my name is maria logan and i work with food and water watch and salmon aid foundation and i'm here today to talk to you all about genetically modified salmon it's an emerging risk to wild salmon populations and to human health and also educate you all and some of the that you can help us stop this fish before it reaches the market so i work at food and water watch we're a national nonprofit consumer advocacy organization and we do work that challenges corporate control of food and water resources we do work to keep it in public hands we do a lot of work from behind the scenes research to policy analysis and community organizing throughout the nation and we've got to get policies that guarantee safe food clean water and healthy oceans we have offices in washington d c and san francisco which is where i'm based and satellite offices throughout the country in addition to my work with food and water watch we also work with salmon aid foundation this is a pretty broad coalition of west coast organizations everything from environmental river protection groups to native american tribes commercial fishing organizations and sport fisherman and we're all united around the shared cause of wild salmon protections and protection for the rivers that they depend upon so i'm here today on behalf of both of those organizations and going to be talking about genetically engineered salmon most of you may have heard by now that the food and drug administration is considering approval of a genetic engineered creature that would be the first ever genetically engineered animal for human consumption and there are a number of different concerns that i want to outline for all of you here today including the risks to wild fish in the environment the risks to the commercial fishing industry and the risks to consumers and human health so i'll be outlining all of those today and then moving on to a discussion of what we can do to stop this fish before it is approved and a quick note of clarification you may hear me using genetically engineered and genetically modified interchangeably they have essentially the same meaning so let's start with the how how this fish is produced there are ocean pout there are deep water cold water fish and scientists that produced antifreeze these these anti freeze genes allow the fish to survive in very cold water this fish is a very very distant relative of salmon in fact it would never have the potential to be able to breed naturally in the wild with these fish so that's sort of the how now let's get into the why well the company that produces this is called aqua bounty they're based out of massachusetts and they have publicly stated that they believe this fish will help to address world food insecurity food and water watch and it's made we're pretty concerned that this is a fallacious argument it's one we've seen in the company's press releases in the media you know the fundamental argument that you can produce food to feed the world with genetic  questionable at best and particular when it comes to farmed salmon even regular farmed salmon require two three even four pounds of wild fish for each pound that they grow and the ratio would be even more skewed for a genetically engineered salmon that grows faster and therefore requires more nutrients so if you envision small fish that make up the base of the food chain the sardines the mackerel and herrings those sorts of fishermen haydon all of these fish from the base of the food chain they're essential to a productive ecosystem and when these fish are captured and masts and ground up and produced into fish oil and fish meal and fed to farmed fish what you end up is that with what you end up with is a net marine imbalance in terms of the protein that you're putting in versus what you're getting out so the idea that this fish this genetically modified fish will help to feed the world is a very questionable argument secondly aqua bounty's frank h what we like to call it is really promoting an industrial food production system and we're pretty concerned about that as far as as far as the factory fish farming industry goes it's expanding  farm salmon has been growing since the one nine hundred ninety s and especially in countries like norway and she lay and even here in washington off our coasts here so what we're concerned about is we see this factory farming model that nonprofit and there are some pretty deep moral and ethical problems when a company intends to profit off of a form of engineered life and i would even argue this is fundamentally different from what we see with genetically engineered crops this is a living breathing creature and they would own the material that produces this new species so those are some of the arguments as to why the fish is being produced scale of difference of this fish because it has the growth motor gene and the antifreeze gene it's able to grow even during the cold winter months and that's what makes this fish fundamentally different from a natural salmon so because of all of these issues i want to talk about some of the impacts that there are on the environment and wild fish populations the first has to do with escapes and i've already mentioned before that the farmed salmon industry is pretty into torrijos in terms of environmental destruction the same would hold true of a genetically engineered salmon but the risks are even more magnified so awkward on to his claims that they intend to produce fish in a land based farming environment however this is a company's promise that's not backed up by any legislation or requirements by the food and drug administration which is currently reviewing this fish so whether or not it actually follows through on this is open to its own scription essentially even if they do hold to their claim that they will produce these fish in land based farms there it is important consider that you know the example that we've seen  in the environment in the past forty years for example in the one nine hundred sixty s there were pink salmon being grows grown in closed containment facilities on land in michigan off of the great lakes and what happened there was essentially human error there was a pool of waste water that the technicians there for managed to flush out into a local stream what they didn't realise is that