Reviews Technology: GM salmon soon in the U.S. bases?

The FDA is expected in the coming days, allowing the breeding of transgenic salmon plates for American consumers. The debate on GMOs seems to be lost in advance for critics.

This is not done yet, but it will soon. The Food and Drug Administration (FDA), the highest authority on food and drugs on American soil, will most likely announce approval to raise, for commercial and food fish GMOs.

These fish are Atlantic salmon that a gene has been added. It encodes a growth hormone from salmon king (or chinook). With specific regulatory sequences also added to the DNA, the hormone is produced continuously, even in winter. Salmon AquAdvantage (a registered trade name) can gain weight throughout the year, whereas usually stop growing salmon in the cold season.

They thus reach the size and weight suitable for marketing in twice less time than wild salmon, that is to say in a year and a half instead of three. AquaBounty Technologies, the biotechnology company parent of these fish did not lie in its slogan: "biotechnological solutions for improved productivity in aquaculture.

For nearly 10 years, the company battle to obtain the necessary permits. Last year, in 2009, a step has already been taken by the FDA, which has decided to consider the added genes to animals as any veterinary medicine. The decision therefore allows the companies to hide information about their GM products.

Good salmon fillets from GMOs AquAdvantage ® will probably soon in the plates of U.S. consumers. © AquaBounty

And if salmon escape?

After criticism, the FDA finally decided to be transparent vis-à-vis transgenic salmon.The results of the survey conducted by the Veterinary Medicine Advisory Committee, reporting to the FDA, are indeed visible on their site. Final decisions will be taken by the Center for Veterinary Medicine, following the investigation, will also be available.

But this is not enough for devout environmentalists. In fact, farmed fish are indeed locked in a pen, but the risk of escape (the image of GM oilseed rape) and mate with wild fish, however, is not zero. According to Ronald Stotish, executive director of AquaBounty, these concerns have no place.

The fish are almost all (99%) triploid, that is to say they do not have two sets of chromosomes (one from their father and their mother) as the normal fish, but three.This makes them sterile triploidy. Moreover, they are trapped in pools completely sealed, preventing not only the young salmon to escape, but also the eggs. "The possibility of an escape or an event which interact with wild salmon is infinitesimal," concluded Ronald Stotish.

According to Mark Abrahams, a biologist at Memorial University in St. John, Canada, the metabolism of GM salmon would not be suited to life in wild waters: their great need of food they confer risk behavior, and they would become easy prey.

The arguments in favor of non-hazardous salmon AquAdvantage Environment There is no lack. However, a mathematical model developed at Purdue University and published in the journal PNAS that indicates the presence of 60 transgenic fish in a population of 60,000 wild fish would be enough to threaten the survival of wildlife species and even the eradicate, and that in 20 generations ... Furthermore, consumption of these fish GMOs is it safe? Only time will tell.