Posted November 20, 2015 9:15 pm by Comments

By Patriot Outdoor News

After years of review and endless controversy, the Food and Drug Administration on Thursday approved the nation’s first genetically altered animal — a salmon engineered to grow twice as fast as its natural counterpart.

AquAdvantage, produced by Massachusetts-based AquaBounty, is an Atlantic salmon that contains a growth hormone from a Chinook salmon and has been given a gene from the ocean pout, an eel-like fish. The result is a fish that is large enough for consumption in about a year and a half, rather than the typical three years.

Food-safety activists, environmental groups and the salmon fishing industry, not to mention lawmakers from Alaska, have long opposed the approval of the fish — which they derisively refer to as “Frankenfish” — and have argued that its existence could open the door to a broad range of potentially unsafe genetically modified animal foods. Knowing an FDA approval was likely, critics have in recent years won commitments from some of the nation’s most recognizable chains — including Whole Foods, Trader Joe’s and Target — to not sell the fish.

The FDA said Thursday that its decision was “based on sound science and a comprehensive review,” and that regulators are confident that the genetically altered fish …Read the Rest

Source:: Patriot Outdoor News

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