FAT, FALLOW, TRIPLOID FISH!

Bless my bones! The Times Colonist has actually paused for a moment in its never ending praise of the lords of commerce and brought a subject to the attention of the masses that might actually benefit our health to know about (Modified Salmon can breed with fish in the wild TC July 15.) This article is a reprint, more like a filler, not to be confused with an actual TC reporter doing any investigative work for the paper. Which the Times Colonist wouldn't allow anyway.

And the reprint didn’t get it quite right. Modified fish are already being offered for human consumption. They are already in fifty per cent of the fresh water lakes in BC (Fresh Water Society of BC.)These fish are called triploids because by treating the fish eggs shortly after fertilization, instead of developing with two different sets of chromosomes which is normal, the fish develop three. In the wild, a triploid fish is exceedingly rare and is always sterile. However, there is no assurance that these vast numbers of artificially triploided fish recently introduced into our lakes cannot reproduce in the wild.

The government of BC is stocking our lakes with these abnormal triploid fish because it makes a good photo-op for the fIsher people when one of these fish is caught. As triploid fish become adults without going through sexual maturity they get very fat. Would the government bother to tell fishermen that they are catching and eating abnormally fat fish with shriveled testes and ovaries? Good Lord, no. That would upset people. Still, it is the hormonally treated fish that worry me the most.

In his paper “Hormones and Sex Control in Fish with Particular Emphasis on Salmon” Dr. Edward Donaldson from the West Vancouver Laboratory tells us that in order to get all female salmon in farm pens:

“…all female populations can be produced by direct treatment with natural or synthetic estrogens.”

And Dr. Donaldson goes on to cite the experiments he is involved with that use the most potent of the estrogens which is estradiol, and a synthetic estrogen called ethynylestradiol. Remember the research scientists in the book OUR STOLEN FUTURE who told us that estradiol was so potent that it could affect life in the womb even if ingested in parts per trillion? From my own research there isn’t even a measuring device that can register parts per trillion of estradiol. How can Dr. Donaldson assure us with any degree of certainly that there wouldn’t be any residues of artificially imposed estrogen in the flesh of hormonally treated salmon that could have disastrous effects on a human fetus? Or toddlers? Or adults?

The biggest company behind the creation of “Frankenstein Salmon” or “Franken Fish” is an American company called AquaBounty. This company not only uses growth hormones that affect the way estrogens are utilized in the bodies of the fish, they actually slice the fish genes to produce a creature that grows at least twice as fast, sometimes even three or four times as fast, as normal salmon.

Experiments are being done here in Canada for AquaBounty. With Canadian money. And they are not just experiments. AquaBounty has a production facility on Prince Edward Island. And guess what? AquaBounty has also received a $2.9 million dollar grant from the Canadian government to assist in their research and production.

That’s $2. 9 million dollars of our money to help transform our sweet natural salmon that nourishes our bodies, minds, and hearts into…what? Into fish monsters that may cause birth defects, add to the burden of estrogen fed cancers, and may feminize men. This is what the Harper government is promoting and what our BC government has latched onto with gusto. ( The fish shown may or may not be a triploid.)