I eye-rolled forever at 'frankenfish'.
The problem is more about people making the world their playground. Some people believe that life (and "natural" wildlife) is worth something in itself, apart from it's economical value.
Look at the poll results.
27%
Yes. The FDA has already said that genetically altered salmon is as safe to eat as the traditional kind.
50%
No. Altered fish has never been eaten before -- we don't know what it could do to us.23%
I'll wait and see. If it hits the market and there are no problems, I may try it.
We know exactly what it can do to us. We eat chinook salmon. We eat ocean pout. The article itself brings up 'new allergies' as a concern - do you know anyone that's only allergic to ocean pout? I'll just assume you don't, msnbc, because fish allergies are caused by a specific protein, parvalbumin, present in most fish.
The environmental concern is real, and when I saw this it spooked me a little. But it's addressed adequately by their measures. They're breeding female salmon with hormone-altered female salmon, meaning they're all female. The triploid method is statistically reliable and established as producing fish that are extremely unlikely to survive - At absolute most, you'd have 5% of fish (almost certainly less) fighting against the odds that the 95% other fish are escaping instead, trying to fight their way through chlorine kill-zones, heat exchangers, nets, several hydroelectic plants down-stream, etc. etc. Then -those- have to compete against native salmon, which statistically easily outcompete triploid salmon in mating. Take a look at
this, which is a lot more informative than nbc's article. The tactic for news agencies that want to boil up some fear over this is the standard 'scientists don't know what they're doing and neither do you'. Well, there you go msnbc. Get reading, poll-takers, or shut up and let the grownups put food on your plates
Regarding patents, I actually see it as
somewhat beneficial (if troubling) in GM foods specifically. Simply because it makes companies less likely to slip in some "trade secret" alterations to their products, which might alter any number of factors. If they're required to publish the sequenced genome of their product as a part of their patent, it's straight-forward for a regulatory body to check it against what's on the shelf.