there were viable salmon eggs in that production system that then managed to grow and propagate and establish a viable population in the great lakes that's just one example they never intended to introduce the fish to that ecosystem but they are now there the same could hold true of this new to me engineered salmon all it takes is one mistake one time that there is spend human error and we will have th fish in the environment the company's attempts to assuage consumers that their fish are low risk shouldn't fool you we should really be thinking twice about what these promises actually mean when it comes to stability of the company has promise that the fish will be sterile but at what rate can we actually guarantee sterility the company says they can achieve about ninety five percent surreality rates is that really enough that if they're talking about sales of ten million eggs like they were in two thousand and one that would be five hundred thousand fertile eggs that could develop into fish that can then escape and again all it takes is one escape to introduce this foreign genetic material into the environment these are all some of the concerns that we have around the environmental risks of this new species and finally there's the trojan gene hypothesis there is a scientist who has published research indicating that if a genetically engineered fish manages to escape into the wild it could lead to the extinction of wild fish and farmed genetically engineered salmon fish within forty generations so that is a pretty significant number to consider especially when you know the typical salmon life cycle is about three to five years  two that could happen pretty quickly so let's move on to some of the impacts that we foresee with regards to commercial fishing there could be a lower consumer demand if consumers fear seeing this product on the market  especially given the fact that it is not currently required to be labeled that something i'll be getting into in a little bit but for now keep that in mind if this fish does manage to be approved then we could end up with you know consumers who are avoiding salmon entirely just because they don't know and they're concerned about the risks to their own health and to the environment of consuming this fish food and water watch commissioned a poll last november november of two thousand and ten and we found that seventy eight percent of consumers don't want to eat genetically engineered fish and that's a very significant number it cut across party lines that cut across gender everything basically that you could account for it's a pretty wide standing opposition that we're seeing to genetically engineered fish in the  marketplace another thing to consider is that this could really impact commercial fishing as an industry and that's a huge cause for concern because it brings billions into our economy every year especially in coastal areas in the west coast to spend alaska in norway what happened was as that industry began to blow up and really export that factory farming model into the oceans we saw a glut of farm sand on the marketplace and this was before we had an idea of the environmental  concerns the general education wasn't out there yet about what the risks this fish could have and so what happened was the prices plummeted for commercial fisherman and a number of them went out of business they were no longer able to fish for salmon because there was no  competition in the marketplace with regards to a fish that be produced artificially cheaper with externalized costs on the environment so it took about ten years maybe a full decade really for wild salmon to regain the price premium that it now has for being a higher quality fish that's healthier for you and for the environment as far as other risks to commercial fishing industry is there is of course the risk of genetic pollution and the risk that this fish could the genetically engineered salmon could pollute genetic diversity in wild stocks and perhaps lead to a lack of competition and finally there's the monsanto problem the question of who owns this fish there are rumors that monsanto goes after farmers whose fields have been contaminated by genetically engineered crops that they didn't plant the same thing could potentially hold true this is speculation but there is a risk that if aqua bounty owns this fish in the genetic material and it manages to escape into the environment interbreed with wild stocks and a commercial salmon fisherman catches a fish and it is found to have the marker at the marker gene who owns that fish that's the question these are all some of the concerns that we have around the commercial impact next i want to touch on some of the concerns to human health and the reasons why a lot of people are refusing to eat this fish if it makes it to market the first thing i already mentioned is that it's not required to be labeled right now the next thing is that there have been really inadequate studies as regards to whether this fish is suitable for consumption just to start it off basically the food and drug administration approval process is really flawed so they have no protocol to analyze genetically engineered animals and so they're considering this application as if it were veterinary drug so if you can just sort of imagine that essentially what that means is the same process that a hormone might go through in order to be approved for injection into cows to help them produce more milk that's the same means by which they are intending to evaluate this genetically engineered fish we think that's very concerning and has huge implications on human health and as far as the actual studies that have been done there have been four that the f d a has evaluated publicly one of those is an academic study that is twenty years  old so clearly out of date with modern technology and the other three were all commissioned by the company that intends to profit off of this fish they're all commissioned by a bounty so what we've seen is some really just a lack of basic independent evaluation of whether this genetically engineered salmon is going to be safe for human diet nutrition how it's just did all of these things that are cause for concern there is a risk of allergenicity a risk that this fish could have higher levels of