When the Food and Drug Administration announces the fate of the AquAdvantage salmon, the first genetically modified (GM) animal ever considered for commercial consumption, they may have considered only a fraction of their decision's consequences.

So far the FDA has focused on whether or not the salmon are safe to eat or might escape and breed with wild fish. They haven't yet considered how GM salmon could affect, for better or worse, public dietary habits or the fallout of a boom in fish farming.

"The way they're defining safety is overly narrow," said Martin Smith, an environmental policy analyst at Duke University and co-author of a Nov. 18 commentary in the journal *Science, *of the FDA's approval process.

The modified fish is produced by AquaBounty, a Massachusetts-based company which, for more than a decade, has asked the FDA to approve their proprietary breed: an Atlantic salmon with growth-stimulating genes spliced into its DNA from Chinook salmon and ocean pout.

On a tissue-for-tissue basis, the FDA has deemed AquAdvantage flesh to be little different from farmed or "natural" salmon, though critics argue the agency has relied on possibly skewed data provided by the company itself.

Critics also share concern about AquAdvantage salmon escaping and interbreeding with wild salmon, potentially eradicating a majestic portion of the living world's heritage. The GM fish would, however, be sterile and – at least in the beginning – grown inland, far away from any coastline.

(As far as interbreeding goes, well-regulated GM salmon would seem less threatening than farmed salmon, which are already spreading disease and genetic homogeneity among endangered wild populations.)

But that only covers a portion of the issues raised by GM salmon. Just as the FDA was blamed for being short-sighted in its initial approvals of GM crops, by failing to anticipate the inevitable spread beyond farms of modified genes and proteins, they may again be avoiding the larger and long-term ramifications of a biotechnological innovation.

Smith and his colleagues aren't taking a side. They just want the FDA to do the job right.

"We're arguing that they need to think about what this innovation is doing," Smith said. "This is not just about GM salmon. This is about the next transgenic animal for human consumption, and the next after that."

One unconsidered possibility may actually be of great benefit to the public. Should AquAdvantage salmon prove commercially viable, growing faster on less food than their farmed counterparts, total salmon production could rise dramatically and drive down their price to consumers.

As a result, people might eat more salmon, ostensibly using it to replace less-healthy meats in their diet. Given the apparent benefits of eating omega-3 fatty acid-rich fish, that could be a boon to public health.

"GM salmon could put fresh salmon in reach as a protein source for low-income households susceptible to conditions linked to poor nutrition," Smith's team wrote in Science.

GM salmon farming could, however, become so widespread that demand for feed becomes unsustainable.

Like other high-level predators, salmon subsist on large amounts of protein. It already takes about three pounds of wild fish to produce one pound of farmed salmon, and salmon farming consumes a full 40 percent of global fish oil production.

Many ocean fish populations are already over-fished, with base-of-the-food-web populations of small fish – once thought inexhaustible – collapsing under demand for fish meal. A boom in salmon farming could make the problem worse.

"Nobody can predict the future, but you can look at studies of demand for farmed salmon, and come up with some reasonable scenarios," Smith said. "More importantly, you'd set up a precedent for how to think about these innovations."

The FDA's public comment period ends this month, and a decision on AquaAdvantage salmon could come before the year's end.

Other genetically modified animals in the food industry's pipeline include pigs and cows.

Image: AquaBounty

See Also:

Citation: "Genetically Modified Salmon and Full Impact Assessment." By Martin D. Smith, Frank Asche, Atle G. Guttormsen, Jonathan B. Wiener. Science, Vol. 330 No. 6007, November 19, 2010

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