The first genetically modified food animal has been approved for sale in Canada.
At a news conference in Ottawa on Thursday, Health Canada and the Canadian Food Inspection Agency announced AquaBounty’s genetically modified salmon has been approved for sale as food in Canada.
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A final round of thorough and rigorous Canadian scientific reviews found that AquAdvantage Salmon is as safe and nutritious as conventional salmon, according to technical briefing documents provided by Health Canada.
The same conclusion was reached by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration in 2010, but it took until November 2015 for the agency to approve the fish for sale as food in that country. That decision is beingchallenged by a group of environmental, consumer, and commercial and recreational fishing organizations.
AquAdvantage Salmon was developed by Massachusetts-based AquaBounty Technologies.
The fish grow twice as fast as conventionally farmed Atlantic salmon because of the addition of genes from a Chinook salmon and an eel known as an ocean pout…