Sometimes Labels Are Good

 

 

A letter arrived in my mailbox last week from the Canadian Biotechnology Action Network warning that Health Canada and the Canadian Food Inspection Agency are proposing “to exempt some genetically engineered (genetically modified or GM) foods and seeds from regulation”.

Why have these government agencies decided to do this just now? And so quietly? Could it be because these agencies that are supposed to protect people’s health want to usher in quietly a new way of engineering GMO’s that are, in their disturbed minds, superior to the old ways of genetic engineering?  And need a very broad testing field?

The national news, as far as I know, haven't talked about it or made any kind of fuss about it. As the Canadian people have already proved ourselves to passively accept the role of Guinea Pigs in previous government experiences, we are being called upon to serve in this role once again, with very little hoopla. How can I make this claim?

We don’t have to look very far. If I may, I offer a bit of background. I first became aware that way back in the 70’s the Department of Fisheries and Oceans were working closely with BC fish farms to solve a problem that was rooted in nature. When the small fry come from the hatcheries the sexes are roughly evenly divided as in nature. However, when the salmon in the pens are getting close to harvest up to 20 per cent of the male salmon will “jack” early, that is, release their sperm early before the females are ready, and then the males die in the pens.  This is a financial loss to the fish farmers and a gain in the trouble of clearing the pens. The farmers appealed to the government for help.

What the fisheries and oceans people came up with was the beginning of the end of salmon’s proud history. Government biologist began their experiments. They came up with changing the sex of all salmon intended for fish farms to be all, or mostly, female. Trying to just sex them by just guessing the sex didn’t work. But something else did.  They would bath a few known female fry in testosterone, which effectively turned the females into males. They would produce sperm and act as males. But the eggs from the sex changed females would all (or most) also female as the sex change of their mothers did not change their female genes. Viola! Problem solved for the fish farms. 

We still have no idea of what the long-term practice of eating fish from sex changed mothers will have on the populace as the fish was never labelled as such. But the surely the hatcheries don’t do that anymore, right?

No, they do something far worse. They changed the genetic structure of the salmon eggs by slicing and dicing their genetic structures with genetic material from other sea creatures that make the salmon grow much faster, much stronger, and in much less time than natural salmon. These have become known as Frankenfish. They first came onto the Canadian market in August 2017. They came quietly with no national announcement and guess what? No labelling in the stores that they were GMO fish. Or any discussion the fact that this Frankenfish was born in tax supported Canadian universities, nurtured in Newfoundland, with the eggs now sold worldwide.

But there is one big difference. In Europe and even the USA, GMO fish must be labelled as such. But not in Canada.

Does that make you queasy? It should.

Next time.

 

For more information about how to demand ‘No Regulatory Exemptions’ for salmon in Canada, please visit The Canadian Biotechnology Action Network.