Thursday, September 16, 2010

Genetically Modified Salmon?!!

What can I say, inspiration has hit again for the second time in the same year.

Coming in from morning run, and as I turned on my James Taylor music and turned off the TV, the announcement was that the FDA is contemplating approval of genetically modified salmon. According to the developer of the GMO salmon, the fish that have been grown thus far are not any different from wild caught salmon. The salmon's DNA has been spliced with the Growth Hormone gene from the Chinook salmon and the 'antifreeze" gene from the Ocean Pout to allow rapid growth. The Ocean Pout gene allows it to grow in cold temperatures, where Atlantic Salmon usually stop growing when season changes. The genetically modified fish will grow to full size in 18 months instead of 3 years due to the all year round eating behavior of the Ocean Pout when the Altlanic Salmon usually feeds aggressively in spring and summer. (Sounds like some major league baseball players) Supposedly the fish behaves and tastes like wild Atlantic Salmon, and scientists for the company state the only difference is the extra gene. They claim due to the dwindling salmon population and the increasing human population numbers, lab created fish will provide economic windfall to the fish industry in addition to providing more omega 3 fish oil sources and thus cut back on heart disease. (A biotech company that is actually thinking about world health sounds like an oxymoron to me). It brings up the problem with Monsanto the pesticide company patenting genetically modified corn and soybean seed. This biotech company created a seed that would live through application of pesticide. Only problem like the Gentically Modified salmon, to get the gene from one species into another, you have to fool the living beings immune system. Plants, fish and humans share the same built in mechanism for the living being to protect itself from bad gene replication. The human DNA replication system will seek out unusual genes and destroy them, those mutant gene lines that evade destruction usually mutate to form tumors or cancer. So when foreign dna is introduced by simple cutans splice and the cell doesn't recognize, immune killer cells seek and destroy the mutated cell. The way Monsanto scientists were able to get the pesticide resistant gene portion into normal seed was by piggy backing the short gene on a virus. Virus' are great at infiltrating the cell and taking over the replication in the DNA center-the nucleus of the cell. The job of a virus is to infiltrate a host cell, take over DNA control and produce mass amounts of more virus to be shed in the host until usually the host dies-(ie, swine flu, influenza). Once the virus/piggyback gene gets transcribed within the normal DNA sequence, it becomes invisible to the killer cells and the mutation begins. Good for the seed and fish industry but the concept the environmentalists are worried about, what happens to the virus that helped the "gene" get past the "bouncers"? Well, the virus also gets passed along in the Geneticall Modified Organism. The virus gets passed to all the offspring of the seed/fish as well as all those other wild seed or fish that cross breed with the mutant seed/fish. More importantly all those that eat the GMO or its offspring/crossbreeds will also be digesting and absorbing the virus. No one has been able to prove that piggybacking a virus, then absorbing/implanting any altered DNA will have implications to the human. But do your own research and listen to "your gut" regarding the idea of eating anything made from a biotechnology company. If there was no concern of money and you had two fish to choose from for the family dinner, would you pick organic or genetically modified and why?

One would think that creating a lab food source to bypass nature would save alot of "steps". Problem comes in side stepping nature. Nature has told the Atlantic salmon to decrease its appetite during certain seasons to balance the eco system and allow ebb and flow to occur. It could be likened to restocking the feeder fish in a pond, allow those small fish to repopulate so the next season, the next new batch of big fish have food to eat. The genetically modified fish are to be kept in locked in ponds and tanks but as a Purdue computer program calculated, if 60 lab fish were allowed to mix with 60,000 wild fish, the wild fish would be extinct in 40 generations. That would mean an entire planet of genetically modified fish, remember if they eat all year round, they have to eat something. Do your own research and listen to "your gut".

Finally, talk to the families with MS, Lymphatic Cancer, Lupus, Celiac disease or any other autoimmune diseases that are "on the rise". Read on GMO's, Monsanto, what exactly it means to be certified organic, why support local farmers, what transfats are, what grass fed means, why choose free range chickens. (Watch the film Dying to have Known) The Saguil Approach; a patient has to be his or her own advocate because there will be no one else to blame for poor decisions made in haste or ignorance. When I talk to my families about buying organic, I understand the price differences and feel it personally as well. I would love to buy all organic but it's too expensive. I used to lecture at Whole Foods and loved going there in the 90's when one opened up next to my Central Dupage Office. Problem is that although the arrangement of the veggies was very market-like, and the meat/fish/poultry sections had the best looking products raised grass fed or wild caught; I couldn't afford all "fancy food". The flip side is I felt low in my energy, emotion, sleep and concentration if I binged on 6-10 cheap, take out meals a week. So I would take a deep breath, plan on getting some food groups here some food groups there, but most importantly, I would keep it as my choice. I still "own" the decision of what I pick, I can take responsibility for what I prepare for my family. I let my patient families know at this point, they too can still make a choice on what is healthy (just have to do a little reading). As I mentioned in my last posting, choosing the easy way out, the cheapest way out may be necessary for the time being but usually at the sacrifice of something else later. Do what you think will be healthy in the long run, listen to "your gut" follow "your heart".