$500,000 USDA Grant Could Help Genetically Modified Salmon Company Stay Afloat

I don't understand why so many people have a hissy fit over genetically modified foods. We've been doing it with farm animals for thousands of years by controlling which particular bull/rooster/pig/etc. gets to breed...how different is this other than the fact that we are doing it faster?

@DirtySquirties…actually we have not been doing it for thousands of years. There is a huge difference between genetically modified organisms and selective breeding. HUGE DIFFERENCE. Thousands of years ago they couldn’t splice tomatoes genes into fish, or spider genes into goats.

The reason smart people are against GMO food is because it is poison. Plain and simple.

If you read into the article, the grant was given to this company to research how to make the GMO salmon (gross) sterile. So that it won’t destroy the natural salmon if it ever gets out. So there you have it, you will be eating food that is sterile. You are what you eat,….want to be sterile? GMO food is here to attack the population problem.

Also lab rats that have been fed GMO food has become sterile after 4 generations. We are on our first generation with this garbage.

All people like myself want is for the government to label GMO foods so we know to stay away from it, but they don’t want to because they are corrupt as sin.

GM food poison hahaha. I love reading your comments it makes me feel better about myself.

@DirtySquirties I completely agree with you people make to big of deal out of things like this. Like half of the U.S truly believes organic food is significantly better for them than the evil gene modified crop.

@Aldrons Last Hope

Everything's not as black and white as you'd like it to be. "You are what you eat,….want to be sterile?"

If you want to be technical and pitch that phrase, then how about this. You're eating fish, but you don't become a fish.

Mutant Salomon Fish sounds like a creepy science fiction movie.

They need a half million for research into sterilizing these fish. This suggests this is extremely hard task to do and so not fool proof.

I wonder if anything happens to another animal that eats these fish other than being well fed. Can anything of this growth hormone pass over?

This fish are being developed just outside of USA regulation in Canada, Prince Island. It is proposed they will be developing in lakes of Panama, again far from USA interference.

Still the USDA is offering them grants. Well that is how the fed controls things. First they bribe you, followed with a lot of pull strings.

Growing Mutant Giant Salomon Food for Human consumption seems like creepy science to me, with the possibilities of a lot of different things going wrong.

Can these Salomon growth hormones mess with humans and yes what happens when the Mutant Salomon Fish accidently slip and escape into the wild.

It does leave an escape for the USDA in that it's all being develop outside of USA and so if a horror story does happen they can wash their fishy hands of the deed and plead innocence.

@Aldrons Last Hope,
By your logic if GMO organisms and plants pass on their traits why don't non-gmo products do the same thing? The genes introduced into the salmon are natural (in that one came from salmon itself and is just being expressed more and the other came from another fish) so wouldn't we have the same issues if we just ate a lot of salmon? Or for someone like me, who eats a lot of beef, why haven't I grown horns or hooves yet? Those genes are present in my food! But if it is only a GMO gene that passes onto whatever eats it does that make me Roundup Ready? Am i drought resistant? Cause I sure do feel thirsty right about now, but it must just be in my head.

It's frustrating that so many of you are so paranoid about this. We eat other animals growth hormones all the time every time we eat any meat. Unless they splice in some kind of poisonous fish then we should all be thanking these scientists for creating something so much more efficient. We've all been paranoid (yet still eating) genetically modified crops for years with, of course, no ill effects.

In general, I don't have a problem with consuming GM food that passes safety testing.

But this company, AquaBounty, lobbies against GM labels for their fish, which would allow informed consumers to make their own personal decisions.

AquaBounty can go screw for that greedy position, and I am upset our tax dollars are going to support this company.

@RisingPhoenix come on lets be realistic.

@ajohnson1986 ^^^^

There is a difference between paranoia and being informed. Read this link and you will begin to see where I'm coming from .

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jeffrey-smith/genetically-modified-soy_b_544575.html

This is the tip of the ice berg, there are literally hundreds of studies done on GMO food. And they all point to them being dangerous. The companies that push GMO (monsanto) have their people at the highest levels of government and either don't publish, or flat out suppress studies that show that GMO is dangerous. If you think GMO is safe you are misinformed.

http://www.responsibletechnology.org/

Humans have been eating natural food for our whole existence. Do you really believe that there will be no adverse side effects from this poison?

With the pollutions of streams and oceans, I suppose they need to develop mutant fish to tolerate the pollutions and a hungry world. Eventually the oceans will die from acidification and once fish like escape into the environment this will eat everything to nothing is left. So the future human race will die of pollution, starvation and more of the same repeating.

Greed inspires technology like this with no long term concern.

@Aldrons Last Hope,
Ok so I read your article. The entire thing is in reference to a study that has never been published. It has not been verified most likely because the sample size in the study was so small that it can't be reproduced. An artile on this blog (http://veganskeptic.blogspot.com/) points out that due to the small sampling size they started with most of the issues seen were most likely due to inbreeding. The groups started small and were only allowed to breed within the group. If there were any fertility problems with the original subjects it would have been emphasized as the generations progressed. Also, the article on this site (http://www.cropchoice.com/leadstryd9a7.html?recid=1033) points out that moldy corn, which has been documented to produce fertility problems in animals, is a much more likely culprit. I highly doubt that with the hundreds of generations of cattle, fowl, and swine that have been fed GMO crops over the years that these problems are not more widespread. If the study you linked to were true all commercial farms would have gone out of business due to sterile breeding stock.

Either BAN GM foods or force companies to label them and to what extent they have been modified.

I dont mind them being on the shelves...just LABEL ITTTTT

Wouldnt they be proud? why are they hiding

ajohnson1986

I guess everyone forgot about this article posted on 9/20/2011 here on Popsci

“We Incorporate Genetic Information From the Food We Eat, New Study Finds”

http://www.popsci.com/science/article/2011-09/we-incorporate-genetic-information-food-we-eat-says-new-study

If we incorporate genetic information from food, war are what we eat,… End GMO!!!

