FDA Paves Way for 'Frankenfish' Consumption

Look forward to thicker, heartier salmon in the future

Somebody tell Porky Pig to run for cover. The super fish are coming.

The Food and Drug Administration has issued a report on a strain of genetically modified salmon being cultivated off Canada's Prince Edward Island that claims the so-called "frankenfish" pose no harm to the environment. The fish being harvested in the far east of the country by a Massachusetts company possess an added growth hormone that allows them to grow twice as fast.

CBC news reports that the FDA's positive assessment "clears the way for the first approval of a scientifically engineered animal for human consumption." But don't get too excited about the prospect of sinking your teeth into the enhanced lean meat anytime soon:

"The tentative thumbs-up from the FDA is only for production, so it could still be a long time before the world's first genetically engineered food animal ends up on the dinner table."

Via CBC News.

Would you avoid consuming so-called 'Frankenfish'?

[stepped_in_it]

HMMM, it reason kids are now 6'6" and getting bigger? The reason why ADD (and all the other acronyms) are happening?
Year 2030 news flash: Man catches record Brown trout. At 6+ feet long and weighing in at just under 350 lbs, the fisherman used the new and improved harpoon gun even though guns were outlawed in 2013. Man was arrested and trout was donated to the mutant homeless....all is well again!(JOKE)

[AlexMIA]

There shouldn't be any homeless in that time. A liberal socialist society would evenly spread everything out to where every one has a roof over their heads and are all equally miserable. The fish would probably be given to regular people that would be just as hungry anyway.

[stepped_in_it]

@AlexMIA Well, by 2030, regular people aren't homeless. Mutants, on the other hand will not have any rights until the passage of the Mutant Equal Rights Act (known as MERA) in the year 2046 (right after the Uncivil War II) which ended in 2045!

[jessejaymes]

@stepped_in_it So when is the next movie coming out anyhow? I see Hugh Jackman is coming back as the Wolverine. I miss Halle Berry in her white hair wig. That works for me.

[stepped_in_it]

@jessejaymes Don't know....but Halle is hot....lol

[NormalFlora]

Why is it that science seems to be the "third rail" of thinking for so many Americans? We already have GM corn, broccoli, cabbage, wheat, etc. Take a look at a botany book to see what these plants looked like before farmers started cross-breeding them for a more palatable product.

[Zazziness]

I'm all for selective breeding and, yes, we have been doing that as long as our species has farmed. I am NOT for genetically modified foods which are entirely different. Frog genes in tomatoes. No thanks. The more you read about what they're doing and how little testing there is until it is mass released and "tested" on the unknowing population at large, the more skeptical a person becomes.

[hwyangel]

Vegetables with 30% less natural vitamins and minerals so that the body still craves food after the stomach is full.

[woodtick57]

@hwyangel

Isnt that due to the depleted soil, and not the vegetable strain?

[NormalFlora]

@Zazziness Yeah... Good point

[NormalFlora]

@Zazziness You got me thinking... Frog genes in tomatoes. So they can devour the bugs instead of vice versa? Vitamin C, lycopene plus added protein. Yum!

[PoliticalSpice]

Thing is they want to avoid labelling it. They want to market it to restarunts ad well. Labelling is something companies doing this have always fought against.

You know when they create GM corn the govt also said it would not harm the environment, years later they found that critics, who had predicted it would contaminate natural corn were correct, and gm corn dna was detected in corn imported from mexico that had not been a GM strain, seems it got imto environment through pollination, this type of thing will likely occur as gm salmon mate with others, possibly wiping out hugh numbers of the salmon population, creating yet unknown health issues for those who consume it, who knows. This stuff is really creepy.

[frigginhell]

Not only did the corn get into neighboring fields. They neighboring fields were sued for using the copyrighted grain. Farmers who purchased grain the previous year were also sued for saving grain and planting it again for copyright violation. It's a scam of the highest order. Then again when the population of the planet becomes unsustainable modified fast grow food is the only way to support our fat asses.

[stepped_in_it]

Though not religious, when man plays "god", god strikes back! Man has never learned that we do not control our environment, it controls us. We need to learn to live when it's boundaries!

[stepped_in_it]

@frigginhell I can imagine our courts entertaining that litigation! This country is so "sue" happy that I'm waiting for someone with "gas" to be sued for pollution of the environment and invasion of someones "space". Tort reform will be one of of next big "issues" to contend with....but don't want to stray to far off the subject right now.

[frigginhell]

@stepped_in_it You don't have to imagine it. It's already a reality. Mosanto is regularly suing farmers. They have many cases currently in litigation right now.

[Penn1699]

@frigginhell the farmers need to countersue for pollution of their crops. Then the environmentalists should sue Mosanto for harming the bees!

[Eswizzleart]

This would open the floodgates for the government & the powers that be to have us eating organisms for experimentation.

