by Andrew Schneider
A major U.S. fish research company has tampered with the DNA of Atlantic salmon by adding a quick-growth gene that allows the fish to eat year-around and grow more quickly. And the Food and Drug Administration is about to allow these genetically engineered salmon to head to market, the company says.
But food safety activists insist that the FDA doesn’t have adequate tests and regulations to ensure the safety of modified seafood, and others question whether consumers are even ready for it.
“Far from being a benefit to consumers or the environment, this merely allows factory fish farms to double production rates,” said George Kimbrell, senior attorney for the Center for Food Safety.
Nevertheless, AquaBounty Technologies in Waltham, Mass., near Boston, is already producing tiny red Atlantic salmon eggs that have been injected with a gene from Pacific Chinook salmon and another gene from the ocean pout. This genetic modification gives the engineered fish the ability to grow to market size in half the time of salmon that haven’t been messed with. (more…)
