Canada approves pigs resistant to porcine reproductive and respiratory syndrome viruses for use in food and feed
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Porcine reproductive and respiratory syndrome viruses (PRRSV) are one of the most devastating classes of viruses affecting farmed pigs, representing significant losses for Canada’s producers and higher prices at the store for Canadian consumers.
Today, Health Canada and the Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA) announced the completion of independent, comprehensive safety assessments on pigs resistant to PRRSV following applications from Genus PLC [sic] and PIC [Pig Improvement Company] Canada, Ltd., respectively. Health Canada has concluded that foods made from these pigs are as safe and nutritious for people to eat as pork currently available in Canada. The CFIA has confirmed that these pigs are also safe and effective for use in livestock feeds.
Improving resistance to PRRSV in pigs will help farmers avoid illness in their herds from these viruses, reduce antibiotic use, and improve animal welfare, while supporting a more stable, affordable and sustainable food supply.
Genus PLC’s PRRSV-resistant pigs are already permitted for food use in the U.S., Brazil, Colombia and the Dominican Republic. Genus PLC has indicated that even though Canada has approved the sale of PRRSV resistant pigs, the company does not intend to sell these pigs before further regulatory authorization in other key markets. The company and Health Canada are committed to the highest level of transparency and will communicate to the public when this new technology enters the Canadian market.
While genetically engineered foods are considered as safe and nutritious as conventional foods, the Government of Canada recognizes that information about genetic engineering is important. That is why we have been working with the Canadian General Standards Board since November [2025?] on a public review of the National Standard for labelling and advertising of foods that are, and are not, products of genetic engineering. The CFIA uses this Standard to provide its guidance to companies on the labelling of foods.
Quick facts
In 2024, the swine industry generated over $6.3 billion in farm cash receipts and Canada produced 2.34 million tonnes of pork and exported 1.45 million tonnes of pork.
As of January 1, 2025, there were 13.9M hogs on 6,885 Canadian farms.
PRRSV infections can cause severe symptoms in pigs like breathing problems, fever, the inability to eat, and can lead to stillborn piglets and death.
There are currently no effective treatments, and vaccination has only been partially effective.
In Canada, food labelling is required when there are well-established health risks or significant changes to the nutritional qualities of the food. For example, an allergen in a food must be labelled to alert consumers of the risk.
Because Health Canada found no health and safety concerns, no special labelling is required for foods from these PRRSV-resistant pigs.
In addition to the assessments noted above, in December 2025, the New Substances program—jointly administered by Environment and Climate Change Canada and Health Canada—determined that environmental and human health risks from indirect exposure to these pigs is no different from pigs currently available in Canada.
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Amina Zafar’s January 23, 2026 article of Canadian Broadcasting News (CBC) news online offers, in addition to information from the news release, detail about a previous attempt to introduce genetically modified food to Canadians, Note: Links have been removed,
Food made from pigs engineered to be resistant to a porcine virus are as safe and nutritious to eat as pork currently on the market, Health Canada said Friday.
Federal regulators announced pigs resistant to porcine reproductive and respiratory syndrome viruses (PRRSV) — which it called a devastating class of viruses in farmed pigs — are safe to use in food and livestock feeds.
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More than 25 years ago, scientists at Memorial University in Newfoundland developed a salmon that would become the first transgenic food animal approved for sale in Canada. Sold as AquAdvantage Salmon, the DNA came from Pacific salmon and the eel-like ocean pout.
At the time, the Council of Canadians said it was concerned about the amount of water extracted, effluent and transport of eggs between facilities.
Unlike the genetically modified salmon, the PRRSV-resistant pigs were created using CRISPR gene-editing technology that makes precise genetic changes without introducing genetic material from another species, scientists say.
“This is the first gene-edited animal that has been approved for commercial sale in Canada,” said Gwendolyn Blue, a professor in the geography department at the University of Calgary who studies the politics and values surrounding gene editing.
While Blue recognizes the advantages PRRSV-resistant pigs could bring, she’s also notes there are ethical, moral, cultural and political questions surrounding the approval, such as how assessments about safety were made, as well as Canada’s updated biotechnology regulations.
“One of the concerns that people have had within a Canadian context is labeling,” she said. “There is no mandatory labeling and this is something that is currently under review.”
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While there is a Winnipeg-based PIC (Pig Improvement Company) branch, the North American offshoot of the company (UK’s Genus plc) is headquartered in the US state of Tennessee. I quite appreciate the detail offered in the PIC January 23, 2026 news release,
Today Health Canada and the Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA) approved PIC’s PRRS-resistant pigs for sale as food in Canada after rigorous and thorough review. Additionally, Environment & Climate Change Canada (ECCC) conducted its own review of the research and data and concluded that PRRS-resistant pigs may now be manufactured [?] or imported in Canada.
“We have spent years conducting extensive research, validating our findings and working with the Canadian government to gain approval,” said Matt Culbertson, PIC’s Chief Operating Officer. “Today marks a major milestone for consumers, farmers, and the entire pork industry who have hoped for relief from PRRS for decades.”
Review of Research and Data Confirms Safety
Health Canada and CFIA conducted scientific assessments that ensured the pigs are safe for consumption and do not differ from other pigs available on the market. Their evaluation led them to conclude that aside from the precise deletion of a small part of a gene involved in PRRS infection, the PRRS-resistant pigs are no different than other pigs.
Health Canada and CFIA further concluded that there are no differences in the nutritional value of the pork from PRRS-resistant pigs compared to other pork available for consumption.
How Removing Animal Disease Can Improve Animal Welfare
Porcine Reproductive and Respiratory Syndrome (PRRS) is one of the most devastating, global swine diseases. It causes needless suffering and premature death for pigs, negatively impacts animal welfare, exacerbates the need for antibiotics and increases the environmental impact of raising pigs.
“Addressing PRRS can allow us to improve animal welfare, reduce the need for antibiotics and decrease the environmental impact of raising pigs,” said Todd Wilken, PIC Director of North America Sales. “In fact, recent research indicates that PRRS increases the need for antibiotics by more than 2 times compared to pigs without PRRS.”1
PIC Has Earned Regulatory Clearance in a Number of Countries
Canada joins a growing list of countries that have deemed the gene edit safe and effective. The U.S. FDA approved the gene edit in April 2025, while Colombia, Brazil, Dominican Republic and Argentina have issued positive determinations for PRRS-resistant pigs, meaning those countries have recognized that the pigs are not GMO and should be treated the same as any other pigs.
“We are committed to the responsible and intentional introduction of the PRRS-resistant pig around the globe. Gaining approval in Canada is an important step in this process, and we are working with additional countries to gain regulatory approval and protect global trade prior to initiating sales and delivery,” said Culbertson.
PIC is a wholly owned subsidiary of Genus, a UK-based company, publicly traded on the London Stock Exchange.
Canadian consumers indicate above average purchase likelihood for pork from gene-edited pigs
Research conducted by Circana [US market research company] and commissioned by PIC in late 2025 found that there is an above average likelihood that Canadian consumers will purchase pork from gene-edited pigs.
The research polled more than 5,000 pork consumers from eight key countries, representative across genders and ages 18 to 70.
Circana found that 90% of Canadian consumers are open to purchasing pork from gene-edited pigs and that responsibly reducing the need for antibiotics ranked as the top motivator.
PIC (Pig Improvement Company) is the global leader in swine genetics. PIC provides genetically superior breeding stock to pig producers and supports them with technical services to help them realize genetic potential. PIC is a subsidiary of Genus, a UK-based company with a vision to pioneer animal genetic improvement to help nourish the world.www.pic.com
About Genus
Genus is a world-leading animal genetics company, supplying high-quality breeding animals with desirable characteristics to farmers, and enabling them to produce better quality meat and milk more efficiently to feed the world more sustainably. PIC is the porcine division within Genus.www.genusplc.com
Sources:
Isadora Machado, Thomas Petznick, Ana Paula S. Poeta Silva, Chong Wang, Locke Karriker, Daniel C.L. Linhares, Gustavo S. Silva. “Assessment of changes in antibiotic use in grow-finish pigs after the introduction of PRRSV in a naïve farrow-to-finish system.” Preventive Veterinary Medicine, 2024. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.prevetmed.2024.106350
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A bit disturbing, the change in terminology, that is. Since when do farmers manufacture pigs? Don’t they breed and/or grow pigs?
As for Canadians, this gene-edited pork will not be labelled under the current rules. Although that could change it may take a while as the government of Canada’s “Canadian General Standards Board conducts, since November [2025?], a public review of the National Standard for labelling and advertising of foods that are, and are not, products of genetic engineering.”
There was a bit of online excitement over the possibility that gene-edited pork would be entering the Canadian market soon. Environment and Climate Change Canada and Health Canada have a public consultation focused on the risk assessment process regarding the entry of gene-edited pigs into Canada’s food system. Before giving a link to the relevant government website, I have some information.
Factual
The best outline I could find was in Hailey Bennett’s July 10, 2025 article “US meat could soon be gene-edited. Here’s what that means” for British Broadcasting Corporation’s (BBC) Science Focus, Note 1: Bennett seems unaware that gene-edited pork may reach the Canadian market first; Note 2: Links have been removed,
From hot dogs to crispy bacon, US food staples could be made of gene-edited meat as early as 2026. Yes, really: the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) recently approved the farming of a specific kind of genetically enhanced pig. And regulators around the world may not be far behind.
So, should we be worried? Will this pork truly be safe to eat? And just how ethical is it to create these pigs?
The first thing you should know: not every gene-edited animal will be directly spawned from a lab. Rather, such livestock are merely bred from animals whose DNA was edited early on – often at the single-cell or fertilised egg stage [also known as germline editing] – to give them beneficial traits.
And no, this gene editing isn’t about making pork taste better –it’s about protecting pigs from disease.
For instance, British company Genus has now farmed pigs with a genetic tweak that makes them resistant to PRRS (Reproductive and Respiratory Syndrome), a virus that attacks pigs’ immune cells. PRRS is a major threat: it can kill piglets, trigger miscarriages in pregnant sows, and weaken pigs’ immune systems, leaving them vulnerable to other infections.
These genetically enhanced pigs are even less of a novelty when you consider there is no effective vaccine for PRRS.
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How heavily are these pigs being altered – and at what cost to their welfare? They’re fair questions. But in reality, the change is surprisingly minimal.
To stop the PRRS virus in its tracks, scientists snipped out a small section of pig DNA – part of the CD163 protein, which the virus uses to enter pig cells.
Pigs with the edited gene are resistant to almost all known strains of PRRS but are otherwise, Genus claims, “the same as conventional pigs”. And despite initial concerns that the virus could evolve to recognise and avoid the edited protein, that hasn’t happened so far.
According to Dr Christine Tait-Burkard, a Research Fellow at the University of Edinburgh’s Roslin Institute, who worked with Genus to develop the original gene-edited pigs, the natural CD163 protein they edited is “like nine beads on a string.” The edit removes only bead number five.
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As Tait-Burkard explains, the edit is one that could also be naturally present in some pigs. “The chances are that there’s a pig somewhere in the world that’s resistant to this virus,” she says. “But we just don’t have the time to naturally breed this in. That’s where we have to start using biotechnology to integrate it into the breeding herd.”
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In the 1990s and 2000s, genetically modified (GM) crops generated headlines and consumer concern about ‘Frankenfoods’. Ultimately, though, many GM crops were approved and the majority of scientists consider them safe to eat. These modified crops often carry foreign DNA – ‘Bt’ corn, for example, contains a gene from the bacterium Bacillus thuringiensis, enabling it to make a protein that kills insect pests.
The current generation of CRISPR-edited food products, by contrast, only contain changes that could naturally occur within the species. Scientists aren’t inventing entirely new kinds of pigs.
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Bennett’s July 10, 2025 article does a good job of covering the topic but I advise supplementing it with other pieces.
Canada and the gene-edited pig
Sylvain Charlebois’ July 3, 2025 article “Transparency is paramount as gene-edited pork approaches market launch” for Canadian Grocer takes what can seem like abstract questions about gene-edited pigs and applies them to real life issues, Note: I have two “[sic?]’s” as I have been unable to confirm when gene-edited pork is likely to enter the Canadian market. At a guess, Charlebois is saying that Canadian consumers are likely to get the products later in 2025,
In April [2025], the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved the commercial distribution of pigs genetically edited with CRISPR technology to resist porcine reproductive and respiratory syndrome (PRRS), a costly and widespread disease in pork production. These pigs are expected to enter the American market in 2026 [sic?]. Yet, Canadian consumers could start seeing gene-edited pork products in stores—unlabeled and unannounced—as early as next year [sic?].
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Canada imported more than US$850 million worth of U.S. pork last year, according to the National Pork Producers Council. So, regardless of Canadian regulatory decisions, gene-edited meat is coming. And yet, no label will tell you whether your pork chop or bacon came from a genetically altered animal.
That lack of transparency is precisely what Quebec-based duBreton, North America’s leading organic pork producer, is warning against. The company argues that gene editing is incompatible with organic and humane production standards—and more importantly, with informed consumer choice. Whether or not gene-edited meat poses a food safety risk isn’t the central issue. The issue is whether consumers have the right to know how their food was produced.
