Salmon

FDA Approves GMO Salmon

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“The U.S. federal government is pretty sneaky. Last year on New Year’s Eve, President Obama signed into law the NDAA that “legalized” secret arrests, indefinite detention, the execution of American citizens, and other horrors of a police state. This year, during the Christmas holiday weekend, the FDA has approved genetically modified salmon to be introduced into the U.S. food supply.”
– Mike Adams, Natural News

– Would you eat biotech fish? FDA approves genetically engineered salmon (Natural News, Dec 26, 2012):

After a few brief tests, GE salmon, meant to grow twice as fast as regular Atlantic salmon, was deemed safe both for the environment and for human consumption. The FDA added that it would take public comments for 60 days before finally deciding on whether or not to approve the salmon.

Criticism of the recent FDA assessment points to the lack of sufficient evidence that the fish is safe for consumption, and the difficulty in measuring its real impact on the environment once mass production begins.

Read moreFDA Approves GMO Salmon

FDA: Genetically Modified Salmon Not A Threat To Nature

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The FDA also approved Prozac:

– Natural News’ Mike Adams: Prozac 94% Fluoride! Nazi’s Favorate Drug!

– AquaAdvantage Genetically Modified Salmon Not A Threat To Nature, FDA Says (Huffington Post, Dec 22, 2012):

WASHINGTON — Federal health regulators say a genetically modified salmon that grows twice as fast as normal is unlikely to harm the environment, clearing the way for the first approval of a scientifically engineered animal for human consumption.

The Food and Drug Administration on Friday released its environmental assessment of the AquaAdvantage salmon, a faster-growing fish which has been subject to a contentious, yearslong debate at the agency. The document concludes that the fish “will not have any significant impacts on the quality of the human environment of the United States.” Regulators also said that the fish is unlikely to harm populations of natural salmon, a key concern for environmental activists.

Read moreFDA: Genetically Modified Salmon Not A Threat To Nature

FDA Pushes to Release Genetically Modified Salmon into Environment

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– FDA Pushes to Release Genetically Modified Salmon into Environment (Natural Society, Dec 21, 2012):

The very genetic coding of the planet is no longer held sacred, according to the United States Food and Drug Administration. The agency is now pushing for the release of genetically modified salmon called ‘frankenfish’ to be unleashed across the globe, threatening the genetic integrity of the entire animal kingdom.

Mutated by scientists to grow twice as fast as a normal salmon through the manipulation of the animal’s genetic code, the genetically modified salmon created by the company AquAdvantage was actually blocked for approval by Congress back in 2011 due to serious health concerns. In the report regarding the ban on the approval of the genetically modified salmon by Huffington Post, it is quite clearly spelled out how the FDA-backed mega company AquaAdvantage only cares about losing investors and profits — not the serious public health concerns.

Read moreFDA Pushes to Release Genetically Modified Salmon into Environment

Japan Bans Radioactive Landlocked Salmon From Tochigi Prefecture

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– [Fishery products] JP Gov banned landlocked salmon from outside of Fukushima (Fukushima Diary, Aug 13, 2012):

Japanese government is eager to ship marine products, (cf. The young of the sardine from offshore Ibaraki in Pacific ocean will be shipped)

but excessive amount of cesium was measured from landlocked salmon from Watarase river in Tochigi.

It’s not even in Fukushima prefecture.

On 8/10/2012, Japanese government prohibited Tochigi prefecture from selling landlocked salmon from the river for measuring cesium more than 100 Bq/Kg, which is their safety limit.

Read moreJapan Bans Radioactive Landlocked Salmon From Tochigi Prefecture

Radioactive Canned Salmon: 18 Bq/Kg Of Radioactive Cesium

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– 18 Bq/kg of Radioactive Cesium from Canned Salmon (EX-SKF, March 29, 2012):

(Update: Checked the corporate site of Maruha Nichiro. It is “pink salmon” or “humpback salmon”, in northern Pacific Ocean, Bering Sea, Sea of Okhotsk, Japan Sea, Iwate Prefecture, and Hokkaido.)

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Seikatsu Club is a co-op that has been publishing the results of its own analysis of food items it sells.

