Murkowski on Senate Floor: “Don’t Mess With Mother Nature,” Frankenfish
Senator Urges Colleagues to Raise the Bar on “Test Tube Salmon”
WASHINGTON, D.C. – Senator Lisa Murkowski today took to the U.S. Senate floor and called on her colleagues to support her amendment to the Food and Drug Administration Reauthorization Bill that would require the same comprehensive scientific and economic analysis be done by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration on genetically modified salmon as is done for any other federal fishery.
In a speech during floor debate of the FDA bill, Senator Murkowski laid out the case against Frankenfish – from the scientific concerns to the nutritional uncertainty to Alaskan jobs lost to Canada and Panama. (Full speech can be viewed by clicking here.)
Key Excerpts: (click pictures to watch)
Clip One
Clip Two
Clip Three
(Clip One ) “I’m not the best cook in the house. My husband is. He wants to know, I want to know, that what we’re eating is good and safe and sound. At my home, we eat a lot of salmon and I can stand there and I can say ‘This is brain food, this is good for you, it’s loaded with Omega 3 fatty acids – it’s as good as you’re going to get.’ And I can say that with certainty. We can’t say that, and we won’t say that with this genetically engineered fish. As a mom, I’m not going to say ‘Eat this Frankenfish.’ I’m not quite sure what an eel pout is, I’m not quite sure how they splice this DNA together … but we were able to put it to market quicker and get a cheaper price on it.”
(Clip Two) “You’re going to see these fish breeding year round. You’re going to see them eating year round. This means competition with the wild stock – they will compete with one another for the food supply the species feed on. They’ll wreak havoc on the ecosystem. You are introducing a fish into the ecosystem that just doesn’t work with our wild stock.”
(Clip Three) “This could have devastating impacts on our fish industry and the jobs it supports at a time we can’t afford it. Some will say ‘this is a new industry, it will create jobs’ … one of the things I find interesting is that this company is going to produce the salmon eggs in Canada. Then they will send them to Panama where they will be grown and processed. Then they will send the fish back to the United States for resale. So we get all the harm and none of the jobs.”
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