Obama administration ‘bailed out’ GM salmon firm

Suzanne Goldenberg
Guardian

October 18, 2011

The Obama administration awarded a coveted research grant to a financially strapped company working to put genetically modified (GM) salmon on American dinner tables, overlooking disclosures that the firm could run out of cash in early 2012, it has emerged.

Campaigners say the $500,000 grant to AquaBounty amounts to a bail-out for the firm’s main investor, the business tycoon and former economics minister of Georgia, Kakha Bendukidze. They are also comparing it to the Solyndra controversy, which saw a solar company go bankrupt after receiving government loan guarantees.

“Certainly this does have shades of Solyndra. We have seen this company’s stock plummeting for months and months – years actually – and what does the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) do but give this company money?”, said Colin O’Neil, a policy analyst at the Centre for Food Safety, which opposes GM salmon.

“This is research that any public university or independent institution could be doing, so why is the USDA funding this interested company to do it?” he said.

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3 Responses to “Obama administration ‘bailed out’ GM salmon firm”

  1. This is coming from a mindset, which thinks smoking the salmon is an offense against nature.

  2. I’m thinking about starting a eugenics company that sells snake oil, I bet I could get $500,000 from the regime, but I have to make sure that I’m failing first.

  3. Since when can the president just decide to give money away to whatever companies he choses? I thought congress had the power of the purse.

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