23 Members of Congress say “GE fish would not be in the public interest”

NEWLY PUBLISHED STUDIES HIGHLIGHT ENVIRONMENTAL RISKS OF ESCAPED GE FISH

Members of Congress turned up the heat on the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) last Friday, sending strongly worded, bipartisan letters calling on the agency to halt approval of a controversial genetically engineered (GE) salmon under review.

“Members of Congress have once again raised the stakes in the GE salmon debate,” said Andrew Kimbrell, Executive Director of the Center for Food Safety. “FDA simply cannot continue to ignore the growing calls to stop this misguided approval.”

The two letters were sponsored by Sen. Mark Begich (D-AK) and Rep. Don Young (R-AK) and joined by 21 members of the House and Senate. The letters remind FDA of an “ever-growing Congressional opposition” to the fish and call on the agency to shift priorities in light of the Young-Woolsey amendment that was included in the house-passed Agriculture Appropriations Act of 2012 that would bar the FDA from using funds in the 2012 fiscal year to approve GE salmon.

More than 90 environmental, consumer, health, and animal welfare organizations, along with fishing groups and associations and food companies and businesses have celebrated the passage of the Young-Woolsey amendment, which is currently awaiting debate in the Senate.

In September 2010, more than 40 members of Congress sent letters
requesting FDA halt the approval of the long-shelved AquaBounty transgenic salmon, the first GE animal intended for human consumption. The mounting Congressional opposition not only cites major environmental, health and economic concerns with the GE salmon in question but with the FDA approval process.

The FDA currently approves GE animals through its new animal drug law, yet critics fault the process as failing to require adequate safety assessments and lacking transparency and public engagement. The decision to regulate GE animals as animal drugs was announced by FDA in 2009 in the form of a Guidance to Industry, a non-binding form of regulation.

The House letter ends by saying, “Given the strong and ever-growing Congressional opposition to the approval of GE salmon in both chambers, we conclude that spending more time and additional taxpayer money on reviewing GE fish would not be in the public interest.”

Also released last week were two pivotal new studies highlighting the serious risks that escaped GE fish can pose for wild salmon. One study conducted by Canadian researchers found that transgenic Atlantic salmon can pass their genes on to wild salmon if they escape into the wild. Echoing the concerns raised by members of Congress and the public over the past year, lead author Darek Moreau from the Memorial University of Newfoundland, Canada said, “little is known about the potential impact on wild salmon populations if the GM species were to escape captivity.”

View the House letter

View the Senate letter

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The Center for Food Safety is a national, non-profit, membership organization founded in 1997 to protect human health and the environment by curbing the use of harmful food production technologies and by promoting organic and other forms of sustainable agriculture. CFS currently represents more than 190,000 members across the nation. The Dear Colleague letters, recent studies as well as materials about GE fish including fact sheets, sign-on letters and testimony delivered to the VMAC are available on the web at: www.ge-fish.org

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Senators Mark Begich (D-AK), Lisa Murkowski (R-AK), Jeff Merkley
(D-OR), Barbara Mikulski (D-MD), Maria Cantwell (D-WA), Jon Tester (D-MT),
Daniel Akaka (D-HI), and Patty Murray (D-WA) signed the letter from the upper chamber.

Representatives Don Young (R-AK), Lynn Woolsey (D-CA), Jared
Polis (D-CO), Peter DeFazio (D-OR), Sam Farr (D-CA), Dennis Kucinich (D-OH), Walter B. Jones (R-NC), David Wu (D-OR), Betty McCollum (D-MN), Mike Thompson (D-CA), James Moran (D-VA), Mazie Hirono (D-HI), Kurt Schrader (D-OR), Lois Capps (D-CA), Jim McDermott (D-WA) signed the letter from the House.