I am so pleased that a bill to label Frankenfish is making its way through the US Congress.. Frankenfish labeling admendment advanced by Congressional committee Add-on to federal bill requires notice of modified salmon Posted: May 23, 2014 - 12:05am Genetically modified salmon, also called "Frankenfish," will have to be labeled if the Food and Drug Administration allows the fish to be sold for food. Genetically modified salmon, also called Frankenfish, will have to be labeled if the Food and Drug Administration allows the fish to be sold for food. By MATT WOOLBRIGHT JUNEAU EMPIRE Alaska’s Republican Senator got a special kind of birthday present Thursday when her “Frankenfish” amendment was added to the 2015 Agriculture spending bill by a congressional committee. The language requires companies to label genetically engineered salmon if the federal Food and Drug Administration makes the “wrong-headed” decision to allow the fish to be sold. “Why would we be messing with Mother Nature like this?” Murkowski asked senators before the vote on the amendment. “Why would we put so much at risk? Why would we invent a species that will outgrow our healthy natural stocks? “This Frankenfish experiment puts at risk the health of our fisheries not only in Alaska, but our fisheries nationwide,” she added. “I don’t even think we should call this science experiment a salmon at all.” Thursday’s vote is not the end of the story, however. The Agriculture spending bill must be approved by the whole Senate, then go to a conference committee where senators and representatives will negotiate a compromise between it and a version passed by the House. Only if the “Frankenfish” amendment survives that conference committee — then a final vote of the House and Senate — will it become law. Not to be confused with the 2004 movie, Frankenfish refers to a genetically-engineered breed of fish developed to grow twice as fast as natural salmon. Murkowski, who hails from a region heavily invested in fishing and logging, has long been an opponent of the fish. “If the FDA continues with what I consider is a flawed approach, then they should be required to add a label that says, ‘this is a genetically-modified fish,’” Murkowski said. Opponents of the species say it carries significant health risks and is unnecessary, but the principal complaint is that the fish will compete with wild Alaska salmon in stores and could give salmon a bad taste in consumers’ mouths. The fish was developed by the Massachusetts-based company AquaBounty to grow to market size twice as fast as normal. If ultimately approved, it would be the first genetically modified animal deemed safe for human consumption. In a preliminary decision from 2012, the FDA said allowing the fish to go to market “would not have a significant effect on the quality of the human environment in the United States.” That’s an opinion not shared by the Alaska Seafood Marketing Institute. “We’d prefer not to even see it in the market, but if we did, it ought to be labeled so people no what they’re getting,” said Tyson Fick, communications director at ASMI. He added that there are concerns over the fish’s impact on the market and the risk of the fish escaping into the wild. Fick also said there hasn’t been adequate testing to know if there are long-term health impacts that may stem from eating the fish, which were first created in 1989. “At the end of the day, Alaska salmon is everything genetically modified salmon is not,” Fick said. “That is, wild, natural and sustainable
Posted on: Tue, 03 Jun 2014 01:24:56 +0000