Talk:AquAdvantage salmon

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Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment
This article is or was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Alexlee94.

Above undated message substituted from Template:Dashboard.wikiedu.org assignment by PrimeBOT (talk) 14:35, 16 January 2022 (UTC)

Source
We need the primary source for the Purdue study. Knowledge Junkie (talk) 11:50, 19 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Primary source is here with a mention in Nature here AIR corn (talk) 06:42, 22 September 2010 (UTC)

Thank you for the references. The PNAS study used transgenic Japanese medaka as a model---not salmon. This should be clarified in some way because the way the data is introduced seems misleading/confusing. I also think it would be better if this study was introduced in it's own paragraph rather than immediately following a sentence about salmon escaping. The Nature news article is quite good in the way they used this study.Knowledge Junkie (talk) 11:16, 1 November 2010 (UTC)

Other Transgenics
Why is the "Other transgenics" section in this article? There should be at most a see also; it's not relevant to the specific topic of GM salmon. Trebawa (talk) 03:39, 22 September 2010 (UTC)
 * ✅ agree AIR corn (talk) 06:42, 22 September 2010 (UTC)

Name Change?
Shouldn't this article be called AquAdvantage® Salmon? There are a number of possible Genetically Modified Salmon, and this article seems to be referring to a particular transgenic species, that is patented and trademarked by a company and sold as a product. I know things get a bit confusing in terms of how to deal with taxonomy of science vs. business language and Intellectual Property regimes, but in this case the article is about the specific animal/product created by AquaBounty and should reflect that in the title. Infoeco (talk) 18:46, 18 March 2011 (UTC)


 * Do you have any links for the other GM Salmon? I had a quick look, but could not find anything. If we add the other examples that would solve the naming problem. AIR corn (talk) 22:13, 18 March 2011 (UTC)


 * I am not aware of any GM Salmon that is in the process of commercialization, although their are likely other transgenic Salmon in labs somewhere, just as there are many varieties of GM Tomatoes: Just two being FlavrSavr and Fish tomato. I think the point I am trying to make is that because this article is about a specific / product that is under review by the United States FDA that is the taxonomy we should rely on. The animal is patented and their is a trademark on the name. For example, it would be silly to have an article called Genetically modified tomato in the same way it would be silly to have an article called Organic tomato. I think this article should be as precise as possible and rely on a taxonomy, whether scientific, bureaucratic or business.

Infoeco (talk) 19:56, 22 March 2011 (UTC)


 * I think you have a point. Other examples are GloFish not Genetically Modified Zebrafish (which there most certainly will be many examples and possible a future article) and Enviropig. I would drop the ® and just call it AquAdvantage Salmon though. It would probably be prudent to merge AquaBounty with this article if it is renamed as it appears to be their sole product. AIR corn (talk) 21:47, 22 March 2011 (UTC)


 * I agree with the both of you. I think the description of the GM salmon given here pertains specifically to the AquAdvantage salmon.  I'll go ahead and make the change.  Amnot Areso (talk) 17:00, 12 April 2012 (UTC)

Taste?
Has anyone actually tasted the stuff? Dudes say it doesn't affect the appearence, etc... but I actually ate Ocean pout once when I was desperate. It wasn't pretty! I bet it could infect this thing! — Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.206.143.173 (talk) 03:53, 23 December 2012 (UTC)


 * The salmon's taste will be very similar, if not the same as that of a normal salmon. ocean pout's poor taste derives from its feeding habits and muscle tissue, and neither of those will be present in the salmon here  — Preceding unsigned comment added by KendoSnowman (talk • contribs) 00:25, 24 November 2015 (UTC)

Potential Solutions - lacked NPOV
Because this NYT article says the sterilization isn't foolproof, I changed "Any escapees could not reproduce..." to "They claim escapees could not reproduce..." because these are claims, not statements of fact. Here's the NYT article here: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/22/business/gene-altered-fish-moves-closer-to-federal-approval.html - Maybe this important info should be added to the article considering the consequences of their salmon outcompeting and displacing natural, wild salmon en masse if they escape and reproduce. Cowicide (talk) 06:24, 24 December 2012 (UTC)

