RE: NANFA-- Genetically engineered fish in MA?

Jay DeLong (thirdwind_at_att.net)
Sun, 19 May 2002 09:03:45 -0700

> I received a phone message from a reporter with the Washington
> Times an hour
> ago, asking me my opinion on genetically engineered fish being
> produced in
> Massachusetts, allegedly. I don't know anything about such fish; does
> anybody know, and could they tell me, in case I talk to this reporter?
> Thanks!
> >>
> While I believe that genetically engineered fish are inevitable
> (I can think
> of one that was engineered to glow) My question is engineered in
> what way?
> Possibly this person was just fishing for a story or trying to stir up
> controversy. Genetic engineering is a very broad term and can
> mean anything
> from the completely benign to mermaids ;-)

No mermaids here-- the so-called Frankenfish is real. I wasn't kidding
about the link I shared a few days ago. To learn about the issue Bruce
asked about, read this article:
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2002/04/29
/MN155761.DTL

Here are a few paragraphs:

It looks like a North Atlantic salmon. But it grows seven times faster, and
it's much more attractive to the opposite sex than a normal salmon.

It's a transgenic fish, the first genetically engineered animal under review
for the U.S. food supply. Embedded in every cell of its body are genes from
the Chinook salmon and the ocean pout fish that make it grow more quickly.

The altered salmon is likely to become the next focus in the battle over
bioengineered food, after controversies over the desirability of genetically
altered bovine growth hormones in cows and modified corn, soybeans and
canola in cereals and tortilla chips.

In the next year, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration will consider a
petition by Aqua Bounty Farms of Waltham, Mass., to farm and market the
altered salmon.

--
Jay DeLong
Olympia, WA
I talk to the wind
My words are all carried away
I talk to the wind
The wind does not hear
The wind cannot hear.
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