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… GM [genetic modification] technology has long been accepted in grain production. Genetically modified ingredients—largely from corn, canola and soy—are now commonplace in processed foods. These technologies have contributed to yield stability and lower input costs for farmers. But even in grains, labeling remains inconsistent, and the average consumer still doesn’t know which products contain modified ingredients.
What’s different in livestock is the emotional and ethical connection people have with animals and meat. A pork chop isn’t just a commodity—it represents values tied to animal welfare, sustainability and trust in the food system. That’s why gene editing in livestock raises more scrutiny than it has in crop science.
To be clear, gene editing isn’t inherently a bad thing. …
The failure isn’t scientific—it’s strategic. Rather than building a transparent narrative around innovation, the industry has often opted for silence, leaving the public to fill in the blanks. That vacuum has been seized by special interest groups, some of which traffic in fear and misinformation. The “Frankenfood” rhetoric may have been overblown, but it did shine a light on an ethical principle we should not ignore: consumers deserve to know.
Labeling gene-edited products is not about fear—it’s about trust. Informed choice is the cornerstone of any credible food policy. Consumers don’t need to be protected from innovation, but they do need to be respected. The question is not whether gene-edited meat should exist, it’s whether its presence should be hidden.
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Public engagement/consultation
Gwendolyn Blue’s (professor, University of Calgary) July 10, 2025 essay for The Conversation suggested more and better public consultation should be part of the process, Note: Links have been removed,
The Canadian government is currently considering approving the entry of gene-edited pigs into the food system.
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These pigs are resistant to porcine reproductive and respiratory syndrome (PRRS), a horrible and sometimes fatal disease that affects pigs worldwide. PRRS has significant economic, food security and animal welfare implications.
The United States Food and Drug Administration [FDA] recently greenlit the commercial production of gene-edited pigs. Will the Canadian government follow suit?
AquAdvantage and EnviroPig
In 2016, Canada approved the first transgenic animal for human consumption — an Atlantic salmon called AquAdvantage salmon that contains DNA from other species of fish.
This approval came more than 25 years after the genetically modified fish was created by scientists at Memorial University in Newfoundland. The approval and commercialization of AquAdvantage salmon faced strong public opposition on both sides of the border, including protests, supermarket boycotts and court battles. In 2024, the company that produced AquAdvantage salmon announced that it was shutting down its operations [emphases mine].
In 2012, the Canadian government approved the manufacture of a transgenic pig known by its trade name, EnviroPig. Created by scientists at the University of Guelph, EnviroPigs released less phosphorus than conventionally bred pigs.
EnviroPig did not make it to market; the same year, the University of Guelph ended the EnviroPig project. Funding for the project had been suspended, in part because of consumer concerns.
Government regulation
Some researchers argue that government regulation of gene-edited animals should be less restrictive than for transgenic techniques. Gene editing introduces genetic changes that can occur with conventional animal breeding that is not subject to regulation. Gene-edited crops in Canada are treated the same as conventionally bred crops.
Others insist that stringent government regulation is necessary for gene editing to identify potential problems and ensure that laws keep up with industry and scientific ambition. Regulation plays a vital role in minimizing risk, encouraging public involvement and building trust.
Social science research has, for decades, demonstrated that resistance to biotechnology is not because of the public’s lack of knowledge [emphasis mine], as is often argued by biotechnology proponents. Public resistance to biotechnology is better understood as a rejection of potential harms imposed by governments and industry without public input and consent [emphasis mine].
Ethical, moral, cultural and political concerns
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Similar to the U.S., Canada does not have specific gene technology regulation. Rather, the federal government relies on pre-existing environmental and food safety legislation. Canadian regulatory agencies use a risk, novelty and product-based approach to assess animal biotechnology. From a regulatory standpoint, distinctions between technical processes — like transgenic modification versus gene editing — are less important than the safety of the final product.
The Canadian government has recently updated its federal environmental and health regulations. This includes introducing mandatory public consultations for animals (vertebrates, specifically) created using biotechnology.
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… regulatory and academic debates about the gene editing of animals are largely informed by scientists and industry proponents with considerably less input from the public, Indigenous communities and social sciences and humanities researchers.
Consulting the public
From a social standpoint, the process by which gene editing is assessed matters as much as the safety of the final product. Inclusive public engagement is essential to ensure that the production of gene-edited food animals aligns with societal needs and values.
Reactions to gene technologies are based on underlying values and beliefs, and sustained opportunities for public reflection and deliberation are vital for responsible innovation.
Important questions should be addressed: Who will reap the benefits of gene-editing techniques? Who will bear the costs and harms? What are the potential implications, including hard-to-anticipate social and political changes? How should decision-making proceed to ensure that Canadians have sufficient opportunities for input?
Currently, for the gene-edited pigs, members of the public can submit comments to the government until July 20, 2025.
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Measured optimism and a lot of enthusiasm (two articles)
Geralyn Wichers’s April 3, 2025 article for The Western Producer provided more details and measured optimism,
Canadian consumers are largely fine with pork from gene-edited pigs — at least once the science and benefits are explained to them.
That’s according to new research from genetic development company PIC (Pig Improvement Company), which is using gene editing technology to develop a pig resistant to porcine reproductive and respiratory syndrome (PRRS).
A survey found that, after consumers read a description of gene editing in food and the PRRS-resistant pig, 49 per cent indicated positive or very positive sentiments, 38 per cent were neutral while 14 per cent were negative or very negative.
“Even though we’ve seen a lot of investments in things like vaccines and improved biosecurity, the problem is getting worse, not better,” said Banks Baker, PIC’s global director of product sustainability.
North America’s pork producers have been dealing with PRRS since the late 1980s. The viral disease causes respiratory issues in all ages of pigs. In breeding animals, though, it can derail reproductive performance.
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A 2024 study by University of Guelph researcher Lynn Marchand estimated the annual cost of PRRS to a benchmark Manitoban 1,200-sow farrow-to-finish farm could be $588,709 to $631,602 [Manitoba is a province in Canada].
In January 2024, Ontario saw more severe cases of PRRS than it had in two years, veterinarian Dr. Ryan Tenbergen recently told attendees at the South Western Ontario Pork Conference. New strains of the disease, infecting more easily and severely, were also popping up in the United States.
The industry argues that genetically modified organisms have garnered a reputation for being unsafe and unhealthy, despite scientific evidence to the contrary. Further, they argue, gene editing is different.
Genetic modification typically refers to adding genetic information from an outside source, whereas gene editing generally involves making small changes to the organism’s existing genome.
“GMO has had a long shadow,” said Marisa Pooley, PIC’s director of communications.
“We have used it as a case study to make sure that we’re putting the consumer at the centre of this.”
Consumers identified reducing animal illness and antibiotic use reduction as factors that would motivate them to purchase gene-edited pork.
They seemed to like the idea that gene editing could help farmers raise healthier animals more sustainably and to grow crops better able to withstand climate change. The idea that gene editing can be used to cure human diseases such as sickle cell anemia and cancer also improved feelings.
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John Greig’s May 29, 20s5 article had details not in the other articles and presented a more impatient attitude,
The approval in the United States for food use of pigs gene edited to resist Porcine Reproductive and Respiratory Syndrome, or PRRS, will be a good test for Canada’s year-old approval process for gene editing.
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I’ve talked to farmers who have dealt with PRRS outbreaks, and many herds in Canada have battled it over the past 35 years. The level of abortion and respiratory stress the disease causes is hard to watch for the people who care for the pigs every day.
The Canadian industry is now skilled at managing and eliminating the disease once it’s in a production system, but it takes one biosecurity break before it is back again.
A gene-edited solution to reducing PRRS would be a tremendous win for animal welfare, the mental health of farm workers, and farm business productivity and profitability [emphasis mine].
I’m interested to see how quickly the gene-edited pigs are approved for food use in Canada [emphasis mine]. It will be an interesting test case, as genetic modification of livestock is something the public has not accepted, despite the potential improvements in animal welfare and food safety.
Canada created a process that follows much of the rest of the world in approving gene editing through conventional approval processes when the expression of the gene is not novel. Gene editing works by turning on and off already-existing genes within an organism.
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There’s momentum in Canada to catch up to the rest of the world in speed of approval of new agriculture technologies [emphasis mine], as government and industry push to improve the country’s lagging productivity.
The successful discovery of the gene edit is a win for a swine genetics sector that has undergone significant consolidation in the past decade to the point where there are only a handful of swine genetics companies.
The consolidation was driven by the rise of big data analytics and the need to invest in technologies like gene editing.
The PRRS resistance gene editing process was developed by GenusPIC, itself a merger of two large breeding companies, Genus and Pig Improvement Corporation (PIC). Unfortunately, unlike the dairy sector where Semex, a Canadian company, is one of the major players in genetics, there are no more Canadian swine genetics companies of any scale. Alliance Genetics was acquired by Danbred in 2022 and Genesus, the last independent Canadian swine genetics company has been through a receivership process and is now under new ownership.
Regarding approval for new agricultural technologies, I wish Greig had specified or given examples. The gene-edited pork that was the topic of his article raises the question: how could Canada be trailing the rest of the world where gene-edited pork is concerned since no other country (to my knowledge) has approved it for the consumer market? Assuming it’s approved.
Share your thoughts: Participate in the risk assessment process for four lines of Gene Edited Pigs [emphasis mine]
The New Substances program, is seeking comments, including scientific information and test data that could inform the risk assessment process for four lines of gene edited pigs notified by Genus PLC on April 22nd, 2025. This consultation is open from June 20, 2025, to July 20, 2025 [emphasis mine]
NSN Numbers: 22051, 22196-22198
Substance designation of the organisms:
A gene edited Sus scrofa domesticus, Landrace descended from the L02 line, lacking a binding site for Porcine Reproductive and Respiratory Syndrome Virus (PRRSV)
A gene edited Sus scrofa domesticus, Large White descended from the L03 line, lacking a binding site for Porcine Reproductive and Respiratory Syndrome Virus (PRRSV)
A gene edited Sus scrofa domesticus, mix breed of Pietrain, Large White, Hampshire and Durocs descended from the L65 line, lacking a binding site for Porcine Reproductive and Respiratory Syndrome Virus (PRRSV)
A gene edited Sus scrofa domesticus, Duroc descended from the L800 line, lacking a binding site for Porcine Reproductive and Respiratory Syndrome Virus (PRRSV)
Subject to consultation requirements under section 108.1 of CEPA: Yes, the organism is a vertebrate.
Activity: The notified organisms are four genetically edited domestic breeds of pigs (scientific name, Sus scrofa domesticus) which include:
Landrace
Large White
Mix of Pietrain, Large White, Hampshire and Duroc
Duroc
They are notified for use in breeding with commercially raised pigs used for pork production.
Genetic modifications: All four lines of pigs have had their genomes edited to remove a binding site for the virus that causes porcine reproductive and respiratory syndrome PRRS. No new genetic material has been introduced to the notified organisms.
The gene editing is intended to remove the binding site for PRRS. Without this binding site, the virus is unable to bind and infect the host organism. PRRS is a highly contagious viral infection that is considered to be one of the most significant diseases in commercially raised pigs around the world. Currently, there is no effective treatment program for acute PRRS. The removal of the binding site for the PRRS virus from the notified organisms makes these pigs resistant to infection by the virus.
Exposure: According to the notifier, the pigs will be used for conventional breeding in commercial pig production systems in the same manner as non-edited pigs, to generate PRRS virus-resistant pig offspring for food and feed product use. The usage includes the import of animals derived from the edited pigs into production facilities in Canada. The notifier plans to maintain the animals under confinement and have described the biosafety and biosecurity procedures to be used at these facilities. There are no plans for any introduction into the environment outside production facilities
Waiver of information requirement: No waiver was requested.
Privacy Act Notice Statement
The personal information is collected under the authority of section 5 of the Department of the Environment Act and subsection 7(1) of the Financial Administration Act.
The New Substances Program, jointly administered by ECCC and Health Canada, is undertaking public consultation that could inform the risk assessment process for the four lines gene edited pigs. The information is collected, used and disclosed for the purpose of evaluating the potential risks posed by the gene edited organisms to the environment and human health. Information collected by ECCC will be retained by the department and shared with Health Canada for the purposes of the evaluation. Your participation and decision to provide any information is voluntary.
The personal information created, held or collected by Environment and Climate Change Canada is protected under the Privacy Act. Information from this consultation will be used, disclosed and retained in accordance with the conditions listed in the Personal Information Bank Outreach Activities PSU 938.
Any questions or comments regarding this privacy notice may be directed to ECCC’s Access to Information and Privacy Division at ECATIP-ECAIPRP@ec.gc.ca. If you are not satisfied that your privacy has been adequately respected, you have the right to file a complaint. You may contact the Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada by calling their information center at 1-800-282-1376 or by visiting their contact page.
Request for Confidentiality under CEPA
Please provide information in English or French. Your information may be summarized and published in part or in full. Pursuant to section 313 of CEPA, any person who provides information in response to New Substance Notification 22051, 22196, 22197, and 22198 may submit, with the information, a request that it be treated as confidential. A request for confidentiality must indicate which specific information or data should be treated as confidential, and it must be submitted with reasons taking into account the criteria referred to in subsection 313(2) of CEPA.
