Arguing for Biotech Salmon

Making the case for new technology gets more difficult as different groups and factions state their case against new ideas - in the biotech world it's quite common. But getting the facts of a specific issue can be difficult. Take the instance of biotech salmon and its potential advantages to boost available protein for world diets. A Purdue professor of animal science is urging federal officials to decide whether the biotech salmon would be allowed for U.S. consumption noting that not doing so could set back scientific efforts to boost food production.

William Muir argues that based on data available to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, AquAdvantage salmon poses little real risk to the environment or human health, according to a Purdue press release. AA salmon have been given a gene from Chinook salmon that speeds growth and improved feed efficiency in farm-raised fish. In this case, the new-tech fish would be spawned in Canada and grown to market weight in Panama in facilities that are all land-based and contained.

Usually when you hear about this kind of tech you get inundated with all the risk - the vision of super-fish breaking free from ponds and moving into the ocean to overtake natural species eventually disrupting the population. Muir says that's not so. "We realize that any new technology can have risks, and those risks need to be assessed in a thorough and convincing manner," Muir says. "However, once the assessment has been completed and the agency concludes from the weight of evidence that the risks of harm either to the environment or to consumers is negligible, the next step, which is to allow production and sale of the product, needs to be taken."

In a peer-reviewed commentary running in the online version of Nature Biotechnology, Muir and colleague Allison L. Van Eenennaam, an animal genomics and biotech extension specialist at the University of California Davis call for FDA approval of the tech.

Salmon would be the first genetically engineered animal used as a food in the United States, but it's been tied up by FDA regulatory proceedings since 1995. Muir says this kind of regulatory lag becomes a disincentive for those working to increase food supplies for a growing world population. Muir has not received any funding or support from AquaBounty Technologies (creators of the designer fish).

In the commentary and review, Muir and colleagues note the fish are being raised in a land-based environment near tropical waters. If they were to escape the warmer water would challenge their survival. The AA gene doesn't make the fish more viable than native species and in fact makes them less viable in the wild. And the company is focusing on raising 99.75 sterile fish, and all are female, reducing the chances for breeding in the wild.

Worries about allergens, a more-recent worry among the anti-biotech crowd, gets answered as well. Data don't support this assertion. Muir says there is no baseline for the amount of allergens a fish may contain before it is unsafe for consumption and that many fish consumed regularly, such as herring, have more allergens than AA salmon.

Whether this argument sways FDA remains to be seen.

Food as Medicine

Maintaining health and reducing disease risk is a hot topic among consumers as they age and a new survey from the International Food Information Council shows Americans cite cardiovascular disease, weight and cancer as their top health concerns. The IFIC Functional Foods/Foods for Health Survey also shows that people often look to food for its health benefits. In the survey, 90% of respondents can name at least one food and its associated benefit and three-quarters say that functional foods, or foods that can promote health, can have a meaningful impact on their health when they consume them.

Yet translating knowledge to use in the diet can be a challenge. Respondents cite availability and cost as top barriers to use.

Great that consumers see the health values of calcium, Vitamin D, B-vitamins and omega-3 fatty acids (as the survey shows). But there are days when I share a lament once voiced by the late Julia Child when she says that she prefers the days when we didn't think of food as medicine.

You can check out an executive summary of the survey at FoodInsight.org.