Coming to a grocery store near you later this year: the country’s first genetically modified animal. Called the AquAdvantage, it’s part Atlantic salmon and part chinook salmon, with some genes from a few other fish to boost growth. But is this salmon safe to eat? “We are already seeing so many issues with autoimmunity, steroids, and antibiotic use in our food, we don’t need more genetically altered food,” says Taz Bhatia, M.D., author of What Doctors Eat. “We don’t know the long-term effects of this new fish on our health, the environment, or the food chain.” But not all medical experts dismiss GMO altogether. “There is a notion that this is ‘Frankenfood,’ ” says David L. Katz, M.D., director of Yale University Prevention Research Center. “But if the nutritional composition is the same, it may have no impact at all on how the food is handled by your body.” While people deserve to know if their food is genetically modified or not, adds Katz, “I don’t think summary judgment about GMO is warranted.”
