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The sale marks the first time that a genetically engineered animal has been sold for food on the open market. It took AquaBounty more than 25 years to get to this point.
The fish, a variety of Atlantic salmon (Salmo salar), is engineered to grow faster than its non-genetically modified counterpart, reaching market size in roughly half the time — about 18 months. AquaBounty sold its first commercial batch at market price: US$5.30 per pound ($11.70 per kilogram)
[...] AquaBounty raised the fish in tanks in a small facility in Panama. It plans to ramp up production by expanding a site on Canada's Prince Edward Island, where local authorities gave the green light for construction in June. In the same month, the company also acquired a fish farm in Albany, Indiana; it awaits the nod from US regulators to begin production there.
[...] Scientists first demonstrated the fast-growing fish in 1989. They gave it a growth-hormone gene from Chinook salmon (Oncorhynchus tshawytscha), along with genetic regulatory elements from a third species, the ocean pout (Zoarces americanus). The genetic modifications enable the salmon to produce a continuous low level of growth hormone.
AquaBounty formed around the technology in the early 1990s and approached regulators in the United States soon after. It then spent almost 25 years in regulatory limbo. The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved the salmon for consumption in November 2015, and Canadian authorities came to the same decision six months later. Neither country requires the salmon to be labelled as genetically engineered.
But unlike in Canada, political battles in the United States have stalled the salmon's entry into the marketplace. The law setting out the US government's budget for fiscal year 2017 includes a provision that instructs the FDA to forbid the sale of transgenic salmon until it has developed a programme to inform consumers that they are buying a genetically engineered product.
All three fish are edible, but the engineered salmon only contains protein from the Atlantic and Chinook.
The wiki link states that the salmon are sterile females that would be unable to reproduce.
http://www.nature.com/news/first-genetically-engineered-salmon-sold-in-canada-1.22116
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atlantic_salmon
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinook_salmon
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ocean_pout
Related:
https://www.nature.com/news/salmon-approval-heralds-rethink-of-transgenic-animals-1.18867
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 09 2017, @12:07AM (6 children)
I'm pissed off that my government (Canada) thinks I shouldn't have the right to know exactly what I'm buying. Regardless of what you think about genetic engineering, I'm sure everyone agrees that they should be able to know what they are eating. No more Atlantic salmons for me.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 09 2017, @12:21AM (3 children)
If you don't know the full genomes of everything you eat, it doesn't matter what GMOs you consume.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 09 2017, @12:35AM
I only eat venison cloned from Bambi.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 09 2017, @02:01AM
That's dumb. If you don't kill and skin and dress your own meat, then it doesn't matter if they slip horse or rat or insects into your steak? Maybe not for you, anyway.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 09 2017, @09:17AM
That makes no sense whatsoever. Arguably the whole point of GMOs is the bring patents into industries where intellectual property would not otherwise exist. His request could be met by simply showing any patented components in the food being purchased. Am I purchasing salmon from the ocean, or am I purchasing a patented invention being sold as salmon?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 09 2017, @12:57AM
Ya, it would be refreshing to see Canada lead for a change and make their own independent decisions, instead of always following where the US goes:
"The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved the salmon for consumption in November 2015, and Canadian authorities came to the same decision six months later. Neither country requires the salmon to be labelled as genetically engineered."
(Score: 3, Insightful) by kaszz on Wednesday August 09 2017, @02:20AM
I'm just waiting until ultra cheap DNA testing will be available. Then GMO identification will sink the profit of many large firms.