Genetically Engineered Salmon Under FDA Consideration

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Aug 16, 2010, 5:24:43 PM8/16/10

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Genetically Engineered Salmon Under FDA Consideration
With a global population pressing against food supplies and vast areas of the ocean swept clean of fish, tiny AquaBounty Technologies Inc. of Waltham, Mass., says it can help feed the world. The firm has developed genetically engineered salmon that reach market weight in half the usual time. What's more, it hopes to avoid the pollution, disease and other problems associated with saltwater fish farms by having its salmon raised in inland facilities. The Food and Drug Administration has yet to approve what would be the nation's first commercial genetically modified food animal. "This is the threshold case. If it's approved, there will be others," said Eric Hallerman, head of the fisheries and wildlife sciences department at Virginia Tech University. "If it's not, it'll have a chilling effect for years." Some in the fish farming industry are leery of the move toward engineered fish. "No! It is not even up for discussion," Jorgen Christiansen, director of communications for Oslo-based Marine Harvest, one of the world's largest salmon producers, wrote in an e-mail. Christiansen said his company worries "that consumers would be reluctant to buy genetically modified fish, regardless of good food quality and food safety." Some critics call AquaBounty's salmon "Frankenfish."