Include your name, affiliation, telephone number, e-mail and mailing address and use the following format in the title of your submission: Public Participation: [NSN number(s)] – [Substance Designation].
Join in: how to participate
All interested parties are invited to provide comments, including scientific information and test data related to potential risks to the environment or human health from the four lines of gene edited pigs. This information will be considered as part of the department’s assessment of the organism’s potential risks to the environment or human health, which is ongoing. A summary of the public comments received as well as the New Substances Program’s responses will be published once the evaluation has been completed.
By mail
Send us a letter with your comments and input to the address in the contact information below.
All people in Canada are invited to provide comments, including scientific information and test data that could inform the risk assessment process. Information that may inform the risk assessment process could include:
environmental fate information
ecological effects information
human health effects information or
exposure information (including sources and routes of exposure)
Science and Technology Branch Environment and Climate Change Canada Place Vincent Massey, 351 St. Joseph Blvd Gatineau QC K1A 0H3 Telephone: 1-800-567-1999 (Toll Free in Canada) or 1-819-938-3232 (Outside of Canada) E-mail: substances@ec.gc.ca
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Odds and sods
The Canadian Science Policy Centre (CSPC) ran an online panel “Navigating Geopolitical Shifts: Canada’s Innovation Strategy for Agriculture and Agrifood Sector” on May 21, 2025, which may or may not have included discussion of gene-editing. They have posted the video of the May 21, 2025 session (1.5 hours) online (or, should you be interested in some other session, you can check here)..
At long last, the end is in sight! This last part is mostly a collection of items that don’t fit elsewhere or could have fit elsewhere but that particular part was already overstuffed.
Podcasting science for the people
March 2009 was the birth date for a podcast, then called Skeptically Speaking and now known as Science for the People (Wikipedia entry). Here’s more from the Science for the People About webpage,
Science for the People is a long-format interview podcast that explores the connections between science, popular culture, history, and public policy, to help listeners understand the evidence and arguments behind what’s in the news and on the shelves.
Every week, our hosts sit down with science researchers, writers, authors, journalists, and experts to discuss science from the past, the science that affects our lives today, and how science might change our future.
THE TEAM
Rachelle Saunders: Producer & Host
I love to learn new things, and say the word “fascinating” way too much. I like to talk about intersections and how science and critical thinking intersect with everyday life, politics, history, and culture. By day I’m a web developer, and I definitely listen to way too many podcasts.
Created in 2007 with the generous funding of the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada Strategic Knowledge Cluster grant, Situating Science is a seven-year project promoting communication and collaboration among humanists and social scientists that are engaged in the study of science and technology.
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You can find out more about Situating Science’s final days in my August 16, 2013 posting where I included a lot of information about one of their last events titled, “Science and Society 2013 Symposium; Emerging Agendas for Citizens and the Sciences.”
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The “think-tank” will dovetail nicely with a special symposium in Ottawa on Science and Society Oct. 21-23. For this symposium, the Cluster is partnering with the Institute for Science, Society and Policy to bring together scholars from various disciplines, public servants and policy workers to discuss key issues at the intersection of science and society. [emphasis mine] The discussions will be compiled in a document to be shared with stakeholders and the wider public.
The team will continue to seek support and partnerships for projects within the scope of its objectives. Among our top priorities are a partnership to explore sciences, technologies and their publics as well as new partnerships to build upon exchanges between scholars and institutions in India, Singapore and Canada.
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The Situating Science folks did attempt to carry on the organization’s work by rebranding the organization to call it the Canadian Consortium for Situating Science and Technology (CCSST). It seems to have been a short-lived volunteer effort.
Meanwhile, the special symposium held in October 2013 appears to have been the springboard for another SSHRC funded multi-year initiative, this time focused on science collaborations between Canada, India, and Singapore, Cosmopolitanism and the Local in Science and Nature from 2014 – 2017. Despite their sunset year having been in 2017, their homepage boasts news about a 2020 Congress and their Twitter feed is still active. Harking back, here’s what the project was designed to do, from the About Us page,
Welcome to our three year project that will establish a research network on “Cosmopolitanism” in science. It closely examines the actual types of negotiations that go into the making of science and its culture within an increasingly globalized landscape. This partnership is both about “cosmopolitanism and the local” and is, at the same time, cosmopolitan and local.
Anyone who reads this blog with any frequency will know that I often comment on the fact that when organizations such as the Council of Canadian Academies bring in experts from other parts of the world, they are almost always from the US or Europe. So, I was delighted to discover the Cosmopolitanism project and featured it in a February 19, 2015 posting.
Expose a hitherto largely Eurocentric scholarly community in Canada to widening international perspectives and methods,
Build on past successes at border-crossings and exchanges between the participants,
Facilitate a much needed nation-wide organization and exchange amongst Indian and South East Asian scholars, in concert with their Canadian counterparts, by integrating into an international network,
Open up new perspectives on the genesis and place of globalized science, and thereby
Offer alternative ways to conceptualize and engage globalization itself, and especially the globalization of knowledge and science.
Bring the managerial team together for joint discussion, research exchange, leveraging and planning – all in the aid of laying the grounds of a sustainable partnership
Eco Art (also known as ecological art or environmental art)
I’m of two minds as to whether I should have tried to stuff this into the art/sci subsection in part 2. On balance, I decided that this merited its own section and that part 2 was already overstuffed.
Let’s start in Newfoundland and Labrador with Marlene Creates (pronounced Kreets), here’s more about her from her website’s bio webpage,
Marlene Creates (pronounced “Kreets”) is an environmental artist and poet who works with photography, video, scientific and vernacular knowledge, walking and collaborative site-specific performance in the six-acre patch of boreal forest in Portugal Cove, Newfoundland and Labrador, Canada, where she lives.
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For almost 40 years her work has been an exploration of the relationship between human experience, memory, language and the land, and the impact they have on each other. …
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Currently her work is focused on the six acres of boreal forest where she lives in a ‘relational aesthetic’ to the land. This oeuvre includes Water Flowing to the Sea Captured at the Speed of Light, Blast Hole Pond River, Newfoundland 2002–2003, and several ongoing projects:
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Marlene Creates received a Governor General’s Award in Visual and Media Arts for “Lifetime Artistic Achievement” in 2019. …
An October 1, 2018 article by Yasmin Nurming-Por for Canadian Art magazine features 10 artists who focus on environmental and/or land art themes,
As part of her 2016 master’s thesis exhibition, Fredericton [New Brunswick] artist Gillian Dykeman presented the video Dispatches from the Feminist Utopian Future within a larger installation that imagined various canonical earthworks from the perspective of the future. It’s a project that addresses the inherent sense of timelessness in these massive interventions on the natural landscape from the perspective of contemporary land politics. … she proposes a kind of interaction with the invasive and often colonial gestures of modernist Land art, one that imagines a different future for these earthworks, where they are treated as alien in a landscape and as beacons from a feminist future.
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A video trailer featuring “DISPATCHES FROM THE FEMINIST UTOPIAN FUTURE” (from Dykeman’s website archive page featuring the show,
If you have the time, I recommend reading the article in its entirety.
Oddly, I did not expect Vancouver to have such an active eco arts focus. The City of Vancouver Parks Board maintains an Environmental Art webpage on its site listing a number of current and past projects.
I cannot find the date for when this Parks Board initiative started but I did find a document produced prior to a Spring 2006 Arts & Ecology think tank held in Vancouver under the auspices of the Canada Council for the Arts, the Canadian Commission for UNESCO, the Vancouver Foundation, and the Royal Society for the Encouragement of the Arts, Manufactures and Commerce (London UK).
In all likelihood, Vancouver Park Board’s Environmental Art webpage was produced after 2006.
I imagine the document and the think tank session helped to anchor any then current eco art projects and encouraged more projects.
While its early days were in 2008, EartHand Gleaners (Vancouver-based) wasn’t formally founded as an arts non-for-profit organization until 2013. You can find out more about them and their projects here.
Eco Art has been around for decades according to the eco art think tank document but it does seemed to have gained momentum here in Canada over the last decade.
Photography and the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC)
Exploring the jack pine tight knit family tree. Credit: Dana Harris Brock University (2018)
Pictured are developing phloem, cambial, and xylem cells (blue), and mature xylem cells (red), in the outermost portion of a jack pine tree. This research aims to identify the influences of climate on the cellular development of the species at its northern limit in Yellowknife, NT. The differences in these cell formations is what creates the annual tree ring boundary.
Science Exposed is a photography contest for scientists which has been run since 2016 (assuming the Past Winners archive is a good indicator for the programme’s starting year).
The 2020 competition recently closed but public voting should start soon. It’s nice to see that NSERC is now making efforts to engage members of the general public rather than focusing its efforts solely on children. The UK’s ASPIRES project seems to support the idea that adults need to be more fully engaged with STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) efforts as it found that children’s attitudes toward science are strongly influenced by their parents’ and relatives’ attitudes.(See my January 31, 2012 posting.)
Ingenious, the book and Ingenium, the science museums
To celebrate Canada’s 150th anniversary in 2017, then Governor General David Johnston and Tom Jenkins (Chair of the board for Open Text and former Chair of the federal committee overseeing the ‘Review of Federal Support to R&’D [see my October 21, 2011 posting about the resulting report]) wrote a boo about Canada’s inventors and inventions.
Johnston and Jenkins jaunted around the country launching their book (I have more about their June 1, 2017 Vancouver visit in a May 30, 2017 posting; scroll down about 60% of the way]).
The book’s full title, “Ingenious: How Canadian Innovators Made the World Smarter, Smaller, Kinder, Safer, Healthier, Wealthier and Happier ” outlines their thesis neatly.
Not all that long after the book was launched, there was a name change (thankfully) for the Canada Science and Technology Museums Corporation (CSTMC). It is now known as Ingenium (covered in my August 10, 2017 posting).
The reason that name change was such a relief (for those who don’t know) is that the corporation included three national science museums: Canada Aviation and Space Museum, Canada Agriculture and Food Museum, and (wait for it) Canada Science and Technology Museum. On the list of confusing names, this ranks very high for me. Again, I give thanks for the change from CSTMC to Ingenium, leaving the name for the museum alone.
2017 was also the year that the newly refurbished Canada Science and Technology Museum was reopened after more than three years (see my June 23, 2017 posting about the November 2017 reopening and my June 12, 2015 posting for more information about the situation that led to the closure).
A Saskatchewan lab, Convergence, Order of Canada, Year of Science, Animated Mathematics, a graphic novel, and new media
Since this section is jampacked, I’m using subheads.
Saskatchewan
Dr. Brian Eameshosts an artist-in-residence,Jean-Sebastien (JS) Gauthier at the University of Saskatchewan’s College of Medicine Eames Lab. A February 16, 2018 posting here featured their first collaboration together. It covered evolutionary biology, the synchrotron (Canadian Light Source [CLS]) in Saskatoon, and the ‘ins and outs’ of a collaboration between a scientist an artist. Presumably the art-in-residence position indicates that first collaboration went very well.
In January 2020, Brian kindly gave me an update on their current projects. Jean-Sebastin successfully coded an interactive piece for an exhibit at the 2019 Nuit Blanche Saskatoon event using Connect (Xbox). More recently, he got a VR [virtual reality] helmet for an upcoming project or two.
Our Glass is a work of interactive SciArt co-created by artist JS Gauthier and biologist Dr Brian F. Eames. It uses cutting-edge 3D microscopic images produced for artistic purposes at the Canadian Light Source, Canada’s only synchrotron facility. Our Glass engages viewers of all ages to peer within an hourglass showing how embryonic development compares among animals with whom we share a close genetic heritage.
Eames also mentioned they were hoping to hold an international SciArt Symposium at the University of Saskatchewan in 2021.
Convergence
Dr. Cristian Zaelzer-Perez, an instructor at Concordia University (Montreal; read this November 20, 2019 Concordia news release by Kelsey Rolfe for more about his work and awards), in 2016 founded the Convergence Initiative, a not-for-profit organization that encourages interdisciplinary neuroscience and art collaborations.
Cat Lau’s December 23, 2019 posting for the Science Borealis blog provides insight into Zaelzer-Perez’s relationship to science and art,
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Cristian: I have had a relationship with art and science ever since I have had memory. As a child, I loved to do classifications, from grouping different flowers to collecting leaves by their shapes. At the same time, I really loved to draw them and for me, both things never looked different; they (art and science) have always worked together.
I started as a graphic designer, but the pursuit to learn about nature was never dead. At some point, I knew I wanted to go back to school to do research, to explore and learn new things. I started studying medical technologies, then molecular biology and then jumped into a PhD. At that point, my life as a graphic designer slipped down, because of the focus you have to give to the discipline. It seemed like every time I tried to dedicate myself to one thing, I would find myself doing the other thing a couple years later.
I came to Montreal to do my post-doc, but I had trouble publishing, which became problematic in getting a career. I was still loving what I was doing, but not seeing a future in that. Once again, art came back into my life and at the same time I saw that science was becoming really hard to understand and scientists were not doing much to bridge the gap.
For a writer of children’s science books, an appointment to the Order of Canada is a singular honour. I cannot recall a children’s science book writer previous to Shar Levine being appointed as a Member of the Order of Canada. Known as ‘The Science Lady‘, Levine was appointed in 2016. Here’s more from her Wikipedia entry, Note: Links have been removed,
Shar Levine (born 1953) is an award-winning, best selling Canadian children’s author, and designer.
