Weird Facts About Genetically Engineered Salmon
Experts are meeting outside Washington to give advice to the Food and Drug Administration on whether the agency should OK to sales of a genetically engineered supersalmon that grows bigger and faster than normal Atlantic salmon.
NPR’s April Fulton laid out the issues on Monday’s Morning Edition. From the regulators’ point of view the big questions are whether the food is safe to eat and whether it’s safe for the environment grow fish like these.
What should you know? Well, the fish, according to the agency’s analysis appear safe for us to eat and grow. But there are some details we can’t quite shake.
Chinook Connection: The inventors of the genetically engineered fish took a gene for growth hormone from the Pacific’s Chinook salmon (Oncorhynchus tshawytscha), the biggest salmon around, and spliced it into the DNA of the Atlantic species (Salmo salar).