“Extra labeling only confuses the consumer,” said David Edwards, director of animal biotechnology at the Biotechnology Industry Organization. “It differentiates products that are not different. As we stick more labels on products that don’t really tell us anything more, it makes it harder for consumers to make their choices.”
Which is exactly what troubled me about the “Mercury-toxic-no-eat-sign” featured prominently at every junction of the creek nearby, why would you go to all that trouble to label something genetically identical to the healthy specimen?
It must be more of that government waste I hear so much about.
The FDA defends its approach, saying it is simply following the law, which prohibits misleading labels on food. And the fact that a food, in this case salmon, is produced through a different process, is not sufficient to require a label.
We’re simply reminding everyone that this is the week the FDA rules on genetically engineered fish, our thoughts on the matter being well known, yet it’s still a landmark case with impacts far beyond the current focus.
The company has several safeguards in place to quell concerns. The fish would be bred female and sterile, though a small percentage might be able to breed. They would be bred in confined pools where the potential for escape would be low.
What concerns me outside of the obvious, is where is all that water going to come from? Most of the known world is already using its potable water multiple times between snowpack and faucet. Trucking saltwater in from the ocean would be cost prohibitive, yet terrestrial fish farms located close to market implies yet another water-craving industry determined to siphon those last few droplets from native fish.
Close to market means Los Angeles, Phoenix, Las Vegas, and a host of other desert cities, no?
Nestle and the bottled water crowd may be a blessing compared to the the rich soup we’ll soon see in our spigot. The agricultural industry has locked up the rights for any source of significance, yet the aquaculture crowd will insist on something “clean” to grow salmon in – and that combined payload of antibiotics and fertilizer should follow whatever slope is available to mix with local waters or intermingle with groundwater.
If they mix in salt you can add toxic to that blend.
Yummy.
The upside could be a gene or two added to all them roman nosed fish lying doggo in the salmon wastewater pond. If we get lucky we might wind up with sea-run Carp, or they’ll get white faces like the Joker – sight fishing would be so much easier.