| *But if and when it does, it probably won't be labeled.
That's the latest. I recommend checking out Marion Nestle's piece The GM Salmon Saga Continues. First, the FDA will offer a 30-day comment period on the Environmental Assessment of the salmon (see more on the EA at the link). After that, they will issue a Finding of No Significant Impact or an Environmental Impact Statement. Those findings will result in a decision on whether or not they approve the salmon. The FDA is not giving any sort of timeline on when they will do this, although legally the timeframe is typically 180 days after the New Animal Drug application was submitted. Once the fish is approved, it will take 2 years to come to market.
The VMAC committee that met this past week apparently told the FDA it didn't have enough data to make a decision yet (which sounds about right, based on the actual data submitted to them). But in the meeting Tuesday about labeling, pretty much no one was for mandatory labeling. Apparently Greg Jaffe of CSPI wants AquaBounty to provide voluntary labels that say something like "AquaBounty salmon," "fast-growing salmon" or "environmentally friendly salmon." What?! Environmentally friendly? And Fox News is fair and balanced.
Last, but not least, the CEO of AquaBounty said he doesn't plan to confine production to Panama, hoping to open other operations in other countries, including the U.S. Fortunately, THIS approval process is ONLY for Panama, so he'd have to go through the whole legal process again before he could set up shop anywhere else. |
