The United States is expected to approve GM salmon within the next week. The US government is in its final stage of deliberations on whether to allow commercial production of the GM meat and fish.
It’s developed by using a growth hormone gene and a gene taken from the ocean pout. The fish is sterile, and would be raised in a series of large scale tanks. If approved, the salmon would be the first of 30 or more potential GM fish currently under development that could hit the market.
Biotech Corporations like AquaBounty seem to garnish the power of persuasion when it comes to dealings with the United States government. Many major “food and health corporations”, like Monsanto, always have major politicians that lobby for them.
Major AquaBounty shareholder, the Intrexon Corporation (1) is owned by a major pharmaceutical company called Clinical Data Inc. After Intrexon purchased Avalon Pharmaceutical Inc, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Clinical Data Corp (2). Maybe our overall human health numbers are declining because the pharmaceutical companies that own our food want to make a profit? There is a multi-trillion dollar incentive there. Maybe it’s not all about money? Maybe something else is going on?
So called experts that are supporting the push for GM salmon and meat use the concepts of world hunger as justification for production. World hunger is not a problem that stems from a shortage of food. We have more than enough resources to make sure everyone on the planet receives what the human body requires. What North America throws away alone could feed the entire planet. The money that’s spent on War could eradicate world hunger. Since world hunger is not due to the shortage of food on our planet, we don’t need to manufacture more, that seems to be a mainstream media myth. We have to be careful what we put in our bodies, GMOs are modified using chemicals and in the end we are choosing to consume DNA altering food.
Not only is there opposition from a large portion of humanity that do not approve of GMOs, supermarkets, consumer organizations, environmental groups and commercial fishermen are voicing their disappointment. Supermarket chains like the Whole Foods Market will not sell genetically modified salmon.
It seems as if the entire food supply has been taken over and put in the hands of a small group of corporations. We continue to step away from real, natural healthy foods in exchange for genetically altered, unnatural food developed by pharmaceutical companies. Conflict of interest, wouldn’t you say?
Sources:
1) http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/84d6ffe2-4061-11e2-8e04-00144feabdc0.html#axzz2S4J9FLE3