Shar has written over 70 books and book/kits, primarily on hands-on science for children. For her work in Science literacy and Science promotion, Shar has been appointed to the 2016 Order of Canada. In 2015, she was recognized by the University of Alberta and received their Alumni Honour Award. Levine, and her co-author, Leslie Johnstone, were co-recipients of the Eve Savory Award for Science Communication from the BC Innovation Council (2006) and their book, Backyard Science, was a finalist for the Subaru Award, (hands on activity) from the American Association for the Advancement of Science, Science Books and Films (2005). The Ultimate Guide to Your Microscope was a finalist-2008 American Association for the Advancement of Science/Subaru Science Books and Films Prize Hands -On Science/Activity Books.
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To get a sense of what an appointment to the Order of Canada means, here’s a description from the government of Canada website,
The Order of Canada is how our country honours people who make extraordinary contributions to the nation.
Since its creation in 1967—Canada’s centennial year—more than 7 000 people from all sectors of society have been invested into the Order. The contributions of these trailblazers are varied, yet they have all enriched the lives of others and made a difference to this country. Their grit and passion inspire us, teach us and show us the way forward. They exemplify the Order’s motto: DESIDERANTES MELIOREM PATRIAM (“They desire a better country”).
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Year of Science in British Columbia
In the Fall of 2010, the British Columbia provincial government announced a Year of Science (coinciding with the school year) . Originally, it was supposed to be a provincial government-wide initiative but the idea percolated through any number of processes and emerged as a year dedicated to science education for youth (according to the idea’s originator, Moira Stilwell who was then a Member of the Legislative Assembly [MLA]’ I spoke with her sometime in 2010 or 2011).
As the ‘year’ drew to a close, there was a finale ($1.1M in funding), which was featured here in a July 6, 2011 posting.
The larger portion of the money ($1M) was awarded to Science World while $100,000 ($0.1 M) was given to the Pacific Institute of Mathematical Sciences To my knowledge there have been no followup announcements about how the money was used.
Animation and mathematics
In Toronto, mathematician Dr. Karan Singh enjoyed a flurry of interest due to his association with animator Chris Landreth and their Academy Award (Oscar) Winning 2004 animated film, Ryan. They have continued to work together as members of the Dynamic Graphics Project (DGP) Lab at the University of Toronto. Theirs is not the only Oscar winning work to emerge from one or more of the members of the lab. Jos Stam, DGP graduate and adjunct professor won his third in 2019.
A graphic novel and medical promise
An academic at Simon Fraser University since 2015, Coleman Nye worked with three other women to produce a graphic novel about medical dilemmas in a genre described as’ ethno-fiction’.
Lissa: A Story about Medical Promise, Friendship, and Revolution (2017) by Sherine Hamdy and Coleman Nye, two anthropologists and Art by Sarula Bao and Caroline Brewer, two artists.
As young girls in Cairo, Anna and Layla strike up an unlikely friendship that crosses class, cultural, and religious divides. Years later, Anna learns that she may carry the hereditary cancer gene responsible for her mother’s death. Meanwhile, Layla’s family is faced with a difficult decision about kidney transplantation. Their friendship is put to the test when these medical crises reveal stark differences in their perspectives…until revolutionary unrest in Egypt changes their lives forever.
The first book in a new series [ethnoGRAPIC; a series of graphic novels from the University of Toronto Press], Lissa brings anthropological research to life in comic form, combining scholarly insights and accessible, visually-rich storytelling to foster greater understanding of global politics, inequalities, and solidarity.
I hope to write more about this graphic novel in a future posting.
New Media
I don’t know if this could be described as a movement yet but it’s certainly an interesting minor development. Two new media centres have hosted, in the last four years, art/sci projects and/or workshops. It’s unexpected given this definition from the Wikipedia entry for New Media (Note: Links have been removed),
New media are forms of media that are computational and rely on computers for redistribution. Some examples of new media are computer animations, computer games, human-computer interfaces, interactive computer installations, websites, and virtual worlds.[1][2]
In Manitoba, the Video Pool Media Arts Centre hosted a February 2016 workshop Biology as a New Art Medium: Workshop with Marta De Menezes. De Menezes, an artist from Portugal, gave workshops and talks in both Winnipeg (Manitoba) and Toronto (Ontario). Here’s a description for the one in Winnipeg,
This workshop aims to explore the multiple possibilities of artistic approaches that can be developed in relation to Art and Microbiology in a DIY situation. A special emphasis will be placed on the development of collaborative art and microbiology projects where the artist has to learn some biological research skills in order to create the artwork. The course will consist of a series of intense experimental sessions that will give raise to discussions on the artistic, aesthetic and ethical issues raised by the art and the science involved. Handling these materials and organisms will provoke a reflection on the theoretical issues involved and the course will provide background information on the current diversity of artistic discourses centred on biological sciences, as well a forum for debate.
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VIVO Media Arts Centre in Vancouver hosted the Invasive Systems in 2019. From the exhibition page,
Picture this – a world where AI invades human creativity, bacteria invade our brains, and invisible technological signals penetrate all natural environments. Where invasive species from plants to humans transform spaces where they don’t belong, technology infiltrates every aspect of our daily lives, and the waste of human inventions ravages our natural environments.
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This weekend festival includes an art-science exhibition [emphasis mine], a hands-on workshop (Sat, separate registration required), and guided discussions and tours by the curator (Sat/Sun). It will showcase collaborative works by three artist/scientist pairs, and independent works by six artists. Opening reception will be on Friday, November 8 starting at 7pm; curator’s remarks and performance by Edzi’u at 7:30pm and 9pm.
New Westminster’s (British Columbia) New Media Gallery recently hosted an exhibition, ‘winds‘ from June 20 – September 29, 2019 that could be described as an art/sci exhibition,
Landscape and weather have long shared an intimate connection with the arts. Each of the works here is a landscape: captured, interpreted and presented through a range of technologies. The four artists in this exhibition have taken, as their material process, the movement of wind through physical space & time. They explore how our perception and understanding of landscape can be interpreted through technology.
These works have been created by what might be understood as a sort of scientific method or process that involves collecting data, acute observation, controlled experiments and the incorporation of measurements and technologies that control or collect motion, pressure, sound, pattern and the like. …
Council of Canadian Academies, Publishing, and Open Access
Established in 2005, the Council of Canadian Academies (CCA) (Wikipedia entry) is tasked by various departments and agencies to answer their queries about science issues that could affect the populace and/or the government. In 2014, the CCA published a report titled, Science Culture: Where Canada Stands. It was in response to the Canada Science and Technology Museums Corporation (now called Ingenium), Industry Canada, and Natural Resources Canada and their joint request that the CCA conduct an in-depth, independent assessment to investigate the state of Canada’s science culture.
I gave a pretty extensive analysis of the report, which I delivered in four parts: Part 1, Part 2 (a), Part 2 (b), and Part 3. In brief, the term ‘science culture’ seems to be specifically, i.e., it’s not used elsewhere in the world (that we know of), Canadian. We have lots to be proud of. I was a little disappointed by the lack of culture (arts) producers on the expert panel and, as usual, I bemoaned the fact that the international community included as reviewers, members of the panel, and as points for comparison were drawn from the usual suspects (US, UK, or somewhere in northern Europe).
Science publishing in Canada took a bit of a turn in 2010, when the country’s largest science publisher, NRC (National Research Council) Research Publisher was cut loose from the government and spun out into the private, *not-for-profit publisher*, Canadian Science Publishing (CSP). From the CSP Wikipedia entry,
Since 2010, Canadian Science Publishing has acquired five new journals:
Canadian Science Publishing offers researchers options to make their published papers freely available (open access) in their standard journals and in their open access journal, (from the CSP Wikipedia entry)
Arctic Science aims to provide a collaborative approach to Arctic research for a diverse group of users including government, policy makers, the general public, and researchers across all scientific fields
FACETS is Canada’s first open access multidisciplinary science journal, aiming to advance science by publishing research that the multi-faceted global community of research. FACETS is the official journal of the Royal Society of Canada’s Academy of Science.
Anthropocene Coasts aims to understand and predict the effects of human activity, including climate change, on coastal regions.
In addition, Canadian Science Publishing strives to make their content accessible through the CSP blog that includes plain language summaries of featured research. The open-access journal FACETS similarly publishes plain language summaries.
*comment removed*
CSP announced (on Twitter) a new annual contest in 2016,
New CONTEST! Announcing Visualizing Science! Share your science images & win great prizes! Full details on the blog http://cdnsciencepub.com/blog/2016-csp-image-contest-visualizing-science.aspx1:45 PM · Sep 19, 2016·TweetDeck
The 2016 blog posting is no longer accessible. Oddly for a contest of this type, I can’t find an image archive for previous contests. Regardless, a 2020 competition has been announced for Summer 2020. There are some details on the VISUALIZING SCIENCE 2020 webpage but some are missing, e.g., no opening date, no deadline. They are encouraging you to sign up for notices.
Back to open access, in a January 22, 2016 posting I featured news about Montreal Neuro (Montreal Neurological Institute [MNI] in Québec, Canada) and its then new policy giving researchers world wide access to its research and made a pledge that it would not seek patents for its work.
Fish, Newfoundland & Labrador, and Prince Edward Island
AquAdvantage’s genetically modified salmon was approved for consumption in Canada according to my May 20, 2016 posting. The salmon are produced/farmed by a US company (AquaBounty) but the the work of genetically modifying Atlantic salmon with genetic material from the Chinook (a Pacific ocean salmon) was mostly undertaken at Memorial University in Newfoundland & Labrador.
The process by which work done in Newfoundland & Labrador becomes the property of a US company is one that’s well known here in Canada. The preliminary work and technology is developed here and then purchased by a US company, which files patents, markets, and profits from it. Interestingly, the fish farms for the AquAdvantage salmon are mostly (two out of three) located on Prince Edward Island.
Intriguingly, 4.5 tonnes of the modified fish were sold for consumption in Canada without consumers being informed (see my Sept. 13, 2017 posting, scroll down about 45% of the way).
It’s not all sunshine and roses where science culture in Canada is concerned. Incidents where Canadians are not informed let alone consulted about major changes in the food supply and other areas are not unusual. Too many times, scientists, politicians, and government policy experts want to spread news about science without any response from the recipients who are in effect viewed as a ‘tabula rasa’ or a blank page.
Tying it all up
This series has been my best attempt to document in some fashion or another the extraordinary range of science culture in Canada from roughly 2010-19. Thank you! This series represents a huge amount of work and effort to develop science culture in Canada and I am deeply thankful that people give so much to this effort.
I have inevitably missed people and organizations and events. For that I am very sorry. (There is an addendum to the series as it’s been hard to stop but I don’t expect to add anything or anyone more.)
I want to mention but can’t expand upon,the Pan-Canadian Artificial Intelligence Strategy, which was established in the 2017 federal budget (see a March 31, 2017 posting about the Vector Institute and Canada’s artificial intelligence sector).
Science Borealis, the Canadian science blog aggregator, owes its existence to Canadian Science Publishing for the support (programming and financial) needed to establish itself and, I believe, that support is still ongoing. I think thanks are also due to Jenny Ryan who was working for CSP and championed the initiative. Jenny now works for Canadian Blood Services. Interestingly, that agency added a new programme, a ‘Lay Science Writing Competition’ in 2018. It’s offered n partnership with two other groups, the Centre for Blood Research at the University of British Columbia and Science Borealis
While the Royal Astronomical Society of Canada does not fit into my time frame as it lists as its founding date December 1, 1868 (18 months after confederation), the organization did celebrate its 150th anniversary in 2018.
Vancouver’s Electric Company often produces theatrical experiences that cover science topics such as the one featured in my June 7, 2013 posting, You are very star—an immersive transmedia experience.
Let’s Talk Science (Wikipedia entry) has been heavily involved with offering STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) programming both as part of curricular and extra-curricular across Canada since 1993.
This organization predates confederation having been founded in 1849 by Sir Sandford Fleming and Kivas Tully in Toronto. for surveyors, civil engineers, and architects. It is the Royal Canadian Institute of Science (Wikipedia entry)_. With almost no interruption, they have been delivering a regular series of lectures on the University of Toronto campus since 1913.
The Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics is a more recent beast. In 1999 Mike Lazirides, founder of Research In Motion (now known as Blackberry Limited), acted as both founder and major benefactor for this institute in Waterloo, Ontario. They offer a substantive and imaginative outreach programmes such as Arts and Culture: “Event Horizons is a series of unique and extraordinary events that aim to stimulate and enthral. It is a showcase of innovative work of the highest international standard, an emotional, intellectual, and creative experience. And perhaps most importantly, it is a social space, where ideas collide and curious minds meet.”
While gene-editing hasn’t seemed to be top-of-mind for anyone other than those in the art/sci community that may change. My April 26, 2019 posting focused on what appears to be a campaign to reverse Canada’s criminal ban on human gene-editing of inheritable cells (germline). With less potential for controversy, there is a discussion about somatic gene therapies and engineered cell therapies. A report from the Council of Canadian is due in the Fall of 2020. (The therapies being discussed do not involve germline editing.)
