SF Gate
By Carolyn Lockhead
The Senate Thursday defeated an amendment, 45-50, by Alaska Republican Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, to require comprehensive environmental study of what she called a “test tube” salmon before the government approves it for the food supply.
California Sens. Barbara Boxer and Dianne Feinstein, both Democrats, voted for the amendment. The split was not along the usual ideological lines.
The salmon would be the first transgenic animal crop to be approved. So-callled GMO crops, limited mostly to corn, cotton and soybeans, have become commonplace in the food supply and have had unintended collateral environmental effects, such as killing the Midwestern habitat of Monarch butterflies.
Californians will vote on a ballot measure in November to require labeling of all genetically modified foods.
The genetically modified salmon, into which is inserted a growth hormone gene from Chinook salmon and a trait from a fish called ocean pout that keeps the gene in cold weather, grows much faster than wild or farmed salmon. It is produced by a company called AquaBounty. The Food and Drug Administration gave preliminary approval 20 months ago — as it routinely does for all genetically modified foods simply by accepting company testing without independent study — but political opposition has kept it off diners’ tables.
Alaskans opposed the fish fearing human health issues or possible damage to wild fisheries if the salmon escapes.
“We need to look before we leap here, and make that a long hard look,” Murkowski said in a statement. She argued the FDA evaluation of the scientific and biological risks of what she called “Frankenfish” does not include evaluation of “how a worst-case scenario of fish escaping into the ocean ecosystem could adversely impact the seafood industry.”
