GMO salmon frankenfish and screamer disease

On September 19, 2010, a Food and Drug Administration (FDA) advisory committee considered the approval of the first transgenic farm animal for human consumption, the AquAdvantage Salmon. Genetically engineered for rapid growth with two stretches of foreign DNA, a growth hormone gene with an antifreeze protein promoter, these Atlantic salmon “frankenfish” hold a 20-fold growth advantage over non-genetically modified animals.¹

The FDA notes evidence of  “increased frequency of skeletal malformations, and increased prevalence of jaw erosions and multisystemic, focal inflammation” in the tissues of AquAdvantage Salmon.  However, the FDA dismisses these findings as “within the range observed in rapid growth phenotypes of non-genetically engineered Atlantic salmon.” In other words, the abnormalities they found were no worse than those currently plaguing farmed salmon genetically manipulated for accelerated growth through other means.²

Up to 80 percent of factory-farmed salmon in Chile, where most of our Atlantic salmon is imported from, have suffered from what the aquaculture industry calls “screamer disease,” in which severe facial disfigurements lock their jaws permanently agape.³

In Norway, another major exporter to the United States, “humpback” spinal compression deformities have been found in 70 percent of salmon operations.⁴ Twenty different types of spinal malformations have repeatedly been found in factory-farmed Atlantic salmon.⁵ These abnormalities have been linked to the physiological stressors of intensive production.⁶

The fact that the “variety of inflammatory and degenerative lesions” found in AquAdvantage Salmon “are mostly consistent with diseases of intensively reared fish”² should be recognized as an indictment of the system rather than a justification for perpetuating these problems.

Comparing the latest version of bio-engineered transgenic salmon to factory-farmed fish produced with existing reproductive technologies rather than salmon in natural environments may only further entrench these practices with serious welfare repercussions.

Ironically, the biotech company that invented AquAdvantage Salmon argues that the list of health disorders their fish suffer from could be seen as an advantage in that “any escapees from containment would be less capable of surviving.”² These genetically modified fish grow at such a rate that the metabolic demands might help preclude their survival in nature, make them less likely to create ecological havoc should they escape into the wild.

Concern about transgenic farm animals doesn’t end at the waters edge. The FDA’s logic for evaluating biotechnology could mean approval for transgenic calves born so freakishly huge that they can only be extracted via Caesarian section. There are breeds of such genetically defective “double-muscled” cattle that have been created.⁷

Chickens have already been bred for such rapid muscling that billions suffer in chronic pain every year in the United States from skeletal disorders that impair their ability to even walk and so a transgenic avian cripple would fit right in using the FDA’s rationale. Right now, hens lay so many eggs that they risk prolapse, laying their own uterus.⁷

Up to a quarter of dairy cows are clinically lame and turkeys are now so top-heavy that they are physically incapable of mating.⁷ All of these abominations exist today, products of conventional techniques of genetic manipulation. Genetic engineering, the creation of transgenic farm animals whose genes have been modified through biotechnology, goes a step further, giving agribusiness an additional tool to stress animals to their biological limits at the expense of their health and welfare.

Michael Greger, M.D., is a physician, author, and Director of Public Health and Animal Agriculture at the Humane Society of the United States.  See Dr. Greger’s DVDs.

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1. ABT. 2010. Environmental Assessment for AquAdvantage® Salmon.

2. FDA. 2010. AquAdvantage^® Salmon Briefing Packet.

3. Roberts RJ, et al. 2001. Screamer disease in Atlantic salmon, Salmo salar L., in Chile. J. Fish Dis. 24: 543-549.

4. Kvellestad A, et al. 2000. Platyspondyly and shortness of vertebral column in Atlantic salmon… Dis. Aquat. Organ. 14:97–108.

5. Witten PE, et al. 2009. Towards a classification…of vertebral body malformations in Atlantic salmon…Aquaculture 295:6-14.

6. Aunsmo A, et al. 2009. Modelling sources of variation and risk factors for spinal deformity in farmed Atlantic salmon…Prev. Vet. Med. 90(1-2):137-45.

7. Greger M. 2010. Transgenesis in Animal Agriculture J. Agric. Environ. Ethics DOI: 10.1007/s10806-010-9261-7.

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