Have you thought about eating a genetically modified animal?
No? But may you will if you eat salmon. By now, you’ve probably heard that the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has approved the first-ever genetically engineered animal for human consumption. It’s an Atlantic salmon modified for fast growth with genes from two other edible fish, and it has been — and will undoubtedly continue to be — a lightning rod for all the issues associated with genetically modified foods. There’s safety, there’s escape into the environment and there’s labeling: a trifecta of discord. ... On both of those issues, there will always be some doubt. Safety can’t be proved (we can only infer it from absence of harm so far), and any containment system can fail. So the questions aren’t “Is it safe?” and “Could they escape?” The question is whether the risk in those two areas is outweighed by the benefits. ... So let’s talk about the benefits. According to AquaBounty, the advantages are that the fish reaches market weight in about half the time taken