Is genetically engineered fish or meat coming to dinner?
FDA won't require labeling of GE animal products
The world’s first genetically engineered (GE) fish or meat might be coming to your dinner table. But as things stand now, you wouldn’t be able to tell it’s “GE” from the label.
FDA PAVES WAY FOR GENETICALLY ENGINEERED FISH AND MEAT
On January 15, 2009, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), in the last days of the Bush administration, released its Final Guidance on Regulation of Genetically Engineered Animals. The FDA guidance clarifies the steps makers of GE food must take to bring it to the marketplace, including a mandatory safety approval process, a decision supported by Consumers Union (CU) and many other food safety groups.
However, the FDA’s new guidance wouldn’t require GE food to be labeled, unless it has, for example, a different nutritional profile from conventional food. That’s because the guidance would enable engineered-food to be sold according to the same type of requirements that apply to conventionally bred animals treated with drugs, which don’t require labeling. The end result: consumers would have no way of knowing if they are buying GE food.
But a recent CU poll (pdf) found that 95 percent of consumers favor labeling of fish and meat from GE animals. "Despite thousands of comments from consumers saying they want to know if engineered meat or fish is in their supermarket, FDA claims these foods are not different from conventional food, and therefore don't need to be labeled," stated Jean Halloran, Director of Food Policy Initiatives at CU. “This flies in the face of consumer opinion and common sense. These foods should be labeled because they really are different.” In the European Union, public concern has helped to limit the marketing of GE food, and any product that does get approved must be labeled.
GENETICALLY ENGINEERED FISH IN DEVELOPMENT
So far, no GE fish or meat products have been approved to be sold under the new guidance. But one company that could change that is Aqua Bounty Technologies, based in Waltham, Massachusetts. The company has been developing GE fish that includes salmon, trout, and tilapia, which it has dubbed “AquAdvantage” breeds. The company claims its fish can reach market size twice as fast as unaltered fish.
Along with the commercial advantage of faster growing fish, Aqua Bounty Technologies claims its altered fish may also provide some environmental benefits over conventional fish, by consuming less feed and contributing less waste from farming pens. Additionally, according to its Web site, the company will market only sterile, all-female hybrid salmon that cannot reproduce with native salmon populations; breeding with wild fish is a major concern when farmed fish escape their pens, and further studies are needed to predict the unknown consequences of GE fish on wild populations.
HOPING FOR NEW RULES FROM THE OBAMA ADMINISTRATION
"The FDA’s regulation is a final favor to industry delivered as the current FDA Administrator goes out the door,” Halloran noted. “We hope the new Obama administration will reverse this ill-considered guidance and require labeling of GE fish, meat and milk products as soon as possible.”
CU and many other consumer and environmental groups recommend that the process for regulating any GE animal be much more transparent, open and participatory. As it stands, the FDA process for reviewing drugs is largely confidential. Virtually all of the safety data remains secret until after the drug is approved.
A more open process would be similar to environmental rules on pesticides at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, for example, where the public can review safety data and scientists can provide comments available to the public.
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