The following is an edited excerpt.
The critics of biotechnology who predicted the eventual emergence of a fearsome Dr. Frankenstein’s creature have been vindicated: Government regulation of genetically engineered animals has become a monster.
The feds’ treatment of an Atlantic salmon that reaches maturity twice as rapidly as its wild cohorts is a case in point. The genetic changes – the addition to the genome of a growth hormone gene from the Chinook salmon and a regulatory DNA sequence from the ocean pout – confer no detectable difference in the fish’s appearance, ultimate size, taste or nutritional value; it just grows faster, a tremendous economic advantage to those farming the fish in a closed water system. Its availability would also be a tremendous boon to consumers seeking low-fat and affordable options for sources of protein, especially in the face of food price inflation and the obesity epidemic.
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Read the full story here: Will GE animals bring home the bacon?