[Drake_Burrwood]

Physically we are like other animals one of our characteristics is we are the worlds greatest lair builders. We have a longing to copy our father and create so have more things to name as he commanded.

[Thunderchicken]

I've often wondered why I haven't seen more things like this. Check this one out.

http://www.belgianblue.org/history.html

[woodtick57]

Will it be as flavorless as the other farm-raised salmon I've had?

[Jackie312gm]

Consumption of natural foods is the way to go. Let the CEO'S of these companies consume the frankenfish for ten years to prove that is safe. The human body was design for natural foods; not crappy laboratory inventions of the money hungry CEO'S. Only their families should consume FRANKY----THE FISH....

[stepped_in_it]

Even though I don't agree with "genetic" altered animals, most of our food supply has not been "natural" for a long time. Chickens, cattle....etc have been "altered" by enhanced breeding for hundreds of years. But, unlike genetic alteration, enhanced breeding takes many years to "perfect" and has many branches to it's tree.
Remember, i said "Even though I don't agree with "genetic" altered animals". The only "natural" foods you would get are buffalo, prairie chickens and deer/elk... etc

[Jackie312gm]

@stepped_in_it my last piece of dead cow or dead chicken was at the end 1969.

[stepped_in_it]

@Jackie312gm Way to go! Even though I don't eat cow, I do eat fowl and fish!

[mtkopf]

Oh the FDA said that there isn't any threat. These are the same ppl who said pink slime is beef. On the scale of trustworthiness, the FDA falls somewhere between Congress and Charlie Manson.

[Dan_Tien]

I can agree with modifying the genes of some plants to make them more resistant to blights, but I don't like the idea of modifying fish to produce additional growth hormone in order to make them grow faster. If that hormone reacts inside the human body then could it also make us grow faster? Isn't out-of-control cell growth what amounts to cancer?

[woodtick57]

You think someone might test that Salmon growht hormones and Human growth hormones aren't the same?

[guest]

You bring up good points!
I won't even drink cows milk with growth hormones in it.

[Dan_Tien]

@woodtick57 Who will be financing these studies other than the individuals who expect to profit from the sale of the genetically modified salmon? When you read reports of studies about health effects on humans by most any substance, there is often the phrase "there is no evidence" of adverse health effects. Having no evidence of an adverse effect is not the same as proving that there is no adverse effect. Even after a substance is approved for human consumption and suspicions arise that it is creating problems, it will often remain on the market unless incontrovertible evidence can be produced proving that the substance is causing adverse health effects.

[woodtick57]

@Dan_Tien

wouldnt that be the purview of the FDA?

[Dan_Tien]

@woodtick57 How Independent is the FDA?

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows...

[Speedieg]

I'm usually a big fan of science and scientific progress but when you mix that with corporate greed and government regulation I avoid it at all costs.

[guest]

I totally agree. I think when greed is mixed in then we can have serious problems.

[guest]

I hope this doesn't end up like some science fiction movie.

[KyleMFb]

I know why we are creating all the genetically modified foods but its freaky nobody knows the low term health risks and sooner or later it's probably going to bite us

[tomincali]

i am against all the modified nonsense. a lot of the seeds i used to use out of vegs from the store will no longer produce,and the seeds do the same thing one crop and have to buy more seeds. this happens unless using heirlooms. wonder if they will find a way to do that to the fish as well.

[CommonSense]

This sort of experiment should take place in a laboratory closed off from the natural environment and take place over the course of several decades before they even consider approving it.
The FDA is too quick to approve of things. Did you know there are NO human studies of the effects of antidepressants that go beyond a few weeks? You'd think they'd demand more rigorous testing for a drug that 1. Shows many side effects including sometimes DEPRESSION and SUICIDE. AND 2. Effects the brain which with over 100 neurotransmitters and 250 million billion cells we still don't know that much about, but which psychiatry and big pharma are very happy to jump to conclusions over.
We still don't even understand our own genome that well to know all the side effects of altering it or else we would've cured every single genetic disease. Currently gene therapy is good for bubble boy disease, but even then there is a slight risk (tolerable in my opinion, who wants to live in a bubble?) of getting leukemia.

[jessejaymes]

I'm not a scientist and I naturally distrust everything our govt says so I may be biased. But when we have an epidemic of obese people, huge rises in autism and so on, something is causing this. I wouldn't be at all surprised to find that it's the food supply.

[Fishbone345]

The Polar Bear congregation agree that bigger salmon is fine by us.

[ConserveUSA]

Leave the Fish alone!

[VeryLameduck]

I'm not eating that. What the f. The FDA isn't a "source" anymore they're co-conspirators that haven't been brought in line. We eat garbage.

[Bob_J_1440]

So many people don’t want to eat it so you know they won’t tell us we are…the criminal bought off government at its best…