Fri Dec 21, 2012 4:28pm EST

n">(Reuters) - A controversial genetically engineered salmon has moved a step closer to the consumer's dining table after the U.S. Food and Drug Administration said Friday the fish didn't appear likely to pose a threat to the environment or to humans who eat it.

AquAdvantage salmon eggs would produce fish with the potential to grow to market size in half the time of conventional salmon. If it gets a final go-ahead, it would be the first food from a transgenic animal - one whose genome has been altered - to be approved by the FDA.

The AquAdvantage Atlantic salmon egg was developed by AquaBounty Technology to speed up production to meet global seafood demand.

In a draft environmental assessment, the FDA affirmed earlier findings that the biotech salmon was not likely to be harmful. It said it would take comments from the public on its report for 60 days before making a final decision on approval.

"With respect to food safety, FDA has concluded that food from AquAdvantage salmon is as safe as food from conventional Atlantic salmon, and that there is a reasonable certainty of no harm from consumption," the FDA assessment states.

AquaBounty officials said they were caught by surprise by the news that its product was a step closer to approval as years of controversy had followed the company's application for a go-ahead from the regulator. They said they did not know the timing or details of the process the FDA will follow following the 60-day comment period.

"We are encouraged that the environmental assessment is being released and hope the government continues the science-based regulatory process," said AquaBounty Chief Executive Ronald Stotish.

Critics say the new salmon is a "dangerous experiment" and have pressured the FDA to reject it. They say the FDA has relied on outdated science and substandard methods for assessing the new fish.

"We are deeply concerned that the potential of these fish to cause allergic reactions has not been adequately researched," said Michael Hansen, a scientist at the Consumers Union. "FDA has allowed this fish to move forward based on tests of allergenicity of only six engineered fish, tests that actually did show an increase in allergy-causing potential."

There were also concerns the FDA would not require the genetically modified salmon to be labeled as such, and some critics said they may file a lawsuit to prevent what they fear could be the imminent approval of the engineered fish.

"Congress can still keep FDA from unleashing this dangerous experiment," said Wenonah Hauter, executive director of Food & Water Watch, a consumer advocacy group. "Although this latest FDA decision is a blow to consumer confidence, we encourage everyone to contact their members of Congress and demand this reckless decision be overturned."

The Center for Food Safety, another non-profit consumer protection group, was highly critical of the FDA report, and officials said they might sue the regulator over the issue.

"It is extremely disappointing that the Obama Administration continues to push approval of this dangerous and unnecessary product," said Andrew Kimbrell, executive director of the Center for Food Safety. "The GE salmon has no socially redeeming value. It's bad for the consumer, bad for the salmon industry and bad for the environment."

FDA spokeswoman Morgan Liscinsky said no final decisions have been made on labeling or on the application for approval.

"The release of these materials is not a decision on whether food from AquAdvantage Salmon requires additional labeling; nor is it a decision on the new animal drug application currently under review. It also does not provide a final food safety determination," Liscinsky said.

The AquAdvantage salmon would be an all-female population with eggs produced in a facility on Prince Edward Island in Canada and shipped to a "grow-out facility" in Panama, where they would be reared to market size and harvested for processing.

(Editing by Bernadette Baum; and Peter Galloway)

View the original article here

1 of 5. A woman poses with a copy of author J K Rowling's first adult fiction book The Casual Vacancy after it went on sale at a bookshop in central London, September 27, 2012.

LONDON | Thu Sep 27, 2012 12:55pm EDT

LONDON (Reuters) - J.K. Rowling's first foray into adult fiction was bound to be compared to her wildly successful Harry Potter series, and, while "The Casual Vacancy" has earned mixed reviews, for some critics the magic has worn off.

The Casual Vacancy, which hits the shelves on Thursday, looks destined for the top of the bestseller lists whatever the reaction, with Rowling's celebrity status guaranteeing public anticipation and media attention in equal measure.

In the New York Times, Michiko Kakutani likened some of Rowling's small-minded, snobby characters to the odious Dursley family from the Harry Potter tales.

"One can only admire her gumption in facing up to the overwhelming expectations created by the global phenomenon that was Harry Potter," Kakutani wrote.

"Unfortunately, the real-life world she has limned in these pages is so willfully banal, so depressingly cliched that 'The Casual Vacancy' is not only disappointing — it's dull."

Other critics were less damning, however, and several reviews in British and U.S. newspapers argued that, while not great, Rowling's eagerly anticipated break from the world of child wizards and witches was good.

"The Casual Vacancy is no masterpiece, but it's not bad at all: intelligent, workmanlike, and often funny," said Theo Tait in the Guardian newspaper.

"The worst you could say about it, really, is that it doesn't deserve the media frenzy surrounding it. And who nowadays thinks that merit and publicity have anything do with each other?"

WORTH THE HYPE?

Book stores opened early in London to deal with anticipated demand, and the print run in the United States alone is reported to be two million copies.

That build up is understandable. The series-concluding "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows", which appeared in 2007, became the fastest-selling book in history. More than 450 million copies of the seven Potter books have sold worldwide.

The Casual Vacancy is set in a small English town called Pagford, where class prejudices are played out and Rowling exploits her post-Potter freedom by tackling themes of drug addiction, teenage sex and violent domestic abuse.

The plot is set in motion by the death of Barry, which creates a "casual vacancy" on the local municipal ("parish") council and gives his opponents an opportunity to offload a nearby run-down housing estate on to a neighboring district and be done with its seedy inhabitants.

Andrew Losowsky of the Huffington Post website, said Rowling's foray into adult fiction was worth publishing, but perhaps did not match the giddy anticipation surrounding its release.

"Would this book be published if it weren't for the name on the cover? Almost certainly. Would anyone pay much attention to it, and its message? Probably not."

But he also argued that Rowling should not give up on adult fiction, even though the 47-year-old Briton has declared that her next book is most likely to be another children's story.

"Though some sequences feel a few drafts short of being ready, others are written with a fluency and beauty that suggest that there could be more and better works to come from her pen."

In The Independent newspaper, Boyd Tonkin believed Rowling was at her best when describing the younger characters.

"The teens of Winterdown belong in a bolder, richer book than some of the parental caricatures," he said. "All the social and hormonal turbulence that the later Potter volumes had to veil in the euphemisms of fantasy appear in plain sight here."

The conservative Daily Telegraph broadsheet took umbrage at Rowling's skewering of the middle class.

"While Rowling gives due respect to the poorer, damaged characters, higher up the social scale she is busy carving grotesques," wrote Allison Pearson in a three-star review.

Although Rowling is dubbed the world's first author billionaire, she started her literary life in the 1990s as an unemployed single mother living on state benefits who struggled to find a publisher. She is a long-time Labor Party supporter.

Perhaps the conclusion Rowling will least want to read came from Monica Hesse in The Washington Post.

"Throughout 'The Casual Vacancy' I could not stop from having one overarching thought, which the devoted fan in me loathes to share since I'm certain it's the one Rowling is most loath to hear: This book would be a little better if everyone were carrying wands."

(Reporting by Mike Collett-White, editing by Paul Casciato)

View the original article here