hormones so to explore that briefly a consumer who might be allergic to the you know like ocean pout might not know that they are eating a genetically engineered salmon that contains those genes and it could lead to an expansion of seafood allergies something that we're concerned about especially given the fact that it's not required to be labeled consumers won't have the ability to choose to avoid this fish in the marketplace except by the knowledge that this fish will be farmed exclusively until or unless it manages to make it into the wild  finally there is a risk of lower omega three s as i mentioned this company that's producing the fish wants to take a bad industry the salmon farming industry and make it worse farmed salmon are already known for having lower omega three s than their wild counterparts and the same could hold true of the genetically engineered salmon in fact it probably will because they'll be fed the same feed whether it's farmed or genetically engineered there are more contaminants in concentrated feed that  being produced for salmon farms so when i mentioned the small marine fish earlier those fish that are ground up and produced into fish meal and fish oil those fish the small marine fish are fed as pellets to the farmed salmon those same pellets to be used to feed the genetically engineered fish and when you concentrate that many fish in such a small form you end up with possibly higher levels of mercury p c b as other contaminants that can be harmful to human health so again this fish will pose a number of risks to humans and that's why we're very concerned about this this fish making it into the marketplace so with all of these risks that i've just outlined i think the question that a bunch of you are thinking of right now is how soon could this actually happen and drug administration has circulated an internal memo earlier this month that recommends approval it's been in the media a little bit but that's still behind the scenes this document is headed to the office of management and budget next and approval could come as soon as the end of this year so this is a worst case scenario to be sure the f d a is not under any obligation to complete its analysis under any such timeline in fact they've been sitting on certain applications for upwards of ten years all of that in mind i wanted to talk as well about how we can stop this fish the good news is that there are a lot of different venues to stop it before it's approved there's a lot of important legislation to support so i'm going to outline three different categories of legislation that we working on with food and water watch with salmon aid and a coalition of groups that are opposed to this genetically engineered salmon the first category of these is senate bill two twenty nine and its counterpart in the house h r five twenty these bills would require labeling of genetically engineered salmon what we foresee is that if this is approved consumers are going to need some sort of protection to know when this fish is in the marketplace and make sure that it's labeled as such that's good but it's also not we'd much rather see an outright ban and that's why we're supporting senate bill two thirty and its corresponding bill h r five twenty one these bills would ban genetically engineered salmon altogether by deemed unsafe for human health and anything that i unsafe for human health the f d a is not allowed to approve finally there's a new piece of legislation that just came out this week that senate bill seventeen seventeen that would ban interstate commerce of this fish which is essentially equivalent to a ban because the fish would require production in multiple states in order to be sold and that's something over which congress has the authority to regulate these are all pieces of legislation that we're working to support i would encourage you all to take action today i've left postcards that all of your tables they're the pink and purple and you'll see and if difference and in fact i've got some good news to report on this front just in the last week i mentioned i'm out of san francisco and we've been working on our california senators since they tend to lead the way in environmental protection issues we've been pressuring  them sign on to this legislation and it has worked just this week senator feinstein announced that she will support sent a bill to thirty the bill that will ban genetically engineered salmon and that's an excellent first step we are still working on senator boxer she hasn't yet taken a position on senate bill two thirty however she did just this week signed on to the labeling legislation so there is a movement and a lot of that came in response to the thousands of consumers who voiced concern about this fish we set up a phone line that went directly to their offices we delivered thousands of petitions and meetings with their district offices all of these things make a difference and they need to hear from people like us to make sure that we know they know how we feel about the risks of this new species and so i wanted to connect you all with a couple of resources that we have food and water watch as website that's food and water watch dot org we have a number of research materials that we are making available to everyone there's an overview document called frankenfish that you can read that sort of touches on all of the concerns that i've already mentioned today there's also an issue brief that's specific to sort of rebutting the argument that genetically engineered salmon is going to solve world food insecurity and finally a report that we just released last week titled genetically engineered food and overview all of these materials are accessible online for free and you can check us out at food and water watch dot org so with that i would like to turn around to questions i want to make sure that this is interactive and that you all understood everything that i cover because it was a lot and i'm happy to take any questions at this time it's internal at this point so it hasn't been formally released about what the media's reporting is that the memo did recommend approval from there the best recourse that we have is to encourage our legislators to get on board with the legislation that i have recommended because they will have a more