|
Agribusinesses tamper with nature in
the quest for ever greater profits
Coming soon to a supermarket near you:
genetically engineered salmon, tuna, lobsters, shrimp and
other sea critters. Some scientists are calling this latest
wave of sea-based genetic tampering the "blue revolution".
Unfortunately, this revolution may have
dire consequences for human health and the environment-even,
possibly, leading to the extinction of some species of fish.
The most imminent biotech seafood has been dubbed the superfish.
It's a salmon that grows twice as big - and as much as six
times as quickly - as its natural Atlantic counterpart, and
it may be in stores as early as next year.
A/F Protein, an American-Canadian biotech
firm doing business on Prince Edward Island, has genetically
engineered more than 100,000 salmon so far to include an antifreeze
protein that allows the salmon to produce a growth hormone
year-round. Normally, the salmon produce this growth hormone
only during the warm months.
A/F Protein is awaiting approval by the
Food and Drug Administration to begin selling the fish to
the United States, the biggest consumer of farmed fish in
the world.
Other companies are tinkering with genetic
engineering techniques that could produce the world's largest
lobster, and giant chickens, sheep and pigs. The goal is to
produce animals with double the meat yield of normal animals.
Proponents of sea biotechnology think it
will do a lot to help their bottom line. "We're aiming
to reduce the time to market to 50 percent so we're no longer
having to feed these fish without getting any return,"
Michael Erisman, vice president of business development for
A/F Protein, told Fox News last fall.
Proponents of Frankenfish argue that it
is an efficient way of feeding a growing human population
at a time when fishing stocks are declining around the globe.
But critics say mixing biotech and seafood may spell disaster.
Risky business: "Trojan"
genes may wipe out natural fish populations
Industry officials say that
they will grow genetically engineered salmon in "fish
farms" - enclosed pens that are kept separate from wild
fish. But many scientists are terrified of the possible ramifications
should genetically engineered salmon or other marine life
escape from notoriously leaky fish farms. Frequently, fish
farms are kept in open waters; storm weather and other factors
often lead to fish escapes.
In one study, Purdue University scientists
William Muir and Richard Muir looked at what might happen
if transgenic Japanese madaka fish were released into the
wild. The pair discovered that 30 percent of Japanese madaka
that are engineered to produce human growth hormone-and thus
grow much faster than normal-don't survive to sexual maturity.
"In the market, this is not important.
Fish can be sold and eaten before they are sexually mature,"
writes biotech fish critic Jean-Michel Cousteau for the Environmental
News Network. "But in nature, surviving to sexual maturity
is everything. The superfish may dominate the mating game,
but if they are least likely to produce viable offspring,
the population will eventually decline."
The Purdue scientists calculated that if
60 transgenic fish were released into a population of 60,000
wild fish, in 40 generations, the species would become extinct.
Biotech fish growers say they will render
the biotech fish sterile, thus preventing the extinction problem.
However, Cousteau argues, "complete sterilization of
all fish is simply not a reality. Nor is it likely to be.
No company has stepped forward to guarantee 100 percent perfection
in sterility. And nothing short of perfection is acceptable,
for it only takes one well-endowed superfish in a population
of wild salmon to start the process of decline."
An additional fear is that Frankensalmon
and other transgenic aquatic species will wipe out food sources
for their natural counterparts.
A/F Protein is not the first company to
experiment with genetically mutated fish. In the mid-1990s,
NZ King Salmon, New Zealand's largest salmon producer, tried
to produce transgenic salmon. The company has confirmed, however,
that some fish were spawned with deformed heads.
Last May, German zoologist Hans-Hinrich
Kaatz made headlines when he found evidence that genes used
to modify crops can jump the species barrier and cause bacteria
to mutate. Under that theory, if genetically engineered fish
escape into the wild, it could lead to contamination of many
natural species of fish.
Who's minding the fish pen?
Government policy "full of holes"
The U.S. government, which
already has a reputation for kowtowing to industry when it
comes to genetically engineered fruits and vegetables, has
not inspired confidence that it can handle the vast implications
of biotech fish any better. Laws on the books are more appropriate
for an earlier era, and some people say the present situation
is akin to using 19th century transportation laws to regulate
air travel.
"Here we are on the brink of remaking
life on Earth through genetic engineering, and we do not have
a thorough process for reviewing the environmental impacts,"
said William Brown, former science advisor to the Clinton
Administration's Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt. "The
system is full of holes."
"My sense is that the current system
is not going to be OK and that there are going to have to
be changes--or a whole new system put in," said Bill
Knapp, a senior fisheries official with the U.S. Fish and
Wildlife Service.
Federal officials, according to a January
2nd Los Angeles Times report, say there are no laws on the
books requiring people who alter fish genes to keep the fish
isolated from natural fish. Additionally, they say, it is
unclear whether federal law prohibits a person from releasing
genetically modified animals into the wild.
Critics also charge that the FDA, whose
domain is food and drug safety, does not have the expertise
to gauge the environmental implications of biotech seafood.
The Environmental Protection Agency and the Department of
Agriculture bowed out of the salmon case.
"Having the FDA assess environmental
risks would be like having the Fish and Wildlife Service assessing
food safety," said Rebecca Goldburg, a senior scientist
with the environmental Defense Fund. "It's absurd."
Many fishermen around the world are worried
about the implications of transgenic fish as well. In Scotland,
an estimated 700,000 salmon escaped from fish farms over a
three-year period. In 2000, the trade group representing the
country's salmon industry voted to reject any use of transgenic
salmon within the country's borders.
"We are very worried," said Glen
Spain, Northwest regional director of the Pacific Coast Federation
of Fishermen's Associations. "Once you let the genies
out of the bottle, you are at the mercy of the genies."
Food pharm: Biotech land
animals on the way as well
Biotech companies also are
working on bringing genetically engineered land-based animals
to market. On the drawing board are pigs engineered to have
less fat, cattle that grow twice as fast on less feed, and
chicken engineered to resist disease-causing bacteria.
"The most striking of the new creatures
being concocted by plucking a gene from one organism and inserting
it into the DNA of another," according to a New York
Times article last May, "are what are known as pharm
animals. These domesticated beasts - cows, pigs, goats, sheep
and chickens - have been given the ability to produce pharmaceuticals
and other valuable substances in their milk, eggs or semen."
If you think these developments sound like
they come out of a frightening sci-fi novel, you're not alone.
The New York Times continues: "Endowed
by scientists with foreign genes, often taken from humans,
these animals, or bioreactors, as they are known, earn their
keep as living chemical factories."
One company is developing a goat that includes
genes from a spider, allow the goat to produce spider silk
in its milk. The extremely strong spider silk would then be
extracted from the goat's milk, and may be used in bulletproof
vests and other products.
A Canadian university team is trying to
create chickens engineered to produce antibiotics in their
eggs.
Animal rights supporters say there are
troubling moral issues surrounding the use of animals as chemical
factories. And some scientists say there are food safety issues
as well.
"Those goats are not going to just
get a decent burial after they grow old and stop producing
silk," John Matheson, senior regulatory review scientist
at the Center for Veterinary Medicine at the FDA, told the
New York Times. "So we have to look at them as potential
food and as potential feed ingredients."
Matheson also told the Times that some
genetically engineered animals already have been approved
for use in animal feeds, but said he was unable to reveal
any details because the biotech animals are still experimental
and under confidential FDA review.
|