In the latest results on March 30, 2012, there are several items with radioactive cesium including a can of salmon from a major seafood company (Maruha Nichiro):

30 Bq/kg from lemon
32 Bq/kg from Kiyomi tangor (hybrid of satsuma mandarin orange and regular orange)
18 Bq/kg from a can of boiled salmon

For people trying to eliminate as much radioactive cesium as possible from the food they eat everyday, it’s not getting any easier after one year.

Genetically Altered Salmon Spook Northwest Lawmakers: Congress Can’t Allow ‘These Alien Fish To Infect Our Stocks’

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Republican Rep. Don Young of Alaska says that Congress can’t allow “these alien fish to infect our stocks.”

The FDA has already allowed to infect the entire food supply with GMOs, but at least there is some common sense left.

And don’t think your organic food is safe:

– USDA National Organics Program: Testing for GMOs NOT Required!!!

– US: Organic Consumers Association Funded by Big Pharma and Rockefeller! Food Freedom Betrayal!

Yet there is no other choice than to buy organic food, because everything else is already totally contaminated (not only with GMOs), unless you start growing your own organic garden.

WASHINGTON — Fearing for the wild salmon industry in the Northwest, Democratic Sen. Patty Murray of Washington state wants to stop the Food and Drug Administration from making a quick decision on whether to approve genetically modified Atlantic salmon for human consumption.

Republican Rep. Don Young of Alaska says that Congress can’t allow “these alien fish to infect our stocks.”

Murray and Young are part of a growing bipartisan coalition on Capitol Hill that’s out to stop a Massachusetts biotechnology company from winning federal approval to sell its fast-growing fish, which critics are calling “Frankenfish.”

“I’m very concerned this is being rushed through with massive potential for negative ramifications,” Murray said.

Two pieces of legislation have been introduced in Congress: The first would ban the fish outright, while the second would require it to be labeled as transgenic if the FDA approves it.

So far, the legislation has the backing of 64 environmental and other organizations, including fishing associations, retailers and the Center for Food Safety, an advocacy group.

Read moreGenetically Altered Salmon Spook Northwest Lawmakers: Congress Can’t Allow ‘These Alien Fish To Infect Our Stocks’

Mysterious Infection Is Killing BC Salmon

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Large numbers of sockeye salmon are dying in the Fraser River, before spawning, because of a mysterious virus, new research suggests.

Historical records show that some fish always die en route to their spawning beds, but since the early 1990s the problem has become increasingly acute – with more than two million fish dying in some years. Researchers have long puzzled over what was causing the seemingly healthy fish to suddenly stop swimming and turn belly up.

A large team of researchers from the federal Department of Fisheries and Oceans and three Canadian universities has now found most of the fish that die before spawning have a common “genomic signature” – or a pattern that shows changes have taken place in an array of genes activated to fight infection.

Read moreMysterious Infection Is Killing BC Salmon

Tens of Thousands of Bald Eagles Disappear From The West Coast

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VANCOUVER – Tens of thousands of bald eagles that usually gorge on the late season chum salmon in rivers from Alaska to Vancouver have been forced from their usual feeding grounds by poor salmon runs, according to wildlife biologist David Hancock.

While the Brackendale eagle count registered only 627 birds in 2010 — its forth consecutive year under 1,000 after peaking at nearly 4,000 in 1994 — Chehalis [Harrison] attracted a record 7,400 eagles, more than double the normal count due to a moderately successful coho run.

The disappointing numbers at Brackendale are only a microcosm of what is going on right up and down the coast, said Hancock. As many as 50,000 eagles are searching for food and may range as far as the Mississippi River to find it.

Based on a count he conducted Monday (today), Hancock reckons that as many as 800 eagles are feeding at Boundary Bay and the Vancouver Landfill in Delta.

“I have about 100 eagles in front of me right now at Boundary Bay,” Hancock said. “They are all desperately looking for something as an alternative [to chum].”

Read moreTens of Thousands of Bald Eagles Disappear From The West Coast

10 Freakiest Things About Frankenfish

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This article was written by the Organic Consumers Association’s Political Director, Alexis Baden-Mayer. To take action to stop Frankenfish, please click here.

