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Fish in the fast lane

A P.E.I. firm wants to market genetically modified salmon

May 7
Maclean's (Canada)

Arnold Sutterlin remembers how protests flared 20 years ago when a federally backed pilot project to raise Atlantic salmon in a fish farm was planned in New Brunswick. "There was a terrific hue and cry," says Sutterlin, a federal government scientist at the time, recalling widespread concerns about disease and potential threats to wild stocks. "But you won't find any wild Atlantic salmon in supermarkets today -- they're all from fish farms and nobody seems to mind." Now, Sutterlin is at the centre of a new salmon controversy -- this time over a genetically modified fish that could become the first transgenic creature to reach the world's dinner tables.

Sutterlin manages a hatchery near Fortune, P.E.I., 100 km east of Charlottetown, where hundreds of thousands of genetically modified fish -- which grow at two to three times the rate of ordinary species -- currently swim inside tanks. The hatchery's owner, Aqua Bounty Farms Canada, wants to sell the fast-growing salmon and other transgenic fish to commercial fish farmers. But some environmentalists and scientists say the fish, if they escaped, could pose a grave threat to natural salmon. "There is a risk," says Michael Koo, a campaigner for Greenpeace Canada, "that the transgenic fish could obliterate the much larger population of wild salmon."

With the Canadian aquaculture industry earning $600 million a year from the sale of farmed fish and shellfish -- and stocks of wild fish dwindling -- transgenic fish that reach adult size in a much shorter period could have an obvious appeal. Eager to enter the marketplace, Aqua Bounty's American parent, Aqua Bounty Farms Inc. of Waltham, Mass., is seeking approval from the U.S. Federal Drug Administration, a process expected to take at least five years. The company plans to apply to Canadian regulators at a later stage. In the meantime, critics worry that Aqua Bounty's salmon -- which carry genes from two other fish species -- could threaten human health and play havoc with marine environments. "We don't know what the implications may be for human health," says Lynn Hunter of the Vancouver-based David Suzuki Foundation. "But our biggest concern is the threat to wild fish stocks."

The fear stems from the fact that farmed fish often find their way out of fish-farm pens and into rivers and oceans. And faster-growing transgenic fish, critics say, might compete so vigorously in the wild that natural salmon stocks could be killed off. Aqua Bounty officials counter that even if they escaped, their fish would be unable to reproduce because all the transgenic fish raised for the marketplace would be infertile females. Still, Garth Fletcher, a marine biologist at Memorial University in St. John's, Nfld., and a co-inventor of Aqua Bounty's transgenic fish, admits that sterilization techniques may not always work. "We've never known sterilization to fail," says Fletcher. "But we can't say it's 100-per-cent foolproof."

Meanwhile, other researchers who study transgenic fish have found some evidence that the hybrids might be tough competitors. William Muir, a population geneticist at Purdue University in West Lafayette, Ind., has studied transgenic fish and worked with computer models to see what might happen in the wild. His principal concern is that because they can reproduce at younger ages, fast-growing transgenic fish might soon outnumber natural fish stocks. "From what we know," says Muir, "I'm concerned that transgenic fish might displace wild fish stocks and even drive them into extinction."

Bob Devlin, a prominent research scientist who runs a Vancouver laboratory for the federal department of fisheries and oceans, has bred his own transgenic fish, including a fast-growing chinook salmon. If they were released in the wild, his chinooks' voracious feeding habits might, he thinks, leave wild salmon short of food. On the other hand, says Devlin, the transgenic chinooks have competitive disadvantages -- they do not swim as well as natural salmon and are less able to resist disease. Given the contradictory evidence, Devlin thinks laboratory research "may not ever be able to accurately predict the risk transgenic fish will pose in the wild." And ultimately, that uncertainty could persuade regulators to rule that the controversial transgenics be bred only in tanks well away from the sea, and not in the commercial cages at the ocean's edge now common in fish farming.

