Buy Wild-Caught Salmon to Avoid the Many Dangers of Genetically Modified Frankenfish
While Congress was in the process of reviewing a bill that would ban the interstate trade of genetically engineered fish (1), even further evidence of its prudence came to light. Researchers revealed that AquAdvantage, an artificial salmon and case study for this bill, was found to be contaminated with Infectious Salmon Anaemea (1).
This disease, which has been known to cause epidemics with a 90% death rate in salmon farms, is only one of the many ecological dangers that this fish could pose. The Atlantic salmon that this “frankenfish” is based on has already been shown to be a serious environmental hazard when it escapes from its farms along the Pacific Coast. According to one survey by the Canadian government, nearly 400,000 salmon were reported to have escaped into the wild between 1991 and 2001, from British Columbia alone. Atlantic salmon have been thriving in the Pacific ever since, competing successfully against local species, and more importantly, spreading the massive outbreaks of lethal sea-lice and disease that form in their cramped, unsanitary conditions.
Farmed fish are not a good idea for many reasons. Add in genetically modified farmed fish and it becomes a horrible idea. Farmed seafood (like conventionally produced beef and chicken) are held in pens that barely allow for movement. The conditions are incredibly unsanitary and stressful. All this contributes to weakened immune systems and rampant disease (the worst being sea lice). Of course, the commercial fish farmer responds by feeding the salmon a variety of pesticides and antibiotics which, we know, is bad for us and the environment. Additionally, farmed salmon have an unappealing grayish tinge because they never eat their natural diet of krill that give wild-caught salmon their natural, pink flesh. Again, the fish farmer counters this problem by feeding the farmed salmon a chemical called canthaxanthin which turns the flesh into a more appealing, albeit unnatural, shade of pink. In fact, the farmer can pick the exact designer shade of pink he wants his salmon. This chemical has been banned in the U.K. for causing eye problems in some exposed to it and was originally sold as a sunless tanning pill for humans.