10. Frankenfish Aren’t Animals, They’re “Animal Drugs”

Obama’s FDA is regulating genetically engineered salmon, a genetically modified organism (GMO) that is the first of its kind, not as an animal, but as an animal drug. Normally, a veterinary drug would be used for health purposes, but there’s no therapeutic benefit associated with jacking up an Atlantic salmon with the genes of a Chinook salmon and the eel-like ocean pout to make it grow twice as fast. On the contrary, genetic engineering increases the salmon’s mortality, disease and deformity. So, why would the FDA treat a the first genetically engineered animal for human consumption like a drug? The idea came from the biotech industry. They knew that the FDA’s animal drug process would keep companies’ “proprietary” information secret, while limiting public participation and downplaying food safety concerns. Genius.

9. The GMO Part of the GMO Salmon Isn’t Being Safety Tested

Since 1992, the FDA has operated under the legal fiction created by the Bush-Quayle Administration that there is no risk associated with the human consumption of genetically engineered plants and animals. The FDA explains that DNA is Generally Recognized as Safe, so genetically engineered DNA is safe, too, and it doesn’t have to be safety tested. Source: FDA’s Statement of Policy – Foods Derived from New Plant Varieties (PDF)

8. Frankenfish DNA Could Change the Bacteria of Your Gut

A human study conducted by the UK’s Food Standards Agency found that consuming genetically engineered soy can result in “horizontal gene transfer,” where the bacteria of the gut takes up the soy’s modified DNA. With GMO salmon, the bacteria of our digestive tracks could take up the engineered salmon genes, but the FDA isn’t looking into whether this would happen or how it might effect our health.

7. If It Swims Like a Salmon, FDA Says It’s Safe to Eat

Instead of reviewing the safety of consuming genetically engineered salmon DNA, the FDA food safety review is a simple quacks-like-a-duck-style comparison of genetically engineered and normal salmon for hormone levels, nutrition, and allergenic potency.

6. FDA Lets the Frankenfish Company Test Its Own Product’s Safety

Read more10 Freakiest Things About Frankenfish

FDA Refuses to Require Labeling of GM Salmon

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And the justification for that is that dumb Americans don’t need to know what they eat, or what?

gm-salmon-nears-us-approval

(NaturalNews) As the FDA stands poised to approve genetically modified (GM) salmon safe for public consumption, the next logical question concerns how GM salmon would be labeled. Would the fish come with a large red warning that says, “Genetically modified salmon”?

As it turns out, no. In fact, the FDA has already gone on the record stating it will not require any special labeling of genetically modified salmon. You, the consumer, just have to take a wild guess because you’re not allowed to know what you’re really eating.

The biotech industry takes this absurdity one step further by claiming that labeling GM foods would just “confuse” consumers. David Edwards, the director of animal biotechnology at the Biotechnology Industry Organization, explained it in this way: “Extra labeling only confuses the consumer,” he says. “It differentiates products that are not different.”

Except that they are different. If they were really no different, then AquAdvantage company wouldn’t be growing them. The whole point of genetically modified salmon is that they are modified with extra growth hormone genes to make them grow more quickly. I don’t know where David Edwards is getting his information, but in the rest of the world, when something is different, that means it’s different.

If it’s no different, then why are so many GM salmon processes patented? If it’s no different, there would be nothing to patent. The entire purpose of a patent is to make a legal claim that “we invented something different” and we own the monopoly rights to it.

The GM salmon industry can’t have it both ways, you see. They can’t claim it’s so unique that their technologies and animals should be proprietary or patented, yet when it comes to food labeling, they claim there are no differences. It’s either different or it isn’t, and in the case of GM salmon, only an outright liar would look you in the eye and claim GM salmon is identical to regular farmed salmon or wild-caught salmon.

FDA insists on keeping people in the dark

The FDA, for its sad part in this saga, claims that it would be against the law to require the honest labeling of GM foods. This agency claims that since GM salmon is identical to regular salmon (it’s “no different” once again, they say), they can’t require it to be labeled any differently.

Read moreFDA Refuses to Require Labeling of GM Salmon

GM Salmon Nears US Approval

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– US: GM Salmon May Go On Sale:

Among the considerations by the FDA is whether, if the fish is approved for consumption, it must be labelled as genetically engineered.