Lakhs being fed genetically modified food

May 4
Times of India

NEW DELHI - While the effects of the prolonged use of genetically modified food remains unknown, about 800,000 women and children have been consuming it for almost 10 years under a government nutrition scheme.

This food has been provided for the Union human resources development ministry's Integrated Child Development Services project by foreign donors. The project has been on since 1975 in eight Indian states to which genetically modified food has been supplied for almost a decade now.

Care India, an international NGO that is contributing to the ICDS program, admits that a portion of their donated food is genetically modified. Country director Tom Alcedo said: ``There is no understanding of the long-term effects of genetically modified food. But such food is commercially available in the USA.''

The Union government said it was not aware of the supply of genetically modified food under the ICDS project. HRD joint secretary Rekha Bhargava said: ``We had asked the donor agencies about this matter before and were told that genetically modified food was not being supplied.''

On being told that there was evidence of such food entering the country, she said: ``We will ask them about it again. We will also enquire what the potential impact on health such food may have.''

World opinion is divided on the issue. While such food is available off the shelf in the US and UK, many international environmental agencies have called genetic modification imprecise and unpredictable.

In India, the scientific community has started cautioning against genetically modified food. A paper presented during the Indian Science Congress in January this year by the Central Food Laboratory's J Chakraborty and B R Rao of Kolkata, said: ``In a project in the UK, rats were fed genetically altered potato and the effects were devastating. In most animals highly significant adverse changes occurred in the weights of the vital organs and immune systems.''

NGO Nutrition Foundation of India's Dr C Gopalan said: ``Genetically modified food is a highly debated issue. No doubt the nutritive value of such food may improve but we need to have a very sound policy to make sure that the product is absolutely safe.''

He said: ``In Europe there is a great deal of caution. In USA that is not the case. In our country we must have the protocol ready to ensure that the consumers remain guarded from any ill-effects.''

National Institute of Nutrition director Dr Kamala Krishnaswamy, said during a meeting in the Capital: ``Food distributed to children as part of the government supplementary feeding program may contain soybean flour and maize flour as sources of protein and calories.''

She said: ``The replacement of these foods with genetically modified soya and maize needs a system of safety evaluation, particularly in relation to the allergic potential of such food and its effect on the immunity of children.''

She also said: ``The regulatory framework must evolve a system to check the entry or presence of unapproved genetically modified varieties of food that are particularly used in feeding programs.''

Dr Krishnaswamy spoke of the need to label genetically modified food separately. ``There should be a detailed description of what the food is and how it is produced and a history of, if any, possible health effects linked to the organism being modified,'' she said.

World's first genetically altered babies born

May 4
Reuters

The world's first genetically modified babies have been born after women unable to conceive naturally underwent a revolutionary new fertility treatment used by scientists at a New Jersey medical facility, a researcher said on Friday.

The Institute for Reproductive Medicine and Science of St. Barnabas Medical Center in West Orange, New Jersey, has used the technique to produce 15 healthy babies, the oldest of whom turns 4 years old in a month, said Dr. Jacques Cohen, scientific director of assisted reproduction at the institute.

He said his institute was the first to use the technique called ooplasmic transfer, but other fertility specialists had followed. He said another 15 babies had been born following the use of the technique at different facilities.

Cohen dismissed criticism by some scientists who labeled as unethical a technique that in a sense leaves children genetically with two mothers.

``I don't think this is wrong at all,'' Cohen told Reuters. ''And I think we have to look at the positive part here. I think this did work. These babies wouldn't have been born if we wouldn't have done this.''

In the technique, doctors take an egg from an infertile woman, the egg from a donor woman and the sperm from the infertile woman's mate. The doctors then suck out a little bit of the contents of the donor egg -- the cytoplasm -- using a microscopic needle manipulated by tiny robotic arms. The cytoplasm is then injected into the infertile woman's egg along with the sperm to fertilize it.