French language science media and podcasting
Agence Science-Presse is unique as it is the only press agency in Canada devoted to science news. Founded in 1978, it has been active in print, radio, television, online blogs, and podcasts (Baladodiffusion). You can find their Twitter feed here.
I recently stumbled across ‘un balados’ (podcast), titled, 20%. Started in January 2019 by the magazine, Québec Science, the podcast is devoted to women in science and technology. 20%, the podcast’s name, is the statistic representing the number of women in those fields. “Dans les domaines de la science et de la technologie, les femmes ne forment que 20% de la main-d’oeuvre.” (from the podcast webpage) The podcast is a co-production between “Québec Science [founded in 1962] et l’Acfas [formerly, l’Association Canadienne-Française pour l’Avancement des Sciences, now, Association francophone pour le savoir], en collaboration avec la Commission canadienne pour l’UNESCO, L’Oréal Canada et la radio Choq.ca.” (also from the podcast webpage)
Does it mean anything?
There have been many developments since I started writing this series in late December 2019. In January 2020, Iran shot down one of its own planes. That error killed some 176 people , many of them (136 Canadians and students) bound for Canada. The number of people who were involved in the sciences, technology, and medicine was striking.
It was a shocking loss and will reverberate for quite some time. There is a memorial posting here (January 13, 2020), which includes links to another memorial posting and an essay.
As I write this we are dealing with a pandemic, COVID-19, which has us all practicing physical and social distancing. Congregations of large numbers are expressly forbidden. All of this is being done in a bid to lessen the passage of the virus, SARS-CoV-2 which causes COVID-19.
In the short term at least, it seems that much of what I’ve described in these five parts (and the addendum) will undergo significant changes or simply fade away.
As for the long term, with this last 10 years having hosted the most lively science culture scene I can ever recall, I’m hopeful that science culture in Canada will do more than survive but thrive.
*”for-profit publisher, Canadian Science Publishing (CSP)” corrected to “not-for-profit publisher, Canadian Science Publishing (CSP)” and this comment “Not bad for a for-profit business, eh?” removed on April 29, 2020 as per Twitter comments,
Hi Maryse, thank you for alerting us to your blog. To clarify, Canadian Science Publishing is a not-for-profit publisher. Thank you as well for sharing our image contest. We’ve updated the contest page to indicate that the contest opens July 2020!
Salmon are not the only food animals being genetically altered (more about that later in this post) we can now add cows, pigs, and more.
This November 15, 2018 article by Candice Choi on the Huffington Post website illustrates some of the excitement and terror associated with gene editing farm animals,
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A company wants to alter farm animals by adding and subtracting genetic traits in a lab. It sounds like science fiction, but Recombinetics sees opportunity for its technology in the livestock industry.
But first, it needs to convince regulators that gene-edited animals are no different than conventionally bred ones. To make the technology appealing and to ease any fears that it may be creating Franken-animals, [emphasis mine] Recombinetics isn’t starting with productivity. Instead, it’s introducing gene-edited traits as a way to ease animal suffering.
“It’s a better story to tell,” said Tammy Lee, CEO of the St. Paul, Minnesota-based company.
For instance, animal welfare advocates have long criticized the way farmers use caustic paste or hot irons to dehorn dairy cows so the animals don’t harm each other. Recombinetics snips out the gene for growing horns so theprocedure is unnecessary. [emphases mine]
Last year, a bull gene-edited by Recombinetics to have the dominant hornless trait sired several offspring. All were born hornless as expected, and are being raised at the University of California, Davis. Once the female offspring starts lactating, its milk will be tested for any abnormalities.
Another Recombinetics project: castration-free pigs.
When male piglets go through puberty, their meat can take on an unpleasant odour, something known as “boar taint.” To combat it, farmers castrate pigs, a procedure animal welfare advocates say is commonly performed without painkillers. Editing genes so that pigs never go through puberty would make castration unnecessary.
Also in development are dairy cows that could withstand higher temperatures, so the animals don’t suffer in hotter climates. [emphasis mine]
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Before food from gene-edited animals can land on dinner tables, however, Recombinetics has to overcome any public unease about the technology.
Beyond worries about “playing God,” it may be an uncomfortable reminder of how modern food production already treats animals, said Paul Thompson, a professor of agriculture at Michigan State University.
“There’s an ethical question that’s been debated for at least the last 20 years, of whether you need to change the animal or change the system,” Thompson said.
Support for gene editing will also likely depend on how the technology is used: whether it’s for animal welfare, productivity or disease resistance. In August, a Pew study found 43 per cent of Americans supported genetically engineered animals for more nutritious meat.
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Choi has written an interesting article, which includes a picture of the hornless cows embedded in the piece. One note: Choi makes reference to a milk glut. As far as I’m aware that’s not the case in Canada (at this time) but it is a problem in the US where in 2015 (?) farmers dumped some 43 million gallons of milk (October 12, 2016 article by Martha C. White for Money magazine).
As for the salmon, I’ve covered that story a few times during its journey to being approved for human consumption i Canada (my May 20, 2016 posting) to the discovery in 2017 that the genetically modified product, AquAdvantage salmon, had been introduced into the market, (from my Sept. 13, 2017 posting; scroll down about 40R of the way),
“Since the 2016 approval, AquAdvantage salmon, 4.5M tonnes has been sold in Canada according to an Aug. 8, 2017 article by Sima Shakeri for Huffington Post …”
After decades of trying to get approval by in North America, genetically modified Atlantic salmon has been sold to consumers in Canada.
AquaBounty Technologies, an American company that produces the Atlantic salmon, confirmed it had sold 4.5 tonnes of the modified fish on August 4 [2017], the Scientific American reported.
The fish have been engineered with a growth hormone gene from Chinook salmon to grow faster than regular salmon and require less food. They take about 18 months to reach market size, which is much quicker than the 30 months or so for conventional salmon.
The Washington Post wrote AquaBounty’s salmon also contains a gene from the ocean pout that makes the salmon produce the growth hormone gene all-year-round.
The company produces the eggs in a facility in P.E.I. [Prince Edward Island; a province in Canada], which is currently being expanded, and then they’re shipped to Panama where the fish are raised.
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There was a bit of a kerfuffle about the whole affair but it seems Canadians have gone on to embrace the genetically modified product. At least that’s Christine Blank’s perspective in her Sept. 13, 2018 article (Canada, US embrace AquAdvantage GMO salmon, Brazil and China may be next) for the Genetic Literacy Project website,
Genetically modified salmon firm AquaBounty has found “very enthusiastic” buyers in Canada, according to president and CEO Ronald Stotish.
The first sale of the Maynard, Massachusetts, U.S.A.-based firm’s AquAdvantage salmon was made last June [2017], when unnamed buyers in Canada bought five metric tons at the going rate of traditional farmed Atlantic salmon, according to the company. Since then, AquaBounty has sold 10 additional metric tons of its AquAdvantage salmon to buyers in Canada
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Meanwhile, Stotish revealed that AquAdvantage will be sold in the U.S. through established distributors.
“Once [AquaBounty salmon] is established in the market, the option for branding as a ‘sustainably produced’ food item can be considered,” he told investors.
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Alex Gillis’ June 5, 2018 article for Macleans magazine suggests that Canadians may be a bit more doubtful about GM (genetically modified) salmon than Stotish seems to be believe,
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An Ipsos Reid poll conducted for the Canadian Biotechnology Action Network in 2015 suggestedthat Canadians are concerned about GM foods, in spite of government assurances that they’re safe. About 60 per cent of respondentsopposed genetically modifying crops and animals for food; nearly half supported a ban on all GM food. More than 20 years of surveys indicate that the vast majority of Canadians want to know when they’re eating GMOs. Fully 88 per cent of those polled in the 2015 survey said they want mandatory labelling.
Their concern hasn’t escaped the notice of those who raise and sell much of the salmon consumed in this country.Five years ago, Marine Harvest, one of the world’s largest producers of farmed salmon, called for labelling of GMOs. Today, it says that it doesn’t grow, sell or research GM salmon, a policy it shares with major salmon producers in Canada. And most big grocery retailers have stated they don’t want GM salmon. When contacted by Maclean’s for this story, Metro, Sobeys, Wal-Mart and Loblaws—four of Canada’s five largest food retailers—declared that none of AquaBounty’s GM salmon from 2017 was sold in their stores, saying neither Sea Delight Canada nor Montreal Fish Co. supplied them with Atlantic salmon at the time.
“I’m happy to report that we don’t source salmon from these two companies,” says Geneviève Grégoire, communications adviser with Metro Richelieu Inc., which operates or supplies 948 food stores in Quebec and Ontario, including Metro, Super C, Food Basics, Adonis and Première Moisson. “As we said before, we didn’t and will not sell GM Atlantic salmon.”
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If you’re looking for a more comprehensive and critical examination of the issue, read Lucy Sharratt’s Sept. 1, 2018 article for the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives (CCPA).
ARPICO (Society of Italian Researchers and Professionals in Western Canada) is hosting a talk on the topic of genetically modified food. Here’s more from their May 20, 2018 announcement (received via email),
Our third speaking event of the year has been scheduled for Monday, June 4th, 2018 at the Italian Cultural Centre – Museum & Art Gallery. Marie-Claude Fortin’s talk will discuss food systems derived from biotechnology (often referred to as GMO) and their comparison with traditional farming processes, both technical and ethical. You can read a summary of Marie-Claude Fortin’s lecture as well as her short professional biography at the bottom of this message.
Ahead of the speaking event, ARPICO will be holding its 2018 Annual General Meeting in the same location. We encourage everyone to participate in the AGM, have their say on ARPICO’s matters and possibly volunteer for the Board of Directors.
Genetically-Engineered Food: Facts, Ethical Considerations and World Hunger
In this lecture we will explore a part of our food system, which has received much press, but which consumers still misunderstand: food derived from biotechnology often referred to as genetically modified organisms. We will be learning about the types of plants and animals which are genetically engineered and part of our everyday food system and the reasons for which they have been transformed genetically. We will be looking at the issue from several different angles. You are encouraged to approach the topic with an open mind, and learn how the technology is being used. We will start by understanding the differences between traditional plant breeding, conventional plant breeding, transgenic technology and genome editing. The latter two processes are considered genetic engineering technologies but all of them constitute a continuum of techniques employed to improve domestic plants and animals. We will then go over the ethical paradigms related to genetically engineered food represented by the European and North American points of view. Finally, we will discuss the strengths and weaknesses associated with genetic engineering as a tool to solve world hunger.
Marie-Claude Fortin is a former Research Scientist with Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada, Associate Editor with Crop Science Society of America, Board Member of the Soil and Water Conservation Society and Adjunct Professor at the University of British Columbia (UBC) and currently responsible for the shared research infrastructure portfolio at the UBC Vice-President Research & Innovation Office. Her main areas of research expertise are crop and soil sciences with special interests in measuring and modeling crop development and various processes on agricultural land: water and nitrogen fertilizer flow through the soil profile, emissions of greenhouse gases and soil physical properties. Her research shows that sustainable crop management practices result in soil environments, which are conducive to resilient crop production and organic matter buildup, which is the process of storing carbon in soils, a most important process in this era of climate change. For the past 18 years, Marie-Claude has been teaching food systems courses at UBC [University of British Columbia], emphasizing impacts of decisions made at the corporate, national and local levels on the economic, environmental and social sustainability of the food system, including impacts of organic and industrial agriculture and adoption of genetically engineered crops and animals, on farmers and consumers.
WHEN (AGM): Monday, June 4th, 2018 at 6:00pm (doors open at 5:50pm)
WHEN (EVENT): Monday, June 4th, 2018 at 7:00pm (doors open at 6:45pm)
WHERE: Italian Cultural Centre – Museum & Art Gallery – 3075 Slocan St, Vancouver, BC, V5M 3E4
Tickets are FREE, but all individuals are requested to obtain “free-admission” tickets on EventBrite site due to limited seating at the venue. Organizers need accurate registration numbers to manage wait lists and prepare name tags.
All ARPICO events are 100% staffed by volunteer organizers and helpers, however, room rental, stationery, and guest refreshments are costs incurred and underwritten by members of ARPICO. Therefore to be fair, all audience participants are asked to donate to the best of their ability at the door or via EventBrite to “help” defray costs of the event.
FAQs
Where can I contact the organizer with any questions? info@arpico.ca
Do I have to bring my printed ticket to the event? No, you do not. Your name will be on our Registration List at the Check-in Desk.
Is my registration/ticket transferrable? If you are unable to attend, another person may use your ticket. Please send us an email at info@arpico.ca of this substitution to correct our audience Registration List and to prepare guest name tags.
Can I update my registration information? Yes. If you have any questions, contact us at info@arpico.ca
I am having trouble using EventBrite and cannot reserve my ticket(s). Can someone at ARPICO help me with my ticket reservation? Of course, simply send your ticket request to us at info@arpico.ca so we help you.
Since the 2016 approval, AquAdvantage salmon, 4.5M tonnes has been sold in Canada according to an Aug. 8, 2017 article by Sima Shakeri for Huffington Post (Note: Links have been removed),
After decades of trying to get approval by in North America, genetically modified Atlantic salmon has been sold to consumers in Canada.
