurious bacterial DNA drugs in them too), the GM cattle have faded from the scene.
These bacteria-cattle-drugs could be dismissed as just another GM failure were it not for the next chapter in the story. The unwelcome obstruction imposed by the FDA to what was supposed to be a world-first, highly desirable GM livestock flagship, seems to have spurred the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) to propose that it take over regulation of GM animals.
In Japan, gene-edited super muscly red sea breem are heading for the market.
As in the case of the Japanese gene-edited sedative tomatoes [6], no human or environmental risk assessments are required.
The GM breem which have a disabled muscle growth-regulator gene are designed to cost less to feed. They not only grow more muscle, but are bigger, shorter, have spinal abnormalities, and appear to move more slowly. No data have been made available on the novel fish's life-span, health, composition of the muscle destined for human consumption, or health effects on the consumer.
OUR COMMENT
The proposed change in GM animal regulation in America will inevitably mean even less oversight of GM animals than there is now because the only risk from GMOs the USDA seems to acknowledge is presence of some form of DNA which could generate a GM pest or disease.
In light of Brexit, we suggest you keep an eye on what our GM-fans in Westminster are up to. GM salmon is a real possibility, and any other GM animal the USDA approves could end up in the UK.
Also, Japan definitely has its sights set on the possibility of new GM food markets opening up in Britain.
Background
[1] THE GM SALMON SAGA - February 2012
[2] GM SALMON DON'T SWIM SAFELY - July 2014
[3] GM SALMON APPROVED - January 2016
[4] P-FREE PIGS IN THE PIPELINE - January 2011
[5] HORNLESS GENE-EDITED CATTLE WITH EXTRAS - November 2019
[6] STRESS-BUSTING TOMATOES - January 2022
Sources:
- Maria Dinzeo, Federal Judge Poised to Deny Approval of GMO Salmon, www.courthousenews.com, 25.08.20
- Federal court declares genetically engineered salmon unlawful, GM Watch, 5.11.20
- Case No. 16-cv-01574-VC, Summary Judgement, United States District Court Northern District of California, 5.11.20
- Francis Campbell, Genetically modified salmon, 'what's the need for it' environmentalist says, Saltwire, 24.08.21
- 4.5 tonnes of unmarked GMO salmon fillets sold in Canada, The Canadian Press, 10.08.17
- USDA moves to weaken regulation over GM animals, GM Watch 06.01.21
- Chris Clayton, USDA Wants One-Stop Biotech Shop, DTN Progressive Farmer, 28.12.20
- US FDA approves GM pig for food and therapeutic use, GM Watch, 28.12.20
- CRISPR fish: suspected 'torture' breeding -TestBiotech, 1.11.21
Photo: CSIRO, CC BY 3.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0>, via Wikimedia Commons
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