Leo Broderick
CBC reports, “Environmentalists rang the alarm Monday over the world’s first genetically-modified fish eggs, developed on PEI. The AquaBounty Technologies experimental fish plant in Bay Fortune (about 70 kilometres east of Charlottetown) produces the Atlantic salmon eggs using implanted genes that make the fish grow at twice the natural rate. ….The company is in the final stages of gaining United States Food and Drug Administration approval for the fish, which will be raised in fish farms. But environmentalists have expressed concerned that if the fish escape they could damage wild salmon. ‘They have a responsibility to ensure us that the eggs haven’t already escaped,’ said Leo Broderick of the Council of Canadians.”
“Environmentalists hope to sway the FDA decision by holding a series of public meetings across the Maritimes in the coming week.” Broderick, who is the vice-chairperson of the Council of Canadians, is currently on a 4-city speaking tour on the issue of genetically modified fish. In addition to Charlottetown this evening, Broderick will be in Fredericton on October 25, Halifax on October 26, and St. John’s on October 27. More details can be found at http://canadians.org/events/index.html.
In September 2010, Broderick travelled to Maryland to attend US FDA hearings where dozens of US groups testified about the problems with the genetically modified salmon and the gaps in the science, http://canadians.org/blog/?p=4102.
In January 2011, he and others gained a commitment from the premier of PEI to play a more active role in trying to get Environment Canada to be more transparent and to ask for the provincial government to be part of the federal environmental risk study, http://canadians.org/blog/?p=5116. Just last week, Postmedia News reported, “Environment Canada isn’t sure it can fully protect wild fish stocks if it approves the commercialization of a hatchery of genetically engineered salmon eggs. The admission, outlined in internal records obtained by Postmedia News, could stymie efforts by American company AquaBounty Technologies to sell the first genetically engineered animal that people can eat.” More on that at http://canadians.org/blog/?p=11230.
Broderick has appeared in numerous media reports on this issue including in the Toronto Star, the Vancouver Sun, the Winnipeg Free Press, the Charlottetown Guardian, and the CBC.
