Oct 28, 2008 9:46 pm US/Eastern
Genetically Engineered Food Hotly Debated
BOSTON (WBZ) ―
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Courtesy: Aqua Bounty Technologies/WBZ
Genetically engineered food: It's either a great scientific leap forward, or a potentially dangerous experiment. And for the first time, the door is open to the possibility of genetically engineered meat and fish on grocery shelves.
The idea is hotly debated. One of the first companies trying to bring this new food to the market is headquartered in Massachusetts.
Aqua Bounty Technologies, based in Waltham, has created genetically engineered salmon.
"It looks like a salmon, it acts like a salmon," says Aqua Bounty CEO Ron Stotish. "All attributes of the fish are the same as normal Atlantic salmon."
But there's one big difference. The Aqua Bounty salmon grow really fast.
"We can get from fish egg to a 3 to 4 kilo salmon in a little over a year. Now by comparison, the normal Atlantic salmon would take 4 or 5 years to reach that size," says Stotish.
Genetic engineering is a process where genes are manipulated to give new characteristics to, in this case, fish or animals.
For example, cattle that can resist mad cow disease, or chickens that lay eggs that are healthier for your heart.
To get their salmon to grow so fast, Aqua Bounty has added a gene.
"What we've done is overcome a barrier that's evolved in the salmon over centuries," says the company's CEO. And that gives some people the creeps.
Several people WBZ spoke with in a local supermarket were hesitant about the possibility of buying genetically engineered meat or fish. But for the first time, the Food and Drug Administration is taking proposals from Aqua Bounty and other companies that could lead to the commercialization of these new food products.
Scientists working on genetically engineered food say it's safe, but the
Union of Concerned Scientists says, not so fast.
"We have to look very carefully at what the risks and the benefits are," says Doug Gurian Sherman, who studies the issue for the Union of Concerned Scientists in Washington, DC. "At this point, I think the FDA seems to be putting the cart before the horse."
There are 3 main concerns: The potential impact on people's health, possible environmental damage if the engineered animals get into the wild, breed and become dominant, and no requirement to label the food as "genetically engineered."
"We don't have a very good handle on how to assess the risks. And until we do, we really should take a really deep breathe, and not go forward with this," says the Union of Concerned Scientists' Doug Gurian Sherman.
But Aqua Bounty's Ron Stotish counters, "It's people's right not to buy our products. It's people's right to hold whatever opinions they choose. It's not their right to prevent the acceptance of new technology that may be very helpful to society, in the interests of their personal concerns."
Other companies are watching to see if the salmon are approved for market, and if they are, expect to see a number of other proposals begin to move forward.
In the case of these salmon, they are also being engineered to be sterile, so if any escaped into the wild, they would not be able to breed.
To learn more about the debate over genetically engineered food check out these resources:
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