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January 6, 2012
January 5, 2012
January 4, 2012
Biotech Firms Caught In Regulatory No Man's Land
Source to this article: NPR website
Biotech Firms Caught In Regulatory No Man's Land
Companies making genetically modified animals face a regulatory morass in this country. It's not always clear which federal agency has responsibility for regulating a particular animal, and even when one agency does take the lead, the approval process can drag on for years.
The companies say this uncertainty means their technologies may die without ever being given a chance.
Take the case of the British company Oxitec. It has developed a genetically modified mosquito that the company says can be used to combat a disease called dengue.
Dengue is potentially fatal, and there is no treatment or vaccine. Dengue is not common in the United States, but it could be, because we have plenty of the species of mosquito that transmits it. There have been sporadic cases in Texas and Florida, so controlling this mosquito is crucial for keeping dengue out of the United States.
Luke Alphey, chief scientific officer of Oxitec, says the basic idea is very simple. The company has made genetically modified male mosquitoes that are sterile. When these modified males mate with normal females, there are no offspring.
"Over time, with periodic releases or successive releases of these sterile males, the target population will collapse," says Alphey.
No mosquitoes, no dengue.
Florida officials agreed to let Oxitec test its mosquitoes in Key West. So in 2009, Oxitec started asking which federal agency it needed to get approval from. The U.S. Department of Agriculture said, 'We're it,' so in March 2010, Oxitec submitted an application to import its mosquitoes from the U.K., and waited to hear back. And waited.
Finally, 18 months later, Oxitec heard back from the USDA. Bad news. The agency said, "We're not the right agency. Try the Food and Drug Administration."
How is it possible that it takes a federal agency 18 months to decide it's not the right one to regulate something?
"Well, the basic issue goes back to the problem of how the government first established oversight over genetically modified organisms," says Eric Hallerman, a professor of fisheries and wildlife at Virginia Tech. "There is no particular act that establishes government authority to do it."
Instead, in 1986 the Reagan White House decided to use existing laws, such as the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act and the Federal Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act, as the basis of regulating genetically modified organisms. This has led to some strange circumstances. For example, for the purpose of regulation, the FDA considers a genetically modified mosquito to be a new animal drug.
But if Oxitec is frustrated, consider the plight of a Massachusetts company called AquaBounty. It has created a genetically modified salmon, a fish that is also a drug as far as the FDA is concerned. The salmon grows faster than wild salmon, something that could appeal to fish farmers.
AquaBounty has been trying to get FDA approval to market its salmon for more than a decade.
Hallerman was on a panel of scientists the FDA asked to evaluate whether the AquaBounty salmon were safe. In September 2010, the panel met and told the FDA yes, it would be OK to approve the salmon for sale.
"I was thinking at that time that they were going to come out with some sort of a decision sometime that winter," says Hallerman. "Well, here we are at the next winter."
The point here isn't whether AquaBounty's salmon or Oxitec's mosquitoes really are safe — there are some legitimate scientific questions about that. The point is that the companies are in a regulatory never-never land.
"It's sending a very strong message to the investment community and to people trying to develop innovative new products that there really is not a functional regulatory paradigm," says Ron Stotish, president of AquaBounty. Stotish says any answer would be better than none at all.
But even if the FDA does approve the salmon, there's yet another hurdle. Mark Begich, the Democratic senator from Alaska, isn't convinced the salmon is safe, and he says that approving it would threaten his state's wild salmon fisheries.
"We don't need to go down this path, and I believe that's a position we need to take," says Begich.
He has introduced legislation that would make it unlawful to ship, transport, offer for sale, sell or purchase genetically altered salmon or other marine fish.
If such a piece of legislation became law, it would, if nothing else, lighten FDA's workload.
Listen to this story by using the NPR media player underneath
Direct links to other related and very relevant NPR Stories
January 3, 2012
Online news is reporting that 12 salmon cages have broken loose
Check out this article from Forargyll
PS. don't forget to read the updates via this link
Online news is reporting that 12 salmon
cages have broken loose.
BBC Orkney and Shetland online news is reporting that 12 salmon cages have broken loose from a fish farm and are adrift off Unst. Each is nearly 100 ft in diameter and full of mature fish. They were originally attached to each other, forming a linked circle but the connections have progressively been breaking up.
The report does not give the number of fish but Ewan Kennedy of the saveseilsound campaign says the maximum permitted by the Scottish Environmental Protection Agency (SEPA) is 2,500 tonnes which, at 4kg per fish would mean 600,000 salmon.
As well as the danger to shipping of 12 of these drifting cages – and the wind direction today will take them towards Norway, this is also an environmental hazard. This scale of break out carries immense risks for wild salmon stocks in their mating with farmed fish.
The BBC report indicates that local thinking is that the cages went adrift on Christmas Eve – they are off the south coast of Unst. It is thought unlikely that the salmon will still be in the cages – an expensive festive lapse of concentration.
According to the report, the owners of the farm, Lakeland Unst Ltd, have been ‘urged to tow them to shore’ – a curios expression that suggests inaction to date on the part of the fish farm management. Local boats and boats in the area have been asked to help.
As yet, the local BBC report on this for Orkney and Shetland has not been noted in the main BBC Scotland webpage notr as far as we aware, has it been mentioned on BBC Scotland. (Update 11.50 2nd January, this item has still not been carried on the BBC’s online Scotland main page – very poor news judgement allied to holiday eyes-off-the-ball.)
