[extropy-chat] LUDDITES: No GloFish for the U.S.

[Robert J. Bradbury]

Well this has just gone over the top...

The Center for Food Safety has just filed a lawsuit to halt
all sales of GloFish until the *FDA* regulates and approves
their sale.

Gee -- when I was a child I grew zebrafish and never thought
once about cooking them and eating them (they are rather
small).  Now I know there are countries where people do
consume animals that are considered pets in other countries
but in the U.S. this generally isn't the case.

The CfFS seems to be a general luddite organization oriented
towards blocking the production and/or sale of any GE
organisms.  Now, I can understand the rationale behind
not wanting GE fish to contaminate the wild fish -- but that
seems unlikely to happen with zebrafish in U.S. waters.

The native habitat for zebrafish is the Ganges river in India
and other nearby rivers.  Though some have been found in
tropical rivers in Florida, they are not considered to be
breeding populations:
  http://nis.gsmfc.org/nis_factsheet.php?toc_id=169

The /. article pointing this out:
  http://science.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=04/01/16/1619202
Background:
  http://science.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=03/11/22/175233

CfFS:
  http://www.centerforfoodsafety.org/
There letter about GloFish:
  http://www.centerforfoodsafety.org/inthenews/PRGloFish1-14-04.pdf
All the GE fish they are against...:
  http://www.centerforfoodsafety.org/gefish/

Hmmm... I wonder if at the next WTA meeting (which I believe
is in Toronto) a number of anti-Luddites shouldn't stage a
press conference where we dump an aquarium full of GloFish
into Lake Ontario?

Robert