AquaBounty Technologies, an American company that produces the Atlantic salmon, confirmed it had sold 4.5 tonnes of the modified fish on August 4 [2017], the Scientific American reported.
The fish have been engineered with a growth hormone gene from Chinook salmon to grow faster than regular salmon and require less food. They take about 18 months to reach market size, which is much quicker than the 30 months or so for conventional salmon.
The Washington Post wrote AquaBounty’s salmon also contains a gene from the ocean pout that makes the salmon produce the growth hormone gene all-year-round.
The company produces the eggs in a facility in P.E.I., which is currently being expanded, and then they’re shipped to Panama where the fish are raised.
Health Canada assessed the AquAdvantage salmon and concluded it “did not pose a greater risk to human health than salmon currently available on the Canadian market,” and that it would have no impact on allergies nor a difference in nutritional value compared to other farmed salmon.
Because of that, the AquAdvantage product is not required to be specially labelled as genetically modified, and is up to the discretion of retailers.
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As for gene editing, I don’t follow everything in that area of endeavour but I have (more or less) kept track of CRISPR ((clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeat). Just use CRISPR as the search term for the blog search function to find what’s here.
This looks to be a very interesting talk and good for ARPICO for tackling a ‘difficult’ topic. I hope they have a lively, convivial, and open discussion.
Part 1 featured my commentary on both Calestous Juma’s 2016 book, ”Innovation and Its Enemies; Why People Resist New Technologies” and Meanie Keene’s 2015 book, “Science in Wonderland; The scientific fairy tales of Victorian Britain.” Now for an emerging technology; genetically modified fish (AquAdvantage salmon) and my final comments on the books and the contrasting ways the adoption of new technologies and science is presented.
Fish
AquAdvanage salmon features as one of Calestous Juma’s contemporary emerging technologies. I mentioned the fish here in a May 20, 2016 posting when the fish was approved for consumption in Canada; this followed an earlier mention in a Dec. 4, 2015 posting when the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved the salmon for consumption in the US (from the 2015 posting),
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For the final excerpt from the December 2015 issue, there’s this about genetically engineered salmon,
Genetically Modified Salmon: Coming to a River Near You?
After nearly 20 years of effort, the Food and Drug Administration has approved genetically engineered salmon produced by AquaBounty Technologies, as fit for consumption and will not have to be labeled as genetically engineered. This salmon is capable of growing twice as fast as a non-engineered farmed salmon in as little as half of the time, however, it’s still likely to be at least two years before these salmon reach supermarkets. Some groups are concerned about the environmental implications should these salmon accidentally get released, or escape, into the wild, even though AquaBounty says its salmon will be all female and sterile.
AquaBounty’s salmon (background) has been genetically modified to grow bigger and faster than a conventional Atlantic salmon of the same age (foreground.) Courtesy of AquaBounty Technologies, Inc. [downloaded from http://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2015/06/24/413755699/genetically-modified-salmon-coming-to-a-river-near-you]
The link from the newsletter points to a June 24, 2015 article by Jessie Rack for US National Public Radio’s Salt on the Table program (Note: Links have been removed),
One concern repeatedly raised by critics who don’t want the FDA to give the transgenic fish the green light: What would happen if these fish got out of the land-based facilities where they’re grown and escaped into the wild? Would genetically modified salmon push out their wild counterparts or permanently alter habitat? In a review paper published this month in the journal BioScience, scientists tackle that very question.
Robert H. Devlin, a scientist at Fisheries and Oceans Canada, led a team that reviewed more than 80 studies analyzing growth, behavior and other trait differences between genetically modified and unaltered fish. The scientists used this to predict what might happen if fish with modified traits were unleashed in nature.
Genetically modified salmon contain the growth hormone gene from one fish, combined with the promoter of an antifreeze gene from another. This combination both increases and speeds up growth, so the salmon grow faster.
Altering a fish’s genes also changes other traits, the review found. Genetically modified salmon eat more food, spend more time near the surface of the water, and don’t tend to associate in groups. They develop at a dramatically faster rate, and their immune function is reduced.
But would these altered traits help genetically modified salmon outcompete wild salmon, while at the same time making them less likely to thrive in nature? It’s unclear, says Fredrik Sundström, one of the study authors and an ecologist at Uppsala University in Sweden.
You may note the lead researcher for the literature review, a Canadian scientist was not quoted. This is likely due to the muzzle the Conservative government (still in power in June 2015 ) had applied to government scientists.
One last thing about AquAdvantage salmon, there is a very good Dec. 3, 2015 posting by Meredith Hamel focusing on their Canadian connections on her BiologyBizarre blog/magazine (Note: A link has been removed),
“For the first time anywhere in the world, a genetically engineered animal has been approved for human consumption” announced Peter Mansbridge on CBC [Canadian Broadcasting Corporation] news on November 20 [2015]. Members of society do not agree on how genetically modified fruits and vegetables should be labelled, if at all, but we are already moving on to genetically modified animals for human consumption. The AquAdvantage salmon by the US company AquaBounty can grow quicker and go to market twice as fast as regular farmed salmon using less feed. This genetically engineered salmon, whose fertilized eggs are produced at an inland facility in P.E.I [Prince Edward Island], Canada [emphasis mine] and raised at a facility in Panama, has been approved by the FDA after a long 20 year wait. AquAdvantage salmon could be the first genetically engineered meat we eat but opposition to approving it in Canada shows this salmon is not yet finished swimming against the current.
She goes on to describe in detail how these salmon are created (not excerpted here) and pinpoints another Canadian connection and political ramifications (Note: Links have been removed),
Head of Ocean Sciences Department at Memorial University [province of Newfoundland and Labrador], Garth Fletcher told The Star he was happy to see his creation get approved as he didn’t think approval would happen in his lifetime. Fletcher is no longer involved with AquaBounty but began working on this growth improved transgenic fish with other scientists back in 1982. On CBC news he said “the risk is as minimal as you could ever expect to get with any product.”
While the salmon is not approved in Canada for human consumption, some grocery store chains have already boycotted AquAdvantage salmon. The first step, the production of eggs in P.E.I has been approved by the federal government. Now there is a court battle with British Columbia’s Living Oceans Society and Nova Scotia’s Ecology Action Centre together challenging the federal government’s approval. They are concerned AquAdvantage salmon would be toxic to the environment as an invasive species if they were to escape and that this was not adequately assessed. Secondly they argue that Environment Canada had a duty to inform the public but failed to do so.
Natalie Huneault at Environment Canada told the National Oberver, “there were no concerns identified to the environment or to the indirect health of Canadians due to the contained production of these GM fish eggs for export.”
Anastasia Bodnar over on Biology Fortified does an excellent job of going through the risks and mitigation of AquAdvantage salmon (here and here) both with respect to safety of eating this meat product as well as in preventing escapee transgenic fish from contaminating wild salmon populations. The Fisheries and Oceans Canada document containing assessment of risks to the environment and health are found here. Due to the containment facility and procedures there is extremely low likelihood that any fertile genetically modified salmon would escape to an area where it could survive and reproduce.
The failure of Environment Canada to properly inform and have a discussion with the public before approving the P.E.I fertilized egg production facility will certainly have increased public mistrust and fear of this genetically engineered salmon. I think that if the public feel that this step has already taken place behind their back, future discussion about approving genetically engineered salmon as safe to eat, is only going to be met with suspicion.
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Since the 2016 approval, AquAdvantage salmon, 4.5M tonnes has been sold in Canada according to an Aug. 8, 2017 article by Sima Shakeri for Huffington Post (Note: Links have been removed),
After decades of trying to get approval by in North America, genetically modified Atlantic salmon has been sold to consumers in Canada.
AquaBounty Technologies, an American company that produces the Atlantic salmon, confirmed it had sold 4.5 tonnes of the modified fish on August 4 [2017], the Scientific American reported.
The fish have been engineered with a growth hormone gene from Chinook salmon to grow faster than regular salmon and require less food. They take about 18 months to reach market size, which is much quicker than the 30 months or so for conventional salmon.
The Washington Post wrote AquaBounty’s salmon also contains a gene from the ocean pout that makes the salmon produce the growth hormone gene all-year-round.
The company produces the eggs in a facility in P.E.I., which is currently being expanded, and then they’re shipped to Panama where the fish are raised.
Health Canada assessed the AquAdvantage salmon and concluded it “did not pose a greater risk to human health than salmon currently available on the Canadian market,” and that it would have no impact on allergies nor a difference in nutritional value compared to other farmed salmon.
Because of that, the AquAdvantage product is not required to be specially labelled as genetically modified, and is up to the discretion of retailers.
Scientific American has reproduced a piece by Emily Waltz (originally published August 4, 2017, the date Canadian consumers discovered the fish was being sold, in Nature). From the Aug. 7, 2017 Scientific American republication (Note: A link has been removed),
AquaBounty’s gruelling path from scientific discovery to market terrified others working in animal biotechnology, and almost put the company out of business on several occasions. Scientists first demonstrated the fast-growing fish in 1989. They gave it a growth-hormone gene from Chinook salmon (Oncorhynchus tshawytscha), along with genetic regulatory elements from a third species, the ocean pout (Zoarces americanus). The genetic modifications enable the salmon to produce a continuous low level of growth hormone.
AquaBounty formed around the technology in the early 1990s and approached regulators in the United States soon after. It then spent almost 25 years in regulatory limbo. The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved the salmon for consumption in November 2015, and Canadian authorities came to the same decision six months later. Neither country requires the salmon to be labelled as genetically engineered.
But unlike in Canada, political battles in the United States have stalled the salmon’s entry into the marketplace. …
Activists in both the United States and Canada have demanded that regulators reconsider their decisions, and some have filed lawsuits. …
Waltz includes this quote from an interested party,
The sale of the fish follows a long, hard-fought battle to navigate regulatory systems and win consumer acceptance. “Somebody’s got to be first and I’m glad it was them and not me,” says James West, a geneticist at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee, who co-founded AgGenetics, a start-up company in Nashville that is engineering cattle for the dairy and beef industries. “If they had failed, it might have killed the engineered livestock industry for a generation,” he says.
Canadians don’t necessarily respond in the same way that Americans do. The stem cell controversies to the south of us never reached the same fury and pitch although there were some significant impacts felt by the research community. Similarly the GMO (genetically modified organisms) controversies were felt here but in nowhere near the same degree as Europe. That doesn’t mean there won’t be problems this time but trying to determine how Canadians are likely to respond can be tricky especially when most of us don’t know much about GMO foods as Meham Abedi notes in her August 9, 2017 article for Global TV news (Note: Link have been removed),
On Wednesday [Aug. 9, 2017], an Angus Reid survey revealed that most Canadians admit they don’t know much about genetically modified organisms, but still want more transparency.
Of the 1,512 respondents, 24 per cent said they had “never heard of them” or only heard the term, 60 per cent said they “know a little bit about” GMO food, while only 16 per cent were “very familiar” with what it entails.
However, 83 per cent of Canadians surveyed said at least some GMO food labelling should [be] mandatory in grocery stores.
The report echos 2016 Health Canada findings that Canadians’ opinions on the products were defined by “confusion, misinformation, and generally low awareness/understanding.”
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The Angus Reid survey was conducted between June 8-13, 2017 [emphasis mine], by 1,512 Canadian adults. It is considered accurate +/- 2.5 percentage points, 19 times out of 20.
It’s hard to know how “confusion, misinformation, and generally low awareness/understanding,” is going to play out but it doesn’t seem a good idea to just sneak GMO salmon into the Canadian marketplace. Notably, Juma argues for more public education in his book and while it might not smooth the path as much as he and other innovation enthusiasts might prefer, it certainly couldn’t hurt.
It might also be useful to consider the idea that not all resistance is bad and to be avoided. Tess Doezema in her April 26, 2017 article (Skepticism About Biotechnology Isn’t Anti-Science) presents a persuasive argument suggesting that public concerns don’t deserve to be dismissed (Note: Links have been removed),
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To many in bioscience and biotechnology circles, this [AquAdvantage salmon] is a case of politics contaminating science. In an open letter to President Obama in 2014, a group of “concerned international scientists and global technology company executives” argue this point:
The American people, and indeed all people everywhere, are best served by a trusted objective regulatory process truly based on sound science, a system which can be counted upon to evaluate and act on the applications it receives without fear of political interference.
These scientists and others offer a picture of a Manichean world divided into those who are for scientific and technological progress and those who are against it—a representation of the world that we have been seeing more and more of lately in reports of a “war on science.” But drawing this line is dangerous. The real problem here is the regulatory process itself, which forces dissent to take the narrow form of challenges to scientific data and methodology and ignores other questions about what’s at stake.
The FDA approval process for the AquAdvantage salmon took longer and included more opportunities for public comment than most products the FDA reviews. This unique openness to public input was balanced by a careful parsing of what counts as scientifically and contextually relevant and what does not. The agency received 38,000 comments in response to its draft assessment alone, but it determined that just 90 were worth considering [emphases mine]. The remaining comments were discounted as irrelevant because they did not directly address the details of the regulation process, or they raised issues beyond the mandate of the agency. These disregarded comments focused on a wide range of concerns, including patenting and ownership regimes of seed and crops; how deploying genetically modified corn and soy would affect the United States’ image around the world; continuing failures of existing market configurations to address inequality and food distribution; and the long history of multinational corporations central to the commercialization of biotechnologies, such as Monsanto, intentionally obscuring the negative impacts of their chemical products and byproducts while undermining human health.
