The release came, FDA sources say, in response to the publication of an investigation in Slate by the Genetic Literacy Project two days before, on December 19. The GLP, which I head, had reported that the FDA had definitively concluded last spring that the fish would have “no significant impact” on the environment and was “as safe as food from conventional Atlantic salmon.” However, the draft assessment, dated April 19, 2012, was not released–blocked on orders from the White House.
The seven month delay, sources within the government say, came after discussions late last spring between Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sibelius’ office and officials linked to Valerie Jarrett at the Executive Office, who were debating the political implications of approving the GM salmon. Genetically modified plants and animals are controversial among the president’s political base, which was thought critical to his reelection efforts during a low point in the president’s popularity.
h/t Odd Man Out
Cool! Where can I buy some of this Chinook x Atlantic salmon?
Ah, the art of sciencology. A mash-up of science, religion and politics. I often wonder what sort of physics will be spawned from this faith. Think about that the next time you cross a newly designed bridge.
The world should outlaw the GMO salmon. Don’t trust anything the FDA says. This is a totally corrupt organization which works as a doorkeeper for well-heeled corporations acting like bullies. Science is great but in the corporate/government world, science has been hijacked by those with deep pockets. They get the results they want, ignore the ones they don’t want to see and push projects into the public domain long before there’s been enough long-term research.
This is a good example of bipartisan Lysenkoism. The Dems stall to keep their green electorate under control and the Alaskan Republicans fight it because they are in the pocket of the commercial fishing lobby. Another example of why the state should not be involved in commerce, science, and religion (in this case, green theocracy).
Any scientific reasons indicating what’s wrong with GMO salmon? (My background is IT. If I may ask what is yours?)
Science prevails only if it suits the left wing agenda that day. You really only need to read Solzhenitsyn to understand how leftism of all stripes functions.
They don’t give a flying f*** about science, or progress, or solving problems, or human suffering. They care about obtaining, maintaining, and exerting power. And destroying those who oppose them.
That means us!
The delay was probably about negotiating how much cash Monsanto was supposed to stuff the attache cases with to get an approval. When so much $$ is at stake, things need to be lubricated with palm oil.
Rizwan –
Don’t hold your breath waiting for a scientific rationale from the GMO haters. Their war on human well-being arises from their hatred for society. Anything that benefits society, they are against.
I’m skeptical of anything from “GM”.
Solutions to the world hunger / overpopulation problem are developing:
http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/12/31/us-norovirus-idUSBRE8BU05N20121231
norovirus – a disease one British expert describes as “the Ferrari of the virus world”.
“Norovirus is one of the most infectious viruses of man,” said Ian Goodfellow, a professor of virology at the department of pathology at Britain’s University of Cambridge, who has been studying noroviruses for 10 years.
“It takes fewer than 20 virus particles to infect someone. So each droplet of vomit or gram of feces from an infected person can contain enough virus to infect more than 100,000 people.”
“Norovirus is very contagious and very unpleasant.”
What makes this such a formidable enemy is its ability to evade death from cleaning and to survive long periods outside a human host. Scientists have found norovirus can remain alive and well for 12 hours on hard surfaces and up to 12 days on contaminated fabrics such as carpets and upholstery. In still water, it can survive for months, maybe even years.
The good news, for some, is that not everyone appears to be equally susceptible to norovirus infection. According to Goodfellow, around 20 percent of Europeans have a mutation in a gene called FUT2 that makes them resistant.
The bad news, virologists say, is that the virus changes constantly, making it a moving target for drug developers. There is also evidence that humans’ immune response to infection is short-lived, so people can become re-infected by the same virus within just a year or two.
“There are many strains, and the virus changes very rapidly – it undergoes something virologists call genetic drift,”
I don’t really care what they genetically engineer as long as it says so on the label. The fact that the companies are reluctant to do that makes me very suspicious of what they’re hiding.
I’m an avid west coast salmon fisherman. I’m also a conservationist who put money where my mouth is and lost it due to the duplicitous nature of ‘ecologists’.
Years ago we invested in a state of the art salmon farming system that used very efficient salt water pumps and enclose neoprene ‘bags’ – similar to the stuff that inflatable boats are made from. The system eliminated a whole host of problems that environmentalists claimed they were concerned about. Most importantly, it eliminated the loss of excess feed and excrement to the sea floor. Because the pumps could pick up water from the surface down to about 60ft., they could ensure clean, temperature controlled fresh water that created a vortex in the bags – meaning that the fish were required to swim against a current, reducing stress and increasing flesh quality. Because the bags were opaque, there were no issues with seals or sea lions and the fish were never alarmed by these natural marauders of the sea.
The bottom line however was that the environmentalists were not looking for better technologies – in fact these were antithetical to their goal of crippling and eliminating the ‘corporatist sea farm industry’.
They cut off their nose to spite everyone else’s face and cost well-meaning investors about $8 million dollars.
They claim they’re all for wild salmon, but if salmon farming were eliminated, one of two things (or both) would happen. There would be increasing pressure on the wild stock to replace those millions of pounds of farmed salmon, or prices for wild salmon would go through the roof. BTW a fillet of sockeye salmon runs about $17 as it is.
The last time real science was National in scope with real Men like Dyson, Einstein etc., not small labs hither & yon by struggling official heretics by consensus lab coats.. Was when America went to the Moon. Most research or University science these days is the slag of Marxist ideology called consensus science. Left by a decaying civilization run by retards.
Its not even science fiction, just modern Mythology.
You still have real progress being made despite the Persecution by what passes as institutions of thinking turned to degradation, or political corruption. Its not a Periclean age. Nor the genius of the beginning of the 20th century with its maverick scientists of real intelligence anymore. Least of all a Renaissance period of discovery.Its a collective of mental midgets, who are so tainted by politics they have become collaborators in out right lies. Not a one of them seek truth, only to justify fantasies that make them money. With theories that only a dog would throw up.
Computers are the exception, till they to are regulated into imbecility by the fakes.
You get more real knowledge these days from a fossil, because thats what it has become. An appendage of Political correctness.