After more than 30 years of development and regulatory review, AquaBounty's fast-growing, GM salmon is poised to hit US grocery stores in 2021. It's an important step forward for sustainable food production, but the occasion also raises some frustrating questions. Why did it take the US, typically viewed as a global biotechnology leader, three decades to approve its first genetically engineered food animal? More importantly, why does the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) so stringently regulate genetically engineered animals while going out of its way to defend the safety and efficacy of GE crops?

"Years of research in the US and around the world show that GMO foods are just as safe to eat as non-GMO foods," the agency said of biotech crops in a recent video. Scientists have for years made the same case in defense of GE animals, arguing that they don't pose a unique risk just because they've been genetically engineered. But the FDA remains unimpressed and regulates animal biotech under the same rules that apply to veterinary drugs, making it prohibitively expensive and time consuming for researchers to breed genetically engineered animals for use as food.











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The opportunity cost of this regulatory double standard is enormous. Not only has it forced some scientists to move their research out of the country, it has prevented farmers from using technologies that can improve animal welfare, cut antibiotic use, reduce pollution and ultimately offer consumers less expensive animal products. University of California, Davis animal geneticist Alison Van Eenennaam offered a particularly striking example in a recent five-part series for the GLP:
A GE cow designed to be resistant to Staphylococcus aureus mastitis was reported by public sector researchers with the USDA Agricultural Research Service (ARS) in 2005. Mastitis is a disease of the mammary gland and is estimated to cost the global dairy industry $19.