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Some might read the vast public preoccupation with a broad set of social, political, and economic issues as the contamination of science with politics. But I would suggest that this is actually a case of the reverse problem: seemingly endless conflict around the AquAdvantage salmon reflects the limitation of using narrow scientific terms to address questions of broad social, political, and economic significance. As things stand, the only legitimate way to engage in debates about the entry of the AquAdvantage salmon and other genetically modified organisms into our environments, meals, intellectual property regimes, and beyond is to contest its approval at the level of regulatory science. When the system asks the public to limit objections to narrow technical concerns, it undermines regulatory legitimacy and stultifies democratic debate—and perhaps most importantly, it contributes to the problematic discourse around science itself. When our modes of public deliberation strictly define what counts as a legitimate view on these issues, we end up portraying a good portion of the population as “against science,” when that in fact could not be further from the truth.
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To position science on one side of these debates is not only patently false but detrimental to public discourse.
… Synthetic biology is billed as having the potential to transform the world in a way that will disrupt prevailing economic and geopolitical paradigms and “reshape the very fabric of life.” The one thing both sides of the fishy debate seem to agree on is that the AquAdvantage salmon is a “pioneer” technology, and what happens to this fish could set the stage for the role that biotechnology will play in our food system in the century to come. As one commentator opined for the New York Times:
We should all be rooting for the agency to do the right thing and approve the AquAdvantage salmon. It’s a healthy and relatively cheap food source that, as global demand for fish increases, can take some pressure off our wild fish stocks. But most important, a rejection will have a chilling effect on biotechnological innovation in this country. …
This framing suggests that biotechnological innovation is a necessary and unmitigated good. But for many, the prospect of a world radically altered by biotechnology conjures past experiences in which scientific “progress” didn’t go as planned—like the devastation and political instability ushered in by nuclear weapons. Similarly, to some, a dam looks like progress, development, and economic prosperity. But to others, it looks like the violent end of a way of life, heralded by the destruction of ecosystems and entire species.
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Characterizing legitimate concerns about what kinds of technologies enter and help shape our world as “anti-science” is more likely to alienate than inspire “everyday Americans to identify with this vision of what science can do, and to believe in it.”
… perhaps we can make it productive in one way. Understanding the limitations of the process can help us think critically about how decision-making about synthetic biology going forward might be more open to a broader set of concerns and voices much earlier in the innovation process. The way forward is not drawing battle lines between those who are “for” or “against” science and closing down regulatory processes to all but the narrowest risk-based considerations. Rather, we should be forming and expanding spaces for a wide range of participants in creatively considering how to solve society’s biggest challenges. We need new ways of thinking and talking about technological promise and possibility in the world that we live in. [emphasis mine]
While Doersma is appealing to a US audience, her argument could be used internationally.
Final comments
Juma’s “Enemies of Innovation” and Keene’s “Science in Wonderland” are both worthwhile reads but it should be noted that Juma’s is the more ambitious. Keene is looking back and expanding the perspective in an area of previously mined children’s literature which hints at possible implications for our own time period..
For example, I think contemporary audiences might want to consider how much science, technology, and mathematics finds its way into our ‘fairy tales’ or super hero, space adventure, cartoons,, and other popular stories of today. Iron Man and his colleagues in one of the Avengers’ movies faced off with a robot/artificial intelligence entity, Ultron, suggesting potential existential risk; Star Trek’s impact on today’s technologies is widely acknowledged, and The Simpsons , a US animated programme, regularly embeds mathematics in its stories.
Juma examines history while attempting to extrapolate lessons for the future.It’s a courageous and worthwhile effort. While I’m not entirely comfortable with his top-down approach he knits together a comprehensive programme for policy makers and makes two point that I believe are too often overlooked, more agility is needed and these are global issues.
There’s more than one way to approach the introduction of emerging technologies and sciences to ‘the public’. Calestous Juma in his 2016 book, ”Innovation and Its Enemies; Why People Resist New Technologies” takes a direct approach, as can be seen from the title while Melanie Keene’s 2015 book, “Science in Wonderland; The Scientific Fairy Tales of Victorian Britain” presents a more fantastical one. The fish in the headline tie together, thematically and tenuously, both books with a real life situation.
Innovation and Its Enemies
Calestous Juma, the author of “Innovation and Its Enemies” has impressive credentials,
Professor of the Practice of International Development,
Director of the Science, Technology, and Globalization Project at Harvard Kennedy School’s Better Science and International Affairs,
Founding Director of the African Centre for Technology Studies in Nairobi (Kenya),
Fellow of the Royal Society of London, and
Foreign Associate of the US National Academy of Sciences.
Even better, Juma is an excellent storyteller perhaps too much so for a book which presents a series of science and technology adoption case histories. (Given the range of historical time periods, geography, and the innovations themselves, he always has to stop short.) The breadth is breathtaking and Juma manages with aplomb. For example, the innovations covered include: coffee, electricity, mechanical refrigeration, margarine, recorded sound, farm mechanization, and the printing press. He also covers two recently emerging technologies/innovations: transgenic crops and AquAdvantage salmon (more about the salmon later).
Juma provides an analysis of the various ways in which the public and institutions panic over innovation and goes on to offer solutions. He also injects a subtle note of humour from time to time. Here’s how Juma describes various countries’ response to risks and benefits,
In the United States products are safe until proven risky.
In France products are risky until proven safe.
In the United Kingdom products are risky even when proven safe.
In India products are safe when proven risky.
In Canada products are neither safe nor risky.
In Japan products are either safe or risky.
In Brazil products are both safe and risky.
In sub-Saharan Africa products are risky even if they do not exist. (pp. 4-5)
To Calestous Juma, thank you for mentioning Canada and for so aptly describing the quintessentially Canadian approach to not just products and innovation but to life itself, ‘we just don’t know; it could be this or it could be that or it could be something entirely different; we just don’t know and probably will never know.’.
One of the aspects that I most appreciated in this book was the broadening of the geographical perspective on innovation and emerging technologies to include the Middle East, China, and other regions/countries. As I’ve noted in past postings, much of the discussion here in Canada is Eurocentric and/or UScentric. For example, the Council of Canadian Academies which conducts assessments of various science questions at the request of Canadian and regional governments routinely fills the ‘international’ slot(s) for their expert panels with academics from Europe (mostly Great Britain) and/or the US (or sometimes from Australia and/or New Zealand).
A good example of Juma’s expanded perspective on emerging technology is offered in Art Carden’s July 7, 2017 book review for Forbes.com (Note: A link has been removed),
In the chapter on coffee, Juma discusses how Middle Eastern and European societies resisted the beverage and, in particular, worked to shut down coffeehouses. Islamic jurists debated whether the kick from coffee is the same as intoxication and therefore something to be prohibited. Appealing to “the principle of original permissibility — al-ibaha, al-asliya — under which products were considered acceptable until expressly outlawed,” the fifteenth-century jurist Muhamad al-Dhabani issued several fatwas in support of keeping coffee legal.
This wasn’t the last word on coffee, which was banned and permitted and banned and permitted and banned and permitted in various places over time. Some rulers were skeptical of coffee because it was brewed and consumed in public coffeehouses — places where people could indulge in vices like gambling and tobacco use or perhaps exchange unorthodox ideas that were a threat to their power. It seems absurd in retrospect, but political control of all things coffee is no laughing matter.
The bans extended to Europe, where coffee threatened beverages like tea, wine, and beer. Predictably, and all in the name of public safety (of course!), European governments with the counsel of experts like brewers, vintners, and the British East India Tea Company regulated coffee importation and consumption. The list of affected interest groups is long, as is the list of meddlesome governments. Charles II of England would issue A Proclamation for the Suppression of Coffee Houses in 1675. Sweden prohibited coffee imports on five separate occasions between 1756 and 1817. In the late seventeenth century, France required that all coffee be imported through Marseilles so that it could be more easily monopolized and taxed.
Carden who teaches economics at Stanford University (California, US) focuses on issues of individual liberty and the rule of law with regards to innovation. I can appreciate the need to focus tightly when you have a limited word count but Carden could have a spared a few words to do more justice to Juma’s comprehensive and focused work.
At the risk of being accused of the fault I’ve attributed to Carden, I must mention the printing press chapter. While it was good to see a history of the printing press and attendant social upheavals noting its impact and discovery in regions other than Europe; it was shocking to someone educated in Canada to find Marshall McLuhan entirely ignored. Even now, I believe it’s virtually impossible to discuss the printing press as a technology, in Canada anyway, without mentioning our ‘communications god’ Marshall McLuhan and his 1962 book, The Gutenberg Galaxy.
Getting back to Juma’s book, his breadth and depth of knowledge, history, and geography is packaged in a relatively succinct 316 pp. As a writer, I admire his ability to distill the salient points and to devote chapters on two emerging technologies. It’s notoriously difficult to write about a currently emerging technology and Juma even managed to include a reference published only months (in early 2016) before “Innovation and its enemires” was published in July 2016.
Irrespective of Marshall McLuhan, I feel there are a few flaws. The book is intended for policy makers and industry (lobbyists, anyone?), he reaffirms (in academia, industry, government) a tendency toward a top-down approach to eliminating resistance. From Juma’s perspective, there needs to be better science education because no one who is properly informed should have any objections to an emerging/new technology. Juma never considers the possibility that resistance to a new technology might be a reasonable response. As well, while there was some mention of corporate resistance to new technologies which might threaten profits and revenue, Juma didn’t spare any comments about how corporate sovereignty and/or intellectual property issues are used to stifle innovation and quite successfully, by the way.
My concerns aside, testimony to the book’s worth is Carden’s review almost a year after publication. As well, Sir Peter Gluckman, Chief Science Advisor to the federal government of New Zealand, mentions Juma’s book in his January 16, 2017 talk, Science Advice in a Troubled World, for the Canadian Science Policy Centre.
Science in Wonderland
Melanie Keene’s 2015 book, “Science in Wonderland; The scientific fairy tales of Victorian Britain” provides an overview of the fashion for writing and reading scientific and mathematical fairy tales and, inadvertently, provides an overview of a public education programme,
A fairy queen (Victoria) sat on the throne of Victoria’s Britain, and she presided over a fairy tale age. The nineteenth century witnessed an unprecedented interest in fairies and in their tales, as they were used as an enchanted mirror in which to reflection question, and distort contemporary society.30 … Fairies could be found disporting themselves thought the century on stage and page, in picture and print, from local haunts to global transports. There were myriad ways in which authors, painters, illustrators, advertisers, pantomime performers, singers, and more, capture this contemporary enthusiasm and engaged with fairyland and folklore; books, exhibitions, and images for children were one of the most significant. (p. 13)
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… Anthropologists even made fairies the subject of scientific analysis, as ‘fairyology’ determined whether fairies should be part of natural history or part of supernatural lore; just on aspect of the revival of interest in folklore. Was there a tribe of fairy creatures somewhere out thee waiting to be discovered, across the globe of in the fossil record? Were fairies some kind of folks memory of any extinct race? (p. 14)
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Scientific engagements with fairyland was widespread, and not just as an attractive means of packaging new facts for Victorian children.42 … The fairy tales of science had an important role to play in conceiving of new scientific disciplines; in celebrating new discoveries; in criticizing lofty ambitions; in inculcating habits of mind and body; in inspiring wonder; in positing future directions; and in the consideration of what the sciences were, and should be. A close reading of these tales provides a more sophisticated understanding of the content and status of the Victorian sciences; they give insights into what these new scientific disciplines were trying to do; how they were trying to cement a certain place in the world; and how they hoped to recruit and train new participants. (p. 18)
Segue: Should you be inclined to believe that society has moved on from fairies; it is possible to become a certified fairyologist (check out the fairyologist.com website).
“Science in Wonderland,” the title being a reference to Lewis Carroll’s Alice, was marketed quite differently than “innovation and its enemies”. There is no description of the author, as is the protocol in academic tomes, so here’s more from her webpage on the University of Cambridge (Homerton College) website,
Role:
Fellow, Graduate Tutor, Director of Studies for History and Philosophy of Science
Getting back to Keene’s book, she makes the point that the fairy tales were based on science and integrated scientific terminology in imaginative ways although some books with more success than other others. Topics ranged from paleontology, botany, and astronomy to microscopy and more.
This book provides a contrast to Juma’s direct focus on policy makers with its overview of the fairy narratives. Keene is primarily interested in children but her book casts a wider net “… they give insights into what these new scientific disciplines were trying to do; how they were trying to cement a certain place in the world; and how they hoped to recruit and train new participants.”
In a sense both authors are describing how technologies are introduced and integrated into society. Keene provides a view that must seem almost halcyon for many contemporary innovation enthusiasts. As her topic area is children’s literature any resistance she notes is primarily literary invoking a debate about whether or not science was killing imagination and whimsy.
It would probably help if you’d taken a course in children’s literature of the 19th century before reading Keene’s book is written . Even if you haven’t taken a course, it’s still quite accessible, although I was left wondering about ‘Alice in Wonderland’ and its relationship to mathematics (see Melanie Bayley’s December 16, 2009 story for the New Scientist for a detailed rundown).
