GMO salmon eggs at an AquaBounty facility in Waltham, Massachusetts. (photo: Barcroft USA/Getty Images)
Lawsuit
Charges FDA Ignored Safety Warnings About GMO Salmon
By David Kirby, TakePart
03 April 16
Consumer,
fisheries, and environmental groups have sued the agency over its approval of
AquaBounty’s product.
The
controversy over genetically engineered salmon is headed to court.
Several
environmental, consumer, and fishing groups filed suit on Thursday against the
U.S. Food and Drug Administration over its approval of a lab-developed fish
that combines genes from three fish species: Atlantic salmon, Chinook salmon,
and Arctic eelpout.
The
lawsuit contends that the FDA ignored advice from federal fisheries and
wildlife scientists to delay or deny the application and made the approval
“without disclosing or analyzing the significant environmental effects from
this foreseeable expansion.”
These
effects include the potential for the genetically engineered salmon to escape
into the ocean and interbreed with wild salmon, compete with native fish for
food and habitat, and spread infectious diseases that incubate in crowded fish farms.
Many wild salmon species are
endangered. But the FDA failed to complete consultations with federal agencies
that enforce the Endangered Species Act, the lawsuit charges.
The
engineered salmon, developed by the Boston-based AquaBounty Technologies,
reaches maturity in about half the time of its naturally evolved cousins, and
on less food, making it more profitable for fish farmers.
AquaBounty
spokesperson Dave Conley said the company plans to produce salmon only in
facilities located on land to prevent their escape and interbreeding with other
fish.
Under
the plan approved by the FDA in November, the company will produce genetically
engineered eggs at a facility on Canada’s Prince Edward Island and fly them to
a location in Panama, where they will hatch and mature before eventually being
exported to the United States.
Jaydee
Hanson, senior policy analyst at the Center for Food Safety, which filed the
lawsuit jointly with Earthjustice, the Pacific Coast Federation of Fishermen’s
Associations, Food & Water Watch, the Center for Biological Diversity, and
several other organizations, said the egg-producing facility on Prince Edward
Island was problematic.
“I
have been to the facility. It’s 120 feet from the sound, and that’s not deep
inland,” Hanson said. “Prince Edward Island has been hit by large hurricanes in
the past, similar to [superstorm] Sandy, and the whole facility could be washed
out.”
Hanson
said the company has claimed there are no wild salmon in the waters off Prince
Edward Island, but he said federal researchers found Atlantic salmon within a
mile of the facility.
Aside
from the new legal challenge, marketing the hybrid fish, at least in the United
States, still faces some hurdles.
In
February, the FDA issued an import ban on
genetically modified salmon until labeling standards can be established,
following a directive passed by Congress late last year. The
ban effectively makes it impossible to stock and sell the salmon in the
U.S. in the near term.
Several polls show
that the vast majority of American consumers want genetically modified foods to
be labeled as such.
Meanwhile,
last November, the retail giant Costco said it will
not sell genetically modified fish, joining supermarket chains such as Whole
Foods, Trader Joe’s, Safeway, and Kroger in promising not to sell the
genetically modified fish, according to environmental group Friends of the
Earth.
George
Kimbrell, senior attorney at the Center for Food Safety, called AquaBounty’s
plan to produce eggs in Canada and raise the fish in Panama “a smokescreen to
try to crack open regulatory doors to produce genetically engineered salmon in
other places, including the United States.”
According
to an email exchange from
2011 between National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration staff members,
obtained by the Center for Food Safety under the Freedom of Information Act,
the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has received “several requests from
companies” in the U.S. to import eggs from AquaBounty’s gene-engineered salmon.
When
asked to comment on the lawsuit, AquaBounty’s Conley provided a link to aFactcheck.org article,
which noted that based “on research primarily conducted by AquaBounty
scientists and consultations with independent researchers,” the FDA found that
“GE salmon is not likely to pose a risk to the health and safety of humans or
wild salmon populations.”
Under
the plan greenlit by the FDA, according to FactCheck.org, AquaBounty will only
produce sterile female fish that cannot interbreed with other salmon.
But
according to the lawsuit, the FDA has acknowledged that up to 5 percent of the
salmon produced in Canada may not be sterile.
In
response to a request for comment, FDA spokesperson Juli Putnam stated in an
email that the agency does not comment on matters related to pending
litigation.
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