The researchers believe the technique helps women conceive who had been unable to do so because of defects in their eggs.

One Child, Two Mothers

But the method can introduce genetic material -- mitochondrial DNA -- from the female donor's egg into the mix of genetic material from the mother and father. Tests confirmed that two of the 15 babies produced by the technique at the institute were carrying genetic material from the birth mother, the father and the woman who donated an egg, Cohen said.

The procedure, described in the British medical journal Human Reproduction, has raised ethics questions among some critics in the scientific community. Cohen and his colleagues wrote in the journal that this was ``the first case of human germline genetic modification resulting in normal health children.'' ``Germline'' refers to the genes that a person will pass on to his or her children.

``This news should gladden all who welcome new children into the world. And it should trouble those committed to transparent public conversation about the prospect of using 'reprogenetic' technologies to shape future children,'' said Erik Parens of The Hastings Center in Garrison, New York, and Eric Juengst of the Center for Biomedical Ethics at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland in a commentary in the journal Science.

But Cohen countered: ``There are different levels of ethics. There are people who are saying, 'Why would you do something like this without maybe hard proof that it would work?' That's one level of ethics. The other one is, 'Well, you're tampering with nature,' which is the same question you get when you deal with any form of assisted reproduction.''

``The Little Thing That We Did''

Cohen said the technique did not manipulate the genes, but merely added innocuous extra genetic material.

``We haven't changed any genes,'' he said. ``That's a huge step compared to the little thing that we did. But you could say there would have normally been mitochondria from only one source (the mother). Now there's mitochondria from two sources, and therefore there's two different types of mitochondria DNA there.''

Mitochondria are minute structures vital to energy production within a cell that contain genes that are located outside a cell's nucleus, home to most of the cell's genes.

Of the 15 babies produced by the technique used at the institute since 1997, 13 lived in the United States, one lived in Britain and another in France, Cohen said. He said the institute used the technique on 30 infertile women. Seventeen failed to become pregnant and one become pregnant but had a miscarriage, he said. The remaining 12 women delivered babies, with three of the women having twins.

``So far, from what we understand, they are doing OK,'' Cohen said of the babies. ``And those two that had the mixed mitochondria, they're doing OK, too.''

No government money was used in the research, Cohen said.

South Africa joins anti-GM lobby

May 3
Panafrican News Agency

Johannesburg, South Africa

In the run up to its hosting next year's Earth Summit, South Africa appears to have put itself in a bad light with environmentalists by pushing for curbs on the labeling of genetically modified (GM) foods.

South Africa, along with Australia, this week emerged as two of the most pro-GM nations, calling for curbs on GM-free and non-GM labels at the World Trade Organization's CODEX meeting underway in Canada.

Earthlife Africa's spokesperson Richard Worthington observed that whereas the civil society has been calling for labeling, government has not made it clear whether it supports mandatory or voluntary labeling.

"This lackluster attitude towards the issue has us wondering how South Africa could be hosting the Earth Summit when there is so little commitment to the environment," Worthington said.

He added that legislation around GM food was so weak, the responsibility to actually enforce it has not even been properly assigned yet.

Earthlife Africa said that genetically modified crops have been planted in Gauteng - tomatoes at Roodeplaat Dam and maize in Carltonville - without the regulatory environmental impact assessments being done.

South Africa is also one of the few African countries that is also not signatory to the Cartegena Protocol.

Close to 90 countries are signatory to the protocol, indicating that they do not want GM foods until issues such as labelling and greater environmental safety protocols have been properly addressed.

The OAU has adopted the stance put forward by the protocol and the leader of the African group negotiating on genetic resources, Dr Tewolde Egziabher of Ethiopia, has apparently written to the South African Department of Agriculture to ask why Pretoria is not going along with the rest of Africa on the GM issue.

Court decides against GE cows

May 3
Newsroom (New Zealand)

The Environmental Risk Management Authority (ERMA) has to reconsider its decision to allow a field trial of genetically engineered cows after the High Court ruled in favor of a group opposed to the experiment.