You know what?! It might be more economical to have transgenic scale-less fish... just say'n

Or better yet... in vitro salmon meat :)

A really soft hairy fish would nice. I hate petting fish now, so slimy, ick. Also can they make the fish purrrr.

stop being paranoid, if the genes from the things we eat could harm us we would stop eating what harms us, oh, gee, i already don't eat what harms me (mostly) and all organisms are genetically modified (fairly fast by selective breeding {ALH doesn't know squat}) and slowly over time, cheers

I wonder how this effect life spans of the genetically engineered salmon. Does the eating patterns and social structure of these fish differ and in what way. If these fish did escape in the wild, how aggressive and intelligent would they be in hunting? Packs of wolves, take down larger animals than themselves as they work in groups. If these things did get loose in the natural environment, they may be devastating. In schools or packs, they may even go after humans swimming about in the ocean beaches.

I agree ALH label, so i can eat it and show you nothing will happen, this is all more paranoia, just like the vacines study that was proven wrong, and just like everything else people freak out about. GMO is not bad, the way it is implemented maybe, the way the government handles it for sure. Doesn't mean its all bad. With out GMO food hundred of thousands if not millions more people would be starving, until you can introduce population control in under developed countries, show me a different way to produce the same amount of food with our current technology, and infrastructure.

Starving comes in various degrees. If this thing get loose in the oceans and streams and eat a great quantity of other fishes and the habit suffers and greatly reduces the food chain, what then? Of course as the food chain drops, so will these fish and they have less to eat? The GM fish looks 4 times bigger than its natural brother.

@cosmic
your understanding of biology, animal psychology, and the food chain are highly flawed. With the sterility that will be introduced into this species there will be no chance of this detrimentally hurting the eco systems. If these lakes in panama are land locked and only having some streams into which these fish could possibly get too then maybe the ocean we have even less to fear. These types of fish need cold higher oxygen content water than the warm streams/rivers can provide, these fish would die with in hrs of entering these streams.

....Wolves really?........

lanredneck,
Yes I was painting an imaginary worse case senior, combine with a pot of coffee this morning. Somebody has to draw the bad picture. Actually I like to see a scientist draw a negative picture just for the sake of argument and make sure we do protect our environment. Take care.

I know I am somewhat late chiming in on this, but here is my feeling on the subject. I am not saying it is poison, I am not saying it is good for me to eat. My problem is that humans have shown time and again that they are fallible. Until there are conclusive studies showing that these are safe, I will not eat them nor will I allow my family to. When I say conclusive, I also do not mean 2 or 3 year study, I mean 30 or 40 year long study. How many times has a medication been rushed to the market only to discover that it casues other problems. I just want to be sure that what I am eating, and yes I eat organics now, is not going to harm my kids.

@ajohnston1986 there are many other side effects besides sterility

http://www.fao.org/english/newsroom/focus/2003/gmo8.htm

All of these reasons are enough for me. It’s putting farmers out of business, and destroying natural organisms and the adverse side effects of gene therapy is not known. Allergic reaction is just one side effect. Is it just me or have you notices so many kids being born now are allergic to everything from gluten to peanuts? Your body will be re-programmed via GMO foods. And it is proven that cattle being fed GMO corn are more likely to suffer from e-coli contamination.

Here is ANOTHER long term study that links GMO to low fertility.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-1085060/Why-eating-GM-food-lower-fertility.html

Also there is a reason these studies are done in Europe not North America. In north America a study like this costs hundreds of thousands of dollars. That means someone has to put up the money, do you think these GMO corporations are going to pay for studies that show their product is harmful. Watch FOOD INC.

@Ianredneck the world is not over populated, just the rich greedy people want to keep all the wealth for themselves, they are all hypocrites from Al Gore to Warren Buffet, to Prince Philip, they preach small families, and de-industrialization, yet they live in huge mansions and have large families. The vaccine thing is real, mercury in vaccines leads to autisim, SID, and low IQ..this is proven fact. That’s why mercury in vaccines have been banned in Europe.

http://www.naturalnews.com/027178_autism_vaccines.html

@Drchuck….lol you seriously make me laugh “ALH doesn’t know squat”. Why so bitter? Do you not like your sheep cage being rattled?

People like me who are health conscious are not looking to change the views of old dogs stuck in their trusting sheep ways. Just label the food so we can stay away from it. The human life span is 70 years…yes a cigarette today won’t kill you, but cumulatively they will have an effect in the long run.

Just imagine if 67 million and 16 years of research were dedicated to cleaning up the streams and rivers from pollutions, then our fish and yes natural salmon would come back and it be a win win for everyone. Naaa that is just crazy talk.

It would be better for business and manufacturing of food and only a few make a profit with our streams and rivers continuing being polluted, void of life. (Sarcasm)

I am a penis.

aidrons-last-hope, I agree with you.

aldrons-last-hope, Is A-OK!

I don't really think GMO's are particularly threatening from a health perspective, its pretty easy to understand what the gene change does (if it ramps up production of an already existing protein or hormone during a certain stage of life that really doesn't have much potential for harming the health of whatever eats it).

The threat I see in GMO's is the lack of genetic diversity and the ecological impact that could result, and the harm that could have on actual food security. Food security is much stronger when food is grown with more traditional methods of agriculture, which focus on improving the ecological support for a crop or livestock species rather than our current methods of food production which deplete the ability of the land to remain productive without greater inputs.

If I eat a lot of the Mutant Blue Salmon and then do a international bicycle marathon race and win. Will I later be disqualified for illegal use of Mutant Blue Salmon growth hormone?