The sale marks the first time that a genetically engineered animal has been sold for food on the open market. It took AquaBounty more than 25 years to get to this point.
The fish, a variety of Atlantic salmon (Salmo salar), is engineered to grow faster than its non-genetically modified counterpart, reaching market size in roughly half the time — about 18 months. AquaBounty sold its first commercial batch at market price: US$5.30 per pound ($11.70 per kilogram)
[...] AquaBounty raised the fish in tanks in a small facility in Panama. It plans to ramp up production by expanding a site on Canada's Prince Edward Island, where local authorities gave the green light for construction in June. In the same month, the company also acquired a fish farm in Albany, Indiana; it awaits the nod from US regulators to begin production there.
[...] Scientists first demonstrated the fast-growing fish in 1989. They gave it a growth-hormone gene from Chinook salmon (Oncorhynchus tshawytscha), along with genetic regulatory elements from a third species, the ocean pout (Zoarces americanus). The genetic modifications enable the salmon to produce a continuous low level of growth hormone.
AquaBounty formed around the technology in the early 1990s and approached regulators in the United States soon after. It then spent almost 25 years in regulatory limbo. The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved the salmon for consumption in November 2015, and Canadian authorities came to the same decision six months later. Neither country requires the salmon to be labelled as genetically engineered.
But unlike in Canada, political battles in the United States have stalled the salmon's entry into the marketplace. The law setting out the US government's budget for fiscal year 2017 includes a provision that instructs the FDA to forbid the sale of transgenic salmon until it has developed a programme to inform consumers that they are buying a genetically engineered product.
All three fish are edible, but the engineered salmon only contains protein from the Atlantic and Chinook.
The wiki link states that the salmon are sterile females that would be unable to reproduce.
http://www.nature.com/news/first-genetically-engineered-salmon-sold-in-canada-1.22116
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atlantic_salmon
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinook_salmon
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ocean_pout
Related:
https://www.nature.com/news/salmon-approval-heralds-rethink-of-transgenic-animals-1.18867
(Score: 0, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 08 2017, @11:52PM (2 children)
Girlfriend locked in a drawer
Bought and paid for from the store
If you see her out
Pick her up off the floor
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 09 2017, @02:39AM (1 child)
Fish heads fish heads, rolly polly fish heads?
Eat them up, yum!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 09 2017, @05:11AM
All right, let's see now.
Reference to 2011 song "Boyfriend in the Drawer" modded Troll.
Reference to 1978 song "Fish Heads" modded Funny.
There's the proof. SoylentNews is Old People
Links because fuck you
Boyfriend in The Drawer (male vocals) [youtube.com]
Boyfriend in My Drawer (female vocals) [youtube.com]
Fish Heads (long version) [youtube.com]
Fish Heads (short version) [youtube.com]
(Score: 2) by Gaaark on Wednesday August 09 2017, @12:07AM (1 child)
Life, uh uh, finds a way.....
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 09 2017, @12:20AM
They also won't know the way to the spawning point.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 09 2017, @12:07AM (6 children)
I'm pissed off that my government (Canada) thinks I shouldn't have the right to know exactly what I'm buying. Regardless of what you think about genetic engineering, I'm sure everyone agrees that they should be able to know what they are eating. No more Atlantic salmons for me.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 09 2017, @12:21AM (3 children)
If you don't know the full genomes of everything you eat, it doesn't matter what GMOs you consume.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 09 2017, @12:35AM
I only eat venison cloned from Bambi.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 09 2017, @02:01AM
That's dumb. If you don't kill and skin and dress your own meat, then it doesn't matter if they slip horse or rat or insects into your steak? Maybe not for you, anyway.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 09 2017, @09:17AM
That makes no sense whatsoever. Arguably the whole point of GMOs is the bring patents into industries where intellectual property would not otherwise exist. His request could be met by simply showing any patented components in the food being purchased. Am I purchasing salmon from the ocean, or am I purchasing a patented invention being sold as salmon?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 09 2017, @12:57AM
Ya, it would be refreshing to see Canada lead for a change and make their own independent decisions, instead of always following where the US goes:
"The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved the salmon for consumption in November 2015, and Canadian authorities came to the same decision six months later. Neither country requires the salmon to be labelled as genetically engineered."