Other types of genetically modified salmon
The article keeps referring to "genetically modified salmon" as if it were a synonym of "AquaAdvantage salmon". But surely the latter is only a specific type of the former. And it's unclear whether some of the sources cited are actually talking about AquaAdvantage salmon, or just hypothetical genetically modified salmon in general. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Sonicsuns (talk • contribs) 18 January 2013

Picture is irrelevant
The picture of the fish (a brook trout, not even salmon) included with this article seems off-topic. It looks like someone just searched for an image of a deformed fish to give the impression that AquAdvantage salmon are hidously mishappen. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 122.108.132.116 (talk) 13:41, 3 February 2013 (UTC)
 * That photo no longer in the article. David notMD (talk) 16:17, 13 November 2017 (UTC)

Allergenicity?
Just came across a reference to increased allergenicity. The article reads:

"Coho salmon (Oncorhynchus kisutch) GE for a growth hormone gene construct exhibit increased rates of muscle hyperplasia and detectable levels of gene expression"

Article

I'll edit this in if there are no objections. I know this such claims can be controversial... Lfstevens (talk) 01:45, 23 October 2014 (UTC)


 * thanks for bringing that up here first! responses:
 * that is a WP:PRIMARY and as you know we prefer to avoid those. it also pretty old (2000)
 * that article is about coho salmon (Oncorhynchus kisutch) and this article is about Atlantic salmon with a construct from chinook salmon
 * parvalbumin is a well-known allergen in fish. the atlantic salmon discussed here were tested for changes in parvalbumin see here, pp 97ff.  Page 97 lays out specific concerns, and challenges with the science.  The section describes the allergen testing, including for parvalbumin that the company did. On page 108 you find the FDA's conclusions, which are "The allergenic potency of triploid ABT salmon was not significantly different from that of sponsor control diploid salmon."
 * so, i think it is worthwhile including content on allergenicity risk and current status, but we should cite it from the FDA review document, as that is most recent (that i know of) and very on point. I added it.  Thanks for raising this! Jytdog (talk) 11:03, 23 October 2014 (UTC)

Image
I just wrote to aquabounty.com asking for an image. Fingers crossed. :) Anna Frodesiak (talk) 23:49, 20 November 2015 (UTC)

We need to remove the garbage from the article.
These salmon would not outcompete regular salmon because they would starve to death because the grow faster than they could find food in the wild. If wild salmon could eat fast enough to grow as fast as the genetically modified salmon, they would grow as fast as the genetically modified salmon. Competition selects salmon which grow as fast as the food supply allows because of competition. The AntiGMO-Tards merely spread FUD (Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt). — Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.102.233.65 (talk) 02:18, 21 November 2015 (UTC) If you read the article, the reason the fish is GMO is so it can grow faster. If wild salmon could eat as fast as these GMO salmon, they still would not grow as fast. Funny4life (talk) 17:54, 21 November 2015 (UTC)


 * The IP (and OP) here makes a valid point - indeed, I am skeptical that such a small tweak in growth hormone would not have been invented before by natural evolution. However, I think there is some risk that due to man-made change in the environment, such as eutrophication, climate change, or the decline of other species of fish in the wild, the transgene might turn out to have an advantage after all.  The problem is, neither of us are putting this interesting conversation in the article without a source, per WP:OR, so your top priority here needs to be to find sources that support your point of view.