Consumer groups fear green light for engineered species will bring environmental disaster to the oceans

gm-salmon-nears-us-approval
A genetically modified salmon, rear, and a non-genetically modified salmon, foreground. Photograph: AP

Buried in a prospectus inviting investors to buy shares in a fledgling biotech company is an arresting claim attributed to the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organisation.

“Commercial aquaculture is the most rapidly growing segment of the agricultural industry, accounting for more than $60bn sales in 2003. While land-based agriculture is increasing between 2% to 3% per year, aquaculture has been growing at an average rate of approximately 9% per year since 1970.”

Read moreGM Salmon Nears US Approval

US: GM Salmon May Go On Sale

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Food and Drug administration begins 60-day process to approve animal critics call a ‘frankenfish’

gmo_salmon
A genetically-modified AquAdvantage salmon, top, next to a control salmon of the same age. (AP)

US authorities today began the process to approve the first GM animal for human consumption.

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) announced a 60-day period of consultation and public meetings over whether to permit a GM strain of salmon to be eaten by humans, even though it has been called a “frankenfish” by critics. The approval process could take less than a year, and if it gets the green light the fish could be on the market in 18 months.

Environmentalists and scientists see the decision as marking a threshold. If it is approved it is likely to open the door to a large range of GM animals being raised for consumption. If not, scientists say that will have a negative effect on research, in part because there will be no money to be made from it.

Among the considerations by the FDA is whether, if the fish is approved for consumption, it must be labelled as genetically engineered.

– GMO Alert: US Attempting Global Censorship of GMO Food Labeling

The AquAdvantage salmon – a modified North Atlantic salmon – has been created by AquaBounty Technologies in Boston, Massachusetts, over 14 years at a cost of $50m. The company says the salmon grows at twice the speed of similar fish, cutting costs for farmers and greatly increasing production.

Read moreUS: GM Salmon May Go On Sale

Summer has been one of Alaska’s coldest

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High temperatures this season were 3rd lowest on record

Summer is officially over in Alaska, and if you got out in the sun to enjoy both days of it you were lucky.

Those were the two July days the temperature at the offices of the National Weather Service in Anchorage hit 70 degrees or better.

Read moreSummer has been one of Alaska’s coldest

Commercial salmon fishing banned off western US

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Seattle – US regulators on Thursday ordered a ban on all commercial salmon fishing off California, Oregon and Washington in an emergency effort to help the decimated salmon population to recover. Under the terms of the ban only limited recreational salmon fishing will be allowed on holiday weekends off the Oregon coast.

According to official figures the salmon stock is at a historic low point as fewer and fewer fall chinook, or king salmon, have been returning to the Sacramento and Klamath rivers, over the last three years. The dismally low numbers have not been seen since 1954 and 1964, state officials say.

Fishermen and scientists blame three main factors for the shortfall. Mismanagement of the rivers, whose waters are often dammed and diverted to irrigate fields; overfishing, and the absence of up normal ocean upwelling – which usually stirs up tons of the ocean’s offshore nutrients which are the essential food needed by young salmon to survive.

Fri, 11 Apr 2008 04:18:01 GMT

Source: earthtimes.org

Chinook Salmon Vanish Without a Trace

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SACRAMENTO – Where did they go?

The Chinook salmon that swim upstream to spawn in the fall, the most robust run in the Sacramento River, have disappeared. The almost complete collapse of the richest and most dependable source of Chinook salmon south of Alaska left gloomy fisheries experts struggling for reliable explanations – and coming up dry.

Whatever the cause, there was widespread agreement among those attending a five-day meeting of the Pacific Fisheries Management Council here last week that the regional $150 million fishery, which usually opens for the four-month season on May 1, is almost certain to remain closed this year from northern Oregon to the Mexican border. A final decision on salmon fishing in the area is expected next month.

As a result, Chinook, or king salmon, the most prized species of Pacific wild salmon, will be hard to come by until the Alaskan season opens in July. Even then, wild Chinook are likely to be very expensive in markets and restaurants nationwide.

Read moreChinook Salmon Vanish Without a Trace