(Score: 3, Insightful) by kaszz on Wednesday August 09 2017, @02:20AM
I'm just waiting until ultra cheap DNA testing will be available. Then GMO identification will sink the profit of many large firms.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 09 2017, @12:40AM
Tastes fishy, I'm out!
(Score: 2) by Snotnose on Wednesday August 09 2017, @01:00AM (4 children)
I'm used to buying salmon at $4.99/lb once a month. I usually buy a couple pounds and eat half a pound a week.
I came. I saw. I forgot why I came.
(Score: 2) by Snotnose on Wednesday August 09 2017, @01:05AM (3 children)
I should mention this is "previously frozen", the fresh stuff runs some $11.99/lb. My taste buds can't tell the difference though.
I came. I saw. I forgot why I came.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 09 2017, @01:30AM
Texture is the main thing that changes. Often, frozen fish has the freshest taste (unless you live close to where it is caught) because it is usually frozen as quickly as possible.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 09 2017, @03:19AM (1 child)
I hate the previously frozen stuff cause it taste unfresh like fresh fish when you do not live in a coastal city and has the unpleasant frozen texture. I cannot understand why they do not sell it still frozen...
(Score: 2) by kaszz on Wednesday August 09 2017, @04:14AM
Because in one place fishing is done, then it's shipped to free slave labor country to be processed (on the cheap) and then shipped to wherever the lowest bidder got a deal.
Business as usual..
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 09 2017, @01:45AM (3 children)
> The genetic modifications enable the salmon to produce a continuous low level of growth hormone.
I'm tall enough, damn it, don't need to get any taller (or any bigger around either)!
More seriously, aren't there some bad side effects from taking growth hormones? A friend's kid was very short, but not quite a dwarf, and he was given HGH or something similar during his childhood. Got him up to about 5'4", but his body is very oddly proportioned (parents were short, but normal looking proportions).
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 09 2017, @07:54AM (2 children)
I'm sure a lion or pig will still find him perfectly edible.
Seriously though, some growth hormones or the resulting higher levels of hormones etc (e.g. IGF from rBGF) are likely to still have effect even when eaten.
While it doesn't matter to a farmed animal that it has a higher chance of getting cancer (since it'll be killed before that), it may matter to humans who want to live to at least 70.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 09 2017, @11:12AM
mod parent up! This is the main concern!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 09 2017, @11:47AM
It's a fish growth protein.
1. You know what happens to protein when we eat it? It gets digested (acid bath and cut into pieces by proteases).
2. Even if the protein were avoid protease cleavage, spontaneously re-fold, and be absorbed into the bloodstream, it is very unlikely that human receptors would recognize it.
3. Even if number 2 worked out, you would need to consume large amounts of the modified fish to make up for the difference in sensitivity and body size.
4. Even if numbers 2 and 3 worked out, the immune system would likely generate a response to clear the foreign protein.
(Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Wednesday August 09 2017, @02:44AM (2 children)
I'll be back...
Nice way to guarantee profits...
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 2) by kaszz on Wednesday August 09 2017, @03:43AM (1 child)
If the fish is non-fertile perhaps its possible to test the fish for this to find out as a consumer if it's a Frankenstein fish?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 09 2017, @12:28PM
Well, I have some salmon of doubt about that.
(Score: 2) by lentilla on Wednesday August 09 2017, @04:02AM (2 children)
Rather brings to mind Jurassic Park. Could be a good sequel - Jurassic Park 9 - Rise of the Salmonosaurus.
(Score: 2) by DeathMonkey on Wednesday August 09 2017, @06:24PM
Jurassic Carp
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 09 2017, @07:04PM
Brings to mind Monsanto's seed business model.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 09 2017, @07:01PM (1 child)
I'm glad scientists are working on important matters, like how to make bastard fish nobody was asking for.
(Score: 1) by Goghit on Thursday August 10 2017, @06:53AM
They need to work on taste. Farmed Atlantics taste like muddy soya beans.