Tell the FDA: No Frankenfish!

From Organic Bytes, online newsletter of the US Organic Consumers Association: http://www.organicconsumers.org/bytes/ob360.htm

Obama Clears the Way for Approval of First Genetically Engineered Animal
Take a little DNA from a Chinook salmon, and a little growth hormone from an eel-like creature called an ocean pout, and what do you get? A frankenfish that grows twice as fast as wild salmon – and just as rapidly grows the profits of a biotech company called AquaBounty Technologies.

In a last-minute holiday gift to yet another biotech company that wants to play god with our food, the Obama administration has cleared the way for the FDA to soon approve the first genetically modified salmon.

Bad idea, says the Consumers Union, the advocacy and policy arm of Consumer Reports, which called the Environmental Assessment (EA) of the proposed frankenfish "flawed and inadequate."

The FDA is expected to approve AquaBounty’s frankenfish after a 60-day public comment period – unless consumers, activists and common sense prevail. Here are the three top reasons to tell the FDA “NO FRANKENFISH”:

1. Harmful to human health: FDA has allowed this fish to move forward based on tests of allergenicity of only six engineered fish—tests that actually did show an increase in allergy-causing potential, according to Michael Hansen, PhD, Senior Scientist with Consumers Union.

2. Harmful to wild salmon population: Only 95% of the GE salmon may be sterile, and the rest fertile. Even 1% equals thousands of fish. Plus the fish at the egg production facility in Prince Edward Island, Canada, will not be sterile. All it takes is for some of these frankenfish to escape, and the world’s wild salmon population will be at risk.

3. Not Labeled: Without GMO labeling laws, you’ll have no way to avoid the frankenfish that will end up in grocery stores and fish markets.

It’s going to take hundreds of thousands of us telling the FDA “NO FRANKENFISH” in order to have an impact. Please make your voice heard today!

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