The lawsuit announced Thursday challenges the FDA's power to approve the salmon, which can be grown twice as quickly as natural salmon. The plaintiffs, represented by the Center for Food Safety and by Earthjustice, argue that the agency doesn't have the power to approve and regulate genetically engineered (GE) animals as "animal drugs" under federal law.
"Those provisions were meant to ensure the safety of veterinary drugs administered to treat disease in livestock and were not intended to address entirely new [genetically engineered] animals that can pass along their altered genes to the next generation," said Earthjustice.
The agency's decision marks the first time in the world that a GE animal has been approved for commercial sale and consumption, and critics worry that the decision could lead to environmental catastrophe if the salmon crossbreed with native fish.
"FDA's decision is as unlawful as it is irresponsible," George Kimbrell, senior attorney for the Center for Food Safety, said. "This case is about protecting our fisheries and ocean ecosystems from the foreseeable harms of the first-ever GE fish, harms FDA refused to even consider, let alone prevent. But it's also about the future of our food: FDA should not, and cannot, responsibly regulate this GE animal, nor any future GE animals, by treating them as drugs under a 1938 law."
The FDA approved AquaBounty's modified salmon with some restrictions. The company can only grow the fish in pens that are secured against their escape into the wild, and they are only allowed to be raised in two land locations in Canada and in Panama, according to the agency.
'Flagrant-False Advertising' #Chipotle sued over GMO-free claims http://t.co/rvzn0gow9X pic.twitter.com/lJrsL4B3oF
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In its approval announcement in November, the agency said that GE salmon from AquaBounty are "as safe to eat and as nutritious as food from other non-GE Atlantic salmon" and that there are "no biologically relevant differences in the nutritional profile of [the salmon] compared to that of other farm-raised Atlantic salmon."
Proponents of genetically engineering organisms argue that it leads to increased efficiency of food production. AquaBounty says that its new fish grow to market size using 25 percent less feed than normal Atlantic salmon.
Go ahead. Be my guest. Eat all the 'we're making a fortune' rubbish you can cram in. Come on chump, just go nuts. Corn dogs, tacos, ice cream, antibiotics, Prozac, pizza, Nexium, lotsa HFCS. Fat, slow, depressed and stupid. Can't' get Rover up without drugs. Haven't read a whole book in 20 years. What a sorry wreck of a nation.
This is how we settle scores. You just keep on that way and...die. Soon, preferably. You are self-inflicted damage. A low-orbiting entity. Pink Floyd wrote a song about you. You're all pissed off. But you can barely slug your diabetic lard ass, with a puffer, into an arena chair. No chance you will actually be doing anything more. Sanders socialists run circles around your pick up truck with nothing in the back.
Ventilate all you like. We'll wait you out. You'll do yourselves in. Go get another vaccine shot losers.