U.S. District Court judge Vince Chhabria in San Francisco issued an order to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration on Thursday, November 5th requiring the Agency to conduct an environmental assessment of GMO salmon currently being reared at a edicated facility in Indiana. The court action does not affect the approval of the GMO fish and relates to the potential environmental impact of release and has no relevance to the health and safety of the salmon as a food.
The FDA took into account the fact that all of the GMO salmon are sterile females and would therefore not breed with wild fish, even in the highly unlikely event that they were transferred to a river or ocean from a landlocked Indiana location where they are raised in tanks.
Aquabounty salmon, that grow considerably faster than wild fish, are opposed on principle by all the organizations involved in suppressing GMO technology, including the Center for Food Safety that was involved in the suit challenging aspects of the FDA approval.