As an added bonus, fairy tale illustrations are included throughout the book along with a section of higher quality reproductions.
One of the unexpected delights of Keene’s book was the section on L. Frank Baum and his electricity fairy tale, “The Master Key.” She stretches to include “The Wizard of Oz,” which doesn’t really fit but I can’t see how she could avoid mentioning Baum’s most famous creation. There’s also a surprising (to me) focus on water, which when it’s paired with the interest in microscopy makes sense. Keene isn’t the only one who has to stretch to make things fit into her narrative and so from water I move onto fish bringing me back to one of Juma’s emerging technologies
This is an update of the AquAdvantage salmon story covered in my Dec. 4, 2015 post (scroll down about 40% of the way). At the time, the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) had just given approval for consumption of the fish. There was speculation there would be a long hard fight over approval in Canada. This does not seem to have been the case, according to a May 10, 2016 news item announcing Health Canada’s on phys.org,
Canada’s health ministry on Thursday [May 19, 2016] approved a type of genetically modified salmon as safe to eat, making it the first transgenic animal destined for Canadian dinner tables.
This comes six months after US authorities gave the green light to sell the fish in American grocery stores.
The decisions by Health Canada and the US Food and Drug Administration follow two decades of controversy over the fish, which is an Atlantic salmon injected with genes from Pacific Chinook salmon and a fish known as the ocean pout to make it grow faster.
The resulting fish, called AquAdvantage Salmon, is made by AquaBounty Technologies in Massachusetts, and can reach adult size in 16 to 18 months instead of 30 months for normal Atlantic salmon.
Canadian technology emanating from Memorial University developed the AquAdvantage salmon by introducing a growth hormone gene from Chinook salmon into the genome of Atlantic salmon. This results in a salmon which grows faster and reaches market size quicker and AquAdvantage salmon is identical to other farmed salmon. The AquAdvantage salmon also received US FDA approval in November 2015. With the growing world population, AquaBounty is one of many biotechnology companies offering safe and sustainable means to enhance the security and supply of food in the world. AquaBounty has improved the productivity of aquaculture through its use of biotechnology and modern breeding technics that have led to the development of AquAdvantage salmon.
“Importantly, today’s approval is a result of a four year science-based regulatory approval process which involved four federal government departments including Agriculture and AgriFood, Canada Food Inspection Agency, Environment and Climate Change, Fisheries and Oceans and Health which demonstrates the rigour and scope of science based regulatory approvals in Canada. Coupled with the report from the [US] National Academy of Sciences today’s [May 19, 2016] approval clearly demonstrates that genetic engineering of food is not only necessary but also extremely safe,” concluded Casey [Andrew Casey, President and CEO BIOTECanada].
There’s another connection, the salmon hatcheries are based in Prince Edward Island.
While BIOTECanada’s Andrew Casey is crowing about this approval, it should be noted that there was a losing court battle with British Columbia’s Living Oceans Society and Nova Scotia’s Ecology Action Centre both challenging the federal government’s approval. They may have lost *the* battle but, as the cliché goes, ‘the war is not over yet’. There’s an Issue about the lack of labeling and there’s always the possibility that retailers and/or consumers may decide to boycott the fish.
As for BIOTECanada, there’s this description from the news release,
BIOTECanada is the national industry association with more than 230 members reflecting the diverse nature of Canada’s health, industrial and agricultural biotechnology sectors. In addition to providing significant health benefits for Canadians, the biotechnology industry has quickly become an essential part of the transformation of many traditional cornerstones of the Canadian economy including manufacturing, automotive, energy, aerospace and forestry industries. Biotechnology in all of its applications from health, agriculture and industrial is offering solutions for the collective population.
Personally, I’m a bit ambivalent about it all. I understand the necessity for changing our food production processes but I do think more attention should be paid to consumers’ concerns and that organizations such as BIOTECanada could do a better job of communicating.
The NISENet’s (Nanoscale Informal Science Education Network) December 2015 issue features synthetic biology, goo, and genetically engineered salmon. From the December 2015 issue,
We will be sending out 200 free Building with Biology physical kits to informal science educators and research institutions to host a Summer 2016 Building with Biology event. The primary focus of these nationwide events is to create conversations between scientists and the public through hands-on activities and public forums. The deadline to submit an application for a Building with Biology kit is February 1, 2016.
I’m not sure if your location matters or if you must be a US-based organization or scientist to apply.
The physics of oobleck is nothing short of amazing; a simple concoction that acts as both a liquid and a solid. This phenomenon is called shear force thickening and scientists are still trying to understand exactly how it works. There are two contending theories: the prevailing theory is supported by fluid dynamics as the force behind the fluid becoming a solid, while the other idea is that contract forces like friction help keep particles locked together. Figuring out which theory is correct will not only affect the way materials such as body armor and spacesuits, helmets, and cement are made but will also potentially save lives.
Here’s a little more about the latest research on ‘oobleck’ from a Nov. 24, 2015 article by Lydia Chain for Popular Science,
There’s an experiment you may have done in high school: When you mix cornstarch with water—a concoction colloquially called oobleck—and give it a stir, it acts like a liquid. But scrape it quickly or hit it hard, and it stiffens up into a solid. If you set the right pace, you can even run on top of a pool of the stuff. This phenomenon is called shear force thickening, and scientists have been trying to understand how it happens for decades.
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There’s an experiment you may have done in high school: When you mix cornstarch with water—a concoction colloquially called oobleck—and give it a stir, it acts like a liquid. But scrape it quickly or hit it hard, and it stiffens up into a solid. If you set the right pace, you can even run on top of a pool of the stuff. This phenomenon is called shear force thickening, and scientists have been trying to understand how it happens for decades.
…
“The debate has been raging, and we’ve been wracking our brains to think of a method to conclusively go one way or the other,” says Itai Cohen, a physicist at Cornell University. He and his team recently ran a new experiment that seems to point to friction as the driving cause of shear thickening.
They decided to perform what is called a flow reversal experiment. They put a cone into a dish full of the fluid and measured the torque it takes to spin the cone. As shear thickening begins, it gets harder to spin the cone. Then they suddenly reverse the spin direction. The idea is that if contact force is the cause of shear thickening, then the moment the spinning reverses, the particles will pop free of each other, and there will be an immediate drop in the magnitude of torque. If hydrodynamic clusters were the main cause of shear thickening, the torque wouldn’t drop.
The problem is that the force has to be measured immediately, and there wasn’t a machine that could make that measurement fast enough to see the effect. So Cohen’s team partnered with Gareth McKinley at MIT, who altered the machine to get the data more quickly. When they tested simple solutions they had made, they saw that characteristic drop in force after they reversed the flow. Further modeling suggested that friction might be the contact force at play.
“We are giddy with excitement,” Cohen says.
…
Chain’s article includes more details and images (.jpegs and .gifs) demonstrating the principles at work.
For the final excerpt from the December 2015 issue, there’s this about genetically engineered salmon,
Genetically Modified Salmon: Coming to a River Near You?
After nearly 20 years of effort, the Food and Drug Administration has approved genetically engineered salmon produced by AquaBounty Technologies, as fit for consumption and will not have to be labeled as genetically engineered. This salmon is capable of growing twice as fast as a non-engineered farmed salmon in as little as half of the time, however, it’s still likely to be at least two years before these salmon reach supermarkets. Some groups are concerned about the environmental implications should these salmon accidentally get released, or escape, into the wild, even though AquaBounty says its salmon will be all female and sterile.
AquaBounty’s salmon (background) has been genetically modified to grow bigger and faster than a conventional Atlantic salmon of the same age (foreground.) Courtesy of AquaBounty Technologies, Inc. [downloaded from http://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2015/06/24/413755699/genetically-modified-salmon-coming-to-a-river-near-you]
The link from the newsletter points to a June 24, 2015 article by Jessie Rack for US National Public Radio’s Salt on the Table program (Note: Links have been removed),
One concern repeatedly raised by critics who don’t want the FDA to give the transgenic fish the green light: What would happen if these fish got out of the land-based facilities where they’re grown and escaped into the wild? Would genetically modified salmon push out their wild counterparts or permanently alter habitat? In a review paper published this month in the journal BioScience, scientists tackle that very question.
Robert H. Devlin, a scientist at Fisheries and Oceans Canada, led a team that reviewed more than 80 studies analyzing growth, behavior and other trait differences between genetically modified and unaltered fish. The scientists used this to predict what might happen if fish with modified traits were unleashed in nature.
Genetically modified salmon contain the growth hormone gene from one fish, combined with the promoter of an antifreeze gene from another. This combination both increases and speeds up growth, so the salmon grow faster.
Altering a fish’s genes also changes other traits, the review found. Genetically modified salmon eat more food, spend more time near the surface of the water, and don’t tend to associate in groups. They develop at a dramatically faster rate, and their immune function is reduced.
But would these altered traits help genetically modified salmon outcompete wild salmon, while at the same time making them less likely to thrive in nature? It’s unclear, says Fredrik Sundström, one of the study authors and an ecologist at Uppsala University in Sweden.
You may note the lead researcher for the literature review, a Canadian scientist was not quoted. This is likely due to the muzzle the Conservative government (still in power in June 2015 ) had applied to government scientists.
One last thing about AquAdvantage salmon, there is a very good Dec. 3, 2015 posting by Meredith Hamel focusing on their Canadian connections on her BiologyBizarre blog/magazine (Note: A link has been removed),
“For the first time anywhere in the world, a genetically engineered animal has been approved for human consumption” announced Peter Mansbridge on CBC [Canadian Broadcasting Corporation] news on November 20 [2015]. Members of society do not agree on how genetically modified fruits and vegetables should be labelled, if at all, but we are already moving on to genetically modified animals for human consumption. The AquAdvantage salmon by the US company AquaBounty can grow quicker and go to market twice as fast as regular farmed salmon using less feed. This genetically engineered salmon, whose fertilized eggs are produced at an inland facility in P.E.I [Prince Edward Island], Canada [emphasis mine] and raised at a facility in Panama, has been approved by the FDA after a long 20 year wait. AquAdvantage salmon could be the first genetically engineered meat we eat but opposition to approving it in Canada shows this salmon is not yet finished swimming against the current.
She goes on to describe in detail how these salmon are created (not excerpted here) and pinpoints another Canadian connection and political ramifications (Note: Links have been removed),
Head of Ocean Sciences Department at Memorial University [province of Newfoundland and Labrador], Garth Fletcher told The Star he was happy to see his creation get approved as he didn’t think approval would happen in his lifetime. Fletcher is no longer involved with AquaBounty but began working on this growth improved transgenic fish with other scientists back in 1982. On CBC news he said “the risk is as minimal as you could ever expect to get with any product.”
While the salmon is not approved in Canada for human consumption, some grocery store chains have already boycotted AquAdvantage salmon. The first step, the production of eggs in P.E.I has been approved by the federal government. Now there is a court battle with British Columbia’s Living Oceans Society and Nova Scotia’s Ecology Action Centre together challenging the federal government’s approval. They are concerned AquAdvantage salmon would be toxic to the environment as an invasive species if they were to escape and that this was not adequately assessed. Secondly they argue that Environment Canada had a duty to inform the public but failed to do so.
Natalie Huneault at Environment Canada told the National Oberver, “there were no concerns identified to the environment or to the indirect health of Canadians due to the contained production of these GM fish eggs for export.”
Anastasia Bodnar over on Biology Fortified does an excellent job of going through the risks and mitigation of AquAdvantage salmon (here and here) both with respect to safety of eating this meat product as well as in preventing escapee transgenic fish from contaminating wild salmon populations. The Fisheries and Oceans Canada document containing assessment of risks to the environment and health are found here. Due to the containment facility and procedures there is extremely low likelihood that any fertile genetically modified salmon would escape to an area where it could survive and reproduce.
The failure of Environment Canada to properly inform and have a discussion with the public before approving the P.E.I fertilized egg production facility will certainly have increased public mistrust and fear of this genetically engineered salmon. I think that if the public feel that this step has already taken place behind their back, future discussion about approving genetically engineered salmon as safe to eat, is only going to be met with suspicion.
Hamel’s piece is well worth reading if you (Canadian or otherwise) have an interest in this topic as she offers some good explanations and links to more. While she expresses some hesitance about the AquAdvantage salmon, it is measured,
While I don’t feel I would be risking my health eating AquAdvantage salmon, I am not sure I would choose it in a supermarket over other farmed salmon. I find genetically engineered triploid salmon fascinating….but not so appetizing. I think a similar gut reaction in consumers is the biggest hurdle for genetically engineered foods. There needs to be a good reason to choose genetically modified foods over the alternatives. If AquAdvantage salmon production can be shown to be better for the environment than other farmed fish people might try it and eventually not be turned off by how it was made.
Getting back to The Nano Bite December 2015, you can find the full issue here.
![AquaBounty's salmon (background) has been genetically modified to grow bigger and faster than a conventional Atlantic salmon of the same age (foreground.) Courtesy of AquaBounty Technologies, Inc. [downloaded from http://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2015/06/24/413755699/genetically-modified-salmon-coming-to-a-river-near-you]](http://www.frogheart.ca/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/GeneticallyModifiedSalmon.jpg)