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A company selling new glow-in-the-dark fish plans to make a major splash in the pet market. But, as this ScienCentral News video reports, the world's first genetically modified pet could mean a tankful of trouble.
A Glowing Concern
This Christmas, there might be something glowing under your tree. The nation's first genetically modified pet, called a GloFish, is now being shipped.
What makes the fish glow is a gene scientists gave them—not from another fish, but from sea coral. To some, creating transgenic organisms—with genes from entirely different species—is a night-and-day difference from traditional breeding. "We're moving entire genes between organisms," says Bill Muir, professor of genetics at Purdue University. "To some people, this is a huge difference, it's so radically different that they can't imagine that this is good."
The glowing fish, originally invented by scientists in Singapore for detecting water pollution, will soon go on sale as pets everywhere in the U.S. except California, which has a ban on the sale of any genetically modified fish—a law intended to protect the environment. But Muir says if these fish did get into the natural environment, there would be nothing to fear. Muir's lab creates equations that predict the risk of a new gene spreading in the wild.
The predictions are based on what Muir calls "critical control points" that scientists can measure for any living thing. "Every living organism goes through stages of life, you and I go through these same stages," Muir explains. "We have to live to sexual maturity, to become teenagers, if we can't live to that age, we can't reproduce. Then you have to find a mate; if you can't find a mate, you can't pass on your genes, so mating success is critical. After you find a mate, you have to be fertile and she has to produce eggs...and the next step is, how long do you live so you can repeat this cycle? These are easily quantifiable things."
image: Purdue University
Muir conducted an unpaid evaluation of the glofish by observing samples of them from the distributor, Yorktown Technologies, and using data published in scientific journals by scientists in Singapore who invented them, which he plugged into his equations. "We would conclude that the transgenic fish, the glofish, would go extinct," says Muir. "It would just cease to exist in a very short period of time."
"In my opinion, these fish are safe," says Muir. "But again, that's my opinion." Muir says he expected that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) would independently assess the fish and approve their sale in the US. But so far, that hasn't happened. FDA got out of the way,
announcing it would not regulate the fish because they will be sold as pets, not food.
That surprised Muir, who calls the FDA's statement "a dodging of the issues" since the agency has asserted that it will regulate genetically modified animals, like transgenic salmon that grow larger and faster, by treating them as new drugs. And, Muir points out, "the FDA has said that they will also regulate environmental concerns associated with transgenic animals." Muir believes that "the FDA should step forward and say they are going to regulate all genetically modified products, all genetically modified animals, simply for public trust."
That is also what some consumer groups want. this week, several consumer advocacy organizations led by the Center for Food Safety announced they will sue the Food and Drug Administration for failing to exercise its authority over the glofish.
"Our primary concern is not the glofish per se, but the precedent it sets for genetically engineered pets of almost any kind—not just fish—as well as bait and sport animals, being sold all over the country without getting any federal approval first," says Peter T. Jenkins, attorney and policy analyst at the Center for Food Safety. "This will eventually cause environmental chaos as these animals are accidentally or intentionally released into the wild, and could cause potential threats to public and animal health."Although, Muir points out, "the production of traditional breeding is not regulated. In fact, new mutations occur all the time and the new mutations, we don't have any idea what they are or what they do," he says FDA oversight of genetically modified organisms is important for public acceptance of them. "In some cases, there may not be a scientific reason, but that's okay, the FDA will look at the science and they can decree 'Okay, we've looked at the science, we've measured it and we've considered it to be no risk.' That gives the public confidence."
Right now, the fish are available in red, but other colors are in the pipeline. Muir's risk assessment methods were published in the journal Transgenic Research in 2002. Purdue University's research on the risk assessment of transgenic fish is funded by the USDA National Biological Risk Assessment Program. Data on the glofish was published in the July, 2003 issue of Biochemical & Biophysical Research Communications.
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