'Bombshell' PCB finding