We reported the incident to SEPA, who did not know of it and they are keeping us in touch on the issue, particularly in response to questions we have put to them.
The matter also relates to the decision to hand over responsibility for emergency towing from the Coastguard to the oil and gas industry in the spring of this year, removing altogether the two large ETVs which were temporarily reprieved by robust campaigning, following the decision to axe them as a contribution to spending cuts.
As has been noted in Arran’s COAST, had an incident like this happened in The Minch the consequences would have been catastrophic. The nature of hazard these cages present to shipping is such that they would not normally cause a sinking but they could stop a ship. Without emergency towing capacity, the consequences of such a disablement would depend on what the affected ship was carrying and at what strength and in which direction the wind was blowing.
Shipping and the local marine environment in The Minch would be helplessly prey to chance in such a scenario.
This article from Mail Online really caught my eye
This article from Mail Online really caught my eye, really strange but then again if I think about what we humans are doing to our beautiful blue planet, then I'm not that surprised - I'm just sad that my daughter are growing up in a world full of chaos and huge environmental issues
What made 20 TONNES of fish wash up on Norwegian beach?
Thousands of dead herring have been discovered washed up on a north Norwegian beach - prompting Doomsday predictors to hail it as another sign the world is set to end.
More than 20 tonnes of the fish is currently carpeting the beach of Kvaenes, in Nordreisa, with experts views differing on how they have come to be there. One thing is for sure, it will provide welcome ammunition to those believing the Mayan prophecy that 2012 will bring the end of Earth.
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2081346/Mystery-20-TONNES-fish-wash-Kvaenes-beach-Norway.html#ixzz1iO59Opz1
January 2, 2012
Check out these great online catalogs from Patagonia
January 1, 2012
Percy Assarsson passed away during the Christmas holidays
I have just learned that Percy Assarsson passed away during the Christmas holidays and I was very sad to hear this.
Percy have worked at Morrum most of his life, started when he was only 19 years old and in 2005 he became the chief executive. Through all these years Percy have done a great job in taking care of our beloved Morrum river. Sadly Percy passed away only 49 years old. He will be remembered.
Our thoughts and condolences goes to his dear family in this difficult moment.
December 29, 2011
Keystone XL is a tar sands pipeline
Link to the source - NRDC Switchboard
Posted December 20, 2011
Keystone XL is a tar sands pipeline to export oil out of the United States
One of the most important facts that is missing in the national debate surrounding the proposed Keystone XL tar sands pipeline is this – Keystone XL will not bring any more oil into the United State for decades to come. Canada doesn’t have nearly enough oil to fill existing pipelines going to the United States. However, existing Canadian oil pipelines all go to the Midwest, where the only buyer for their crude is the United States. Keystone XL would divert Canadian oil from refineries in the Midwest to the Gulf Coast where it can be refined and exported. Many of these refineries are in Foriegn Trade Zones where oil may be exported to international buyers without paying U.S. taxes. And that is exactly what Valero, one of the largest potential buyers of Keystone XL's oil, has told its investors it will do. The idea that Keystone XL will improve U.S. oil supply is a documented scam being played on the American people by Big Oil and its friends in Washington DC.
The fact that Canada has excess pipeline capacity is well known. In a Department of Energy report evaluating Keystone XL's impacts on U.S. energy supply over the next twenty years, the agency found that it will take decades for Canada to produce enough oil to fill existing pipelines. On page 90, the report concludes that the United States will import the same amount of crude from Canada through 2030 whether or not Keystone XL is built.
From Canada's perspective, the problem with existing pipelines is they all end in the U.S. Midwest and only allow one buyer - the United States. As Canada's Natural Resources Minister Joe Oliver recently said, "we export 97 percent of our energy to the U.S. and we would like to diversify that." However, the Canadian government has put the breaks on the two pipeline proposals to export tar sands through its provinces due to the need to take more time to listen to its own public's concerns about water and safety.
Keystone XL would be Canada’s first step in diversifying its energy market. The pipeline would divert large volumes of Canadian oil from the Midwest to the Gulf Coast, where it would be available for the first time to buyers on the world market. To sweeten the deal, many of the refineries on the Gulf Coast happen to be located in foreign trade zones, where they can export Canadian oil to the world market without paying U.S. taxes. Oil Change International investigated this issue in a report that found the Keystone XL pipeline was part of a larger strategy to sell increasing volumes of Canadian crude on the international diesel market.
When Canadian regulators at the National Energy Board (NEB) considered the Keystone XL proposal in 2008, they asked TransCanada to justify another pipeline when there was already so much spare capacity. TransCanada conceded that Keystone XL would take oil from existing pipelines, increasing shipping costs. However, TransCanada argued that this cost would be more than offset as shifting Canadian oil from the Midwest to the Gulf would increase the price that Americans paid for Canadian oil by $3.9 billion.
In fact, TransCanada refused to support a requirement that oil on Keystone XL be used in the United States in a recent Congressional hearing. Earlier this month, Representative Edward Markey asked TransCanada's President Alex Pourbaix to support a condition that would require the oil on Keystone XL to be used in the United States. Mr. Pourbaix refused, saying that a requirement to keep oil on Keystone XL in the United States would cause refineries to back out of their contracts. That very well may be the case as Valero, one of the largest prospective purchasers of Keystone XL's crude, has already told its investors the its future business is in international export.
Simply stated, Keystone XL is a way to get Canadian oil out of the United States, not into it.
Go to www.stoptar.org to take action.
December 28, 2011
December 27, 2011
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