In July last year, ERMA approved an application by scientists from the crown-owned research institute AgResearch in Hamilton to insert copies of a human gene into cows.

The High Court in Wellington ruled that ERMA's interpretation of the law was flawed, and has set aside the authority's decision to let the experiments go ahead.

The court ordered ERMA to reconsider the case and said it was up to the authority to decide whether it needed to receive new submissions and hold further hearings over the application.

This is the first appeal against an ERMA decision that had approved field trials of GE animals and the court said it was seen as an important case from a legal perspective.

The AgResearch scientists wanted to create the GE cows to produce milk with a human protein that is being investigated as a possible treatment for people with multiple sclerosis.

They have already created GE embryos and the calves are due to be born next month.

Food labeling may not be enough, says Greenpeace

Group launches consumer guide

May 3
Bangkok Post

Labeling may not be a strong enough measure to protect consumers from genetically modified food, a local Greenpeace campaigner said yesterday.

Minister to tackle GM firm over trials

He was due to write to Aventis after Thursday's meeting.

Assembly fight

He said that if it appeared the company had not followed procedure, he would demand they carried out a full consultation exercise with interested parties.

Planting of GM maize expected to start soon at three trial sites in Wales - two in Pembrokeshire, and at one at Sealand in Flintshire, north Wales.

The assembly has fought for six months to try to "go it alone" and prevent the crops from being grown at all in Wales.

Scientific studies carried out on behalf of the assembly failed to give Welsh Agriculture Minister Carwyn Jones the power to ban the GM crops.

Nor can he prevent individual farmers from growing them.

Loblaw rejects call to take GM foods off store shelves

HALIFAX -- The head of Loblaw Cos. Ltd. rejected a call yesterday to eliminate foods with genetically modified ingredients from the shelves of Canada`s largest food retailer.

Chairman Galen Weston told the company`s annual meeting in Halifax that the population is divided about using genetically modified foods -- those foods made from plants engineered to be resistant to pests and herbicides or to produce higher yields.

He was responding to a challenge issued by Nadege Adam, health protection campaigner for the Council of Canadians. She told the meeting that as much as 70 per cent of the processed foods sold by the grocery giant contain GM ingredients, but there is nothing on the labels to indicate that.

Ms. Adam said Loblaw should become the first grocery chain in Canada to phase out GM foods from its stores.

``We are not going to go away,`` Ms. Adam told the annual meeting. ``The more people find out about what is in their food, the more outraged they become.``

Mr. Weston said the issue is ``unbelievably complex`` and that Loblaw is working with federal regulators on devising ways of safeguarding the food chain and identifying foods containing GM elements.

``We`re as frustrated as you are by all the rules and regulations`` that are being proposed by the federal government, he said.

Mr. Weston said Loblaw is sensitive to the concern about GM foods. He said the chain has introduced a line of 57 organically produced food items and will increase the number of organic products to 200 by the fall.

But Ms. Adam said the company could act independently of government and not stock GM foods.

She said the organic foods are more expensive than those produced with the use of chemicals and many low-income consumers can`t afford them.

Ms. Adam said security guards prevented her from bringing into the meeting a box with more than 24,000 postcards demanding that Loblaw ban GM food from its shelves. She and another woman who also opposed the GM foods at Loblaw`s were the only voices of dissent at the meeting.

The company reported yesterday that first-quarter profit increased 21 per cent to $93-million or 34 cents a share from $77-million or 28 cents in the same period a year ago. Sales were $20-billion in the fiscal year 2000, and in the first quarter totaled $4.5-billion, up 6 per cent from the first three months of 2000.

European feed producers look for non-biotech soybean meal in Minnesota

Fears for birds as cash runs out for GM

County's process to form crop guidelines upsets some

The committee will help the Boulder County Parks and Open Space Department make decisions on the use of GMOs on county-owned land.