Custom salmon said safe

WASHINGTON – The effort to win federal approval of genetically engineered salmon received a major boost Friday when the Food and Drug Administration released an analysis that deemed the fish safe to eat and unlikely to harm the environment.

AquaBounty Technologies Inc., of Waltham, Mass., has invested more than 14 years and nearly $60 million developing and seeking approval of its AquAdvantage salmon. The company says its fish look and taste like nonengineered North Atlantic salmon, consume up to 25 percent less food and reach market weight in half the time.

If approved, the fish would be the nation’s first commercially produced animal that is genetically engineered for food.

The analysis found the fish to be “as safe as food from conventional Atlantic salmon.”

The FDA’s Veterinary Medicine Advisory Committee will hold public meetings Sept. 19-20 to review the analysis.

The company has said that it intends to sell the genetically altered eggs – which would be engineered to produce sterile female fish – to producers who would be required to raise them inland to prevent the salmon from escaping into the wild.

At the egg production and out-growth facilities, the risk that fish might escape is “extremely small due to the presence of multiple, independent forms of physical (mechanical) containment at both facilities,” the FDA analysis said.

But Wenonah Hauter, executive director at Food and Water Watch, a consumer advocacy organization that focuses on food and water policy, disputed that conclusion.

“The FDA also says that (AquaBounty’s) promises are potentially misleading because up to 5 percent of eggs sold for growout could be fertile,” Hauter said.