 * I think GMO can be a great thing for the food security of all mankind, but we have to be careful. All it takes is a few foul-ups and we'll be pounding at a brick wall for decades to come - it's smarter to start carefully. Wnt (talk) 15:20, 24 November 2015 (UTC)

potential solutions
The POTENTIAL SOLUTIONS section is confusing and maybe wrong in part. Does it actually mean "cultivating reproductive incapable females" and "can reproduce neither natively or by interbreeding"? Instead of "capable" and "either"? Because if not, I can't see how this addresses any of the concerns? Has that section been typed wrong or from a misunderstanding? — Preceding unsigned comment added by MPS1992 (talk • contribs) 23:34, 21 November 2015 (UTC)

This seems to have been fixed now. — Preceding unsigned comment added by MPS1992 (talk • contribs) 13:27, 22 November 2015 (UTC)

External links modified
Hello fellow Wikipedians,

I have just added archive links to 1 one external link on AquAdvantage salmon. Please take a moment to review my edit. You may add after the link to keep me from modifying it, if I keep adding bad data, but formatting bugs should be reported instead. Alternatively, you can add to keep me off the page altogether, but should be used as a last resort. I made the following changes:
 * Attempted to fix sourcing for http://www.aquabounty.com/documents/press/2013/20131125.pdf

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Citation overkill
This sentence had citation overkill, with 6 citations.


 * The announcement released by the FDA states: "AquAdvantage salmon is as safe to eat as any non-genetically engineered (GE) Atlantic salmon, and also as nutritious."

I see no reason for so many citations--I believe there is Policy or Guideline addressing citation overkill. I paired it down to just two: (1) the FDA announcement itself and (2) one secondary authority.


 * The announcement released by the FDA states: "AquAdvantage salmon is as safe to eat as any non-genetically engineered (GE) Atlantic salmon, and also as nutritious."

I chose the single secondary source (Reuters) based on what seemed to have the most information (and not the WSJ since it has a pay wall). It was a toss up with the NYT article. If you think one of the other secondary articles is better, please replace it. I would welcome more references if there is something unique in them that needs to be added to our article. --David Tornheim (talk) 08:38, 9 April 2016 (UTC)


 * I agree that 6 citations for a statement of fact is excessive, and support your reducing this to these 2 citations.Dialectric (talk) 22:44, 13 April 2016 (UTC)

Papers cited in text but no links or correct formatting?
There are quite a few research papers cited in the body of this page, yet, the page omits any hyperlink to the source of said articles. These articles should be tracked down and converted into references at the bottom of the page, as is typical for wikipedia. I made some minor gramattical changes, but didn't touch that detail as it requires a fair bit of sleuthing to find the papers referenced in the Wikipedia page. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Buteo regalis (talk • contribs) 23:15, 5 February 2019 (UTC)
 * Several attempts to "clean up" the references have broken the original parenthetical references in this article. Quite a few of those papers were removed in one edit made on 24 Dec 2018 (but I can't undo that edit).   107.77.202.140 (talk) 17:09, 1 September 2019 (UTC)

Removing more garbage from the article
I have been cutting non-germane text and rewording a lot of what is left, but the entire article is still a hot mess. Including the referencing mess. David notMD (talk) 15:55, 6 February 2019 (UTC)
 * I hadn't really read this article until recently either, but that was a lot of essay-like content that needed cleaning. I've been noticing areas that need attention in the topic too at higher level articles as part of the GMO GA review, but I'll take a look through things in the coming days. Kingofaces43 (talk) 16:37, 6 February 2019 (UTC)
 * Thanks, both of you. As you probably saw, I ran two bots to try to fix the cite issues raised in the talk section just above, but they didn't do much, so I appreciate whatever you can do. FYI the essay-like writing came from an editor who was later topic-banned and who unfortunately is no longer alive, so it's been long overdue for revision. --Tryptofish (talk) 17:10, 6 February 2019 (UTC)

Supermarkets that refuse to carry GMO fish regardless of FDA approval
Kroger, the #1 US supermarket, Safeway, the #2 US supermarket, as well as Trader Joe's, Whole Foods, Target and other grocery stores have released statements that they refuse to carry GMO salmon/fish. This is pretty noticeable as it represents the vast majority of grocers in the United States, I don't know why this information is not in the article. 104.193.169.74 (talk) 19:19, 15 December 2020 (UTC)