direct chance of stopping this rather than pressuring the f d a i'm not certain what happens after the  it if they deem it safe and according to the o m b a wire i will be the authority probably that's reviewing this after they approve it it should essentially become a public decision and the f d a will release a document and require comments on that over the important thing to consider by the f d a as a federal agency is that it's not directly accountable to the people whereas our senators are senators are the people that we're focusing on it food and water watch to make sure that they protect us from the risks of this new fish i try to keep track of because there's a lot of legislation i sometimes fall behind the ball servants to heaven team seventeen is brand new has several co sponsors already including i think  encouraging our senators to sign on to the ban legislation because we believe that's far more protective i've got all the numbers printed out for you in terms of which legislators are signed onto which and i'm happy to share that with you after the conference for other questions yeah there are independent scientists who have been reviewing this fish and they they have been releasing those reports but it's sort of coming down to a he said she said and the f d a is at this point not considering any outside analysis but we're hoping to encourage them to do is more independent more rigorous analysis than that which i already mentioned but to my knowledge i don't i don't know of any universities are pursuing that but that doesn't preclude them from actually just being doing it right now so that's another excellent point when it came to the fish that the f d a actually studied i mentioned that there was very little analysis the company that produces frankenfish off a bounty has had the opportunity to coal any deformed or diseased fish prior to the analysis the argument for that was that because we wouldn't be eating these deformed fish anyways that they don't need to be analyzed but that doesn't actually answer the the question of whether what the percentage rates of of disease are within the population of genetically engineered fish so if there are very high rates of disease in deformity then certainly about should be considered in the study and so because they were able to call and eliminate any fish from the discussion they didn't want there were a and abysmally small number of think it was maybe eight or ten fish that they did actually analyze so it's another very good point to bring up that's a good question to my knowledge it's not food and water watch we've been using that phrase and so has the center for food safety that we're working with very closely on this issue to my knowledge it's not a trademarked thing we can talk about that yeah and the white factor absolutely i mean there are millions of escapes from salmon farms every year and as i've mentioned aqua bounty wants to take a bad industry and make it worse and there's no guarantee that these fish want to escape in fact it's almost guaranteed that with time there will be some sort of human error some sort of escape  an earthquake incident something like that that will eventually release these fish into the wild with existing salmon off of culture about ninety to ninety five percent of salmon farming is done in open waters that's usually estuaries are areas where freshwater and marine ocean water meet and that's done in places like the coast of washington the fjords of norway and there are documented millions of fish that escaped every year  absolutely the salmon farming industry is very polluting when you consider the fact that they're cramming so many fish into such a small contained area and then pumping feed in the form of pellets this can produce a lot of waste and all the excretions all about can really an area especially when it is a protected area as you mentioned which they often favor so that it is more protected from the risk of tearing and that sort of thing in the nets it's true in an era of corporate dominance there are a lot of companies looking to evade environmental laws and statutes and they may end up being cheaper for them to pay the fines rather than to stop doing whatever they're doing and certainly a cause for concern that food and water watch in addition to fighting frankenfish we are also fighting the factory fish farming industry which has been trying to export as i mentioned the factory farming model into the oceans in these massive cages as large as eight stories tall in some cases this is already being tested in the waters off the coast of hawaii and we're fighting  keep this industry from developing out here on the west coast a couple of years ago we fought and successfully stopped for now a fish farm down in san diego that would have been really enormous producing a carnivorous fin fish that would require again and enormous amount of fish feed input in order to produce the final output it's a concerning trend and that's why we fight these issues would want to watch as to to keep our oceans safe and our food healthy and our water clean so other questions i'm not an expert on the actual process going forward with the effort within the f d a so i'd have to look that up and get back to you but to my knowledge there is generally a comment period there maybe but again the problem of the federal agency is that it reports to the administration in charge and unfortunately what we've seen is that the obama administration has been very gung ho on approving genetically modified foods of many kinds i mean just in the last few years i'll try to remember but sweet corn has just been approved this month that will be the very first corn that will be approved for human consumption directly the other forms of corn that monsanto has produced typically go into animal feeds  other other products that have been approved by the obama administration the past few years trying to remember but they were sugar beet thank you sugar beets alfalfa was a big one i mean there have been just a stream of them in the last several years so we're getting the feeling that this administration is very favorable towards genetically modified organisms and that's a cause for concern and that's why we think that recourse to our federal entity is may be more direct route