Gene-edited pigs deemed safe to eat by Health Canada

Food made from pigs engineered to be resistant to a porcine virus are as safe and nutritious to eat as pork currently on the market, Health Canada said Friday.

Federal regulators announced pigs resistant to porcine reproductive and respiratory syndrome viruses (PRRSV) — which it called a devastating class of viruses in farmed pigs — are safe to use in food and livestock feeds.

Genus PLC, a U.K.-based business selling elite genetics to farmers, and Winnipeg-based PIC Canada, Ltd., applied to Health Canada and the Canadian Food Inspection Agency, respectively, to bring the gene-edited products to market as food and feed.

Health Canada said improving resistance to PRRSV in pigs will help herds avoid illness from these viruses, reduce antibiotic use and improve animal welfare, while supporting a more stable, affordable and sustainable food supply.

Genus PLC's resistant pigs are already permitted for food use in the U.S., Brazil, Colombia and the Dominican Republic. The company doesn't intend to sell these pigs before regulatory approval in other key markets, Health Canada said. 

"Because Health Canada found no health and safety concerns, no special labelling is required for foods from these PRRSV-resistant pigs."

More than 25 years ago, scientists at Memorial University in Newfoundland developed a salmon that would become the first transgenic food animal approved for sale in Canada. Sold as AquAdvantage Salmon, the DNA came from Pacific salmon and the eel-like ocean pout.

At the time, the Council of Canadians said it was concerned about the amount of water extracted, effluent and transport of eggs between facilities.

Unlike the genetically modified salmon, the PRRSV-resistant pigs were created using CRISPR gene-editing technology that makes precise genetic changes without introducing genetic material from another species, scientists say. 

"This is the first gene-edited animal that has been approved for commercial sale in Canada," said Gwendolyn Blue, a professor in the geography department at the University of Calgary who studies the politics and values surrounding gene editing.

While Blue recognizes the advantages PRRSV-resistant pigs could bring, she's also notes there are ethical, moral, cultural and political questions surrounding the approval, such as how assessments about safety were made, as well as Canada's updated biotechnology regulations.

"One of the concerns that people have had within a Canadian context is labeling," she said. "There is no mandatory labeling and this is something that is currently under review."

Genus PLC said to breed pigs that are resistant to PRRS, it removed a portion of a specific gene that the PRRS virus needs to infect the pig.

CRISPR technology has also been applied in medicine experimentally. In 2025, doctors in the U.S. used CRISPR to personalize gene therapy for a baby with a rare and dangerous genetic disease.

In 2023, Britain's medicines regulator authorized the world's first gene-therapy treatment for sickle cell disease and thalassemia, which are caused by errors in the genes that carry hemoglobin, the protein in red blood cells that carry oxygen.