With that claim it seems the manufactured fish is inching closer to making it to market, I would think that world hunger could be eliminated within the next five years with information like that But, assuming this “Frankenfish” as it is referred to by critics gets the OK, I’d bet that world hunger will not be eliminated in the next 20 years. In fact, I’ll bet that it’ll never be eliminated under capitalism, as the market is incapable of eliminating it, hunger is a product of the market.
The FDA, the capitalist institution responsible for determining how safe the food we eat is, says that the fish is safe and has no “biologically relevant differences from that of the naturally occurring variety.” We blogged about this recently.
Critics claim that the FDA pulled a sneaky one and “reviewed” the fish as a veterinary drug “rather than creating a new review process for gene altered foods” says BW. This in and of itself doesn’t seem like a big deal but what it means concretely is it allows some of the testing data to be kept out of public scrutiny, to remain confidential as “trade secrets”.
One of the critics, Wenonah Hauter of the Food&Water Watch group believes that they are keeping some data secret because they are afraid of public reaction. That might well be so, but the main reason is what they say up front, “trade secrets”. Whether good or bad, if the project hits the market with FDA approval then the profits will roll in and all capitalists whether they are producing genetically altered animals or cars, want to corner the market or drive competitors from it. If the reason for producing the fish was to eliminate hunger then what would it matter that we all knew how to do it?
The Aquabounty salmon are all female and sterilized so that in the event they escape they won’t breed and wipe out real salmon. AquaBounty Technologies CEO, Ronald L. Stotish who also tells us the fish is safe, says he is not in the fish business but the technology business. So the fish eggs will be produced in Canada and the fish are “grown to market weight” at an AquaBounty farm in panama.. (I wonder why that location. Could it have to do with low wages and no limited Union rights?)
The bottom line is that we cannot trust the private sector or capitalist institutions to protect us or make decisions about the food we eat or how we apply science in everyday life, profit will always be the motivating factor. Are we naïve enough to think the FDA officials making this decision are exempt from the briber’s (Lobbyists) clutches? This fish may well be safe, but that’s a secondary aspect of this and to be honest, I doubt it. Food production has to be taken out of private hands if we are really to solve world hunger and produce food in a way that is healthy and in harmony with nature.
2 comments:
yes it seems that the USA - United States of America really is the "United Corporation of America"
it seems that corporate "person hood" which it seems was illegitimately put in place in 1886 by a shill for the railroad industry ... "As a matter of interpretation of the word "person" in the Fourteenth Amendment"
so you see the only thing that matters in this country is what is good for corporations, and that means profits before anything, anything, life itself, for we are a corporation
That clause in the fourteenth amendment that gives a corporation the same rights (and responsibilities) as a person means that they can commit terrible crimes but the "other" person, the corporation, takes the rap, which means a fine here and there. They don't put corporations in jail, do they?
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