China should open market to GM fish

CHINA should promote market access to its self-developed genetically modified (GM) carp, said Zhu Zuoyan, a researcher and academician at the Institute of Hydrobiology under the Chinese Academy of Sciences, Xinhua reported on August 14.

The academician made the statement against the backdrop of US regulators’ decision to allow genetically modified salmon, making it the first GM animal destined for human consumption recently.

Zhu noted that China’s GM carp not only meet regulatory requirements of the US Food and Drug Administration, World Health Organisation, and Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations on GM animals, but have been comprehensively studied.

Zhu said relevant departments need to make regulations on market access to China’s genetically modified agricultural and animal products, and the government, research institutions, and the media should try to scientifically dispel public doubts about GM products.

Zhu’s team started researching GM carp in 1983 and published their achievement of breeding the world’s first GM fish in 1985, three years before their Western peers.

As the transgenic salmon was injected with a gene from Chinook salmon, the carps bred by Chinese scientists were given a gene from grass carp to speed up growth. The growth hormone in grass carp is broken down into amino acids through cooking, thus causing no harm to human health.

The safety of the GM carp in terms of nutrients and toxicology was assessed by the School of Basic Medical Sciences at Wuhan University and the China National Centre for Food Safety Risk Assessment. As for ecological concerns over the possible consequences of GM carp being introduced into the wild, the team said the carp will not influence the original ecosystem.