Fishy Business

Fishy Business



By Elizabeth Szlek

For the Rome Observer: September 13, 2010

I started getting all sorts of messages from many different sources a couple of days ago. Something bad is afoot in America, and I fear we will all be the worse for it.

Many of you have read my articles on genetically modified (GM) foods. Here in America, most of us are quite complacent about the fact that we are consuming all sorts of genetically modified foods, such as corn, soy, beets and other foods. In Europe, however, there is a great resistance to these “Frankenfoods”, as they are called, for the simple reason that no one on earth knows what impact they will ultimately have on both our bodies and our environment. The gloomiest among us feel that these “new” products can eventually kill us all. Others point to such reactions as allergies, novel reactions, altered nutritional status, other significant health problems (such as the tryptophan debacle of some years back) or even death. Not small issues.

Some weeks ago, some Spanish anti-GM activists completely destroyed a vineyard, the first in the country, which was planted with GM vines. This made the news all over the world. But, wait, did you hear about it in the mainstream media. I think not.

Vested interests in promoting GM foods in America have done a really great job of keeping these kinds of things from the consciousness of us all, by simply controlling the media. If we don’t learn about it, we don’t have to worry, right?

A Fish Story

Because I am at the one year mark in my self-imposed research study of what constitutes true nutrition for humans, I have come to believe certain things. One is, for sure, that GM foods are not good for our planet, for our bodies, and especially, for generations of children to come. So, in the past couple of days when I started reading up on the latest scary news, I decided I had to share it with all of you. Here is the story:

The FDA, remember them? The agency charged with protecting Americans from harmful foods and drugs. Well, the FDA is poised to approve the first genetically engineered animal, salmon, for consumption by the American public. This is being done in a quite roundabout way, by considering the GM product, fish, as a veterinary drug, not as the food it actually is. And, it is being done with minimal disclosure to the public. And it is happening right now. The hearings are scheduled to begin on September 19th. Veterinary drug approval happens behind closed doors, with little requirement to release data to the public. Thanks….\

The company pushing this is AquaAdvantage, and what they have done is insert a gene from a much larger fish into the salmon so that it keeps growing and growing and growing, and thereby producing more fish, or more bang for the buck. Exactly what kind of bang it will produce, in our bodies, is of course, not known. Again, as with all these genetic modifications, there is a cover story, and then there is the truth. For AquaAdvantage, the story is more food for hungry, starving people of the world. For others, these are some of the “advantages”:

AquaAdvantage says that the fish will be sterile. OK, but they will be so large, that other fish will be lining up to eat them first. And to breed with them first. This could crowd out the “normal” fish from breeding, and over time, they could die out. It is estimated that transgenic (GM) fish could cause the regular fish to die out in under twenty years.

That’s just a starter: Transgenic fish, while originally sterile, could mutate over time and become able to breed normally. This is one of the unknowns with all GM products. No one knows what will happen in ten or twenty generations. Things change.

Also, these would be farmed fish, supposedly, but farmed fish escape by the millions every year, to go back to the wild, and so we can assume that the GM fish would do the same in large numbers. So, now we have these GM fish escaping and breeding and eventually, because they are so large, taking over in all parts of the sea.

What Could Go Wrong?

So what? You can say "it doesn’t matter"! We’ll all benefit from the big fish. But remember, there are at present no safety data on these fish. Eating them could be extremely harmful to us in the ways other GM foods are harmful: Allergies, intestinal problems, damage to internal organs, unexpected production of toxins in the body, and then, of course, death.

It’s not hard to imagine all these things taking place, because they have all taken place already with other GM crops. Only thing is: These are fish out in the wide ocean. There is no controlling them, as with planting crops, and we know that even in that case, there is cross pollination going on, and these GM crops spread beyond their boundaries with ease. For example, in Oaxaca, Mexico, which was a treasure trove of hundred of different types of corn, many of these old heirloom varieties have been invaded by GM pollen and are producing GM corn.

If you understand anything about how the FDA works, you must understand that they approve first, and ask questions later. In this case, we can see Pandora’s box being opened and the ills of man’s insane belief in the wonders of science possibly being unleashed to harm us all.

Wild salmon, not farmed salmon, is one of the most wonderful foods humans can eat. It is beyond frightening that some company can get the approval by our FDA to go out and endanger a true gift of God.

If this information is troubling to you, and I can’t imagine that it is not, you can register your opinion at www.regulations.gov and go to Docket Number FDA-2010-N-0385. I hope you will implore them to leave the fish alone, and I pray they will listen, because there are other Frankenstein ideas waiting in the wings: Goat, pigs, trout and tilapia genetic modifications are ready to go! And there goes our food!



Elizabeth Szlek is a chef and has taught nutrition and healthy cooking. She is also the Director of The Door Counseling Center of Utica. Questions and comments can be directed to her at (315) 768-8900 or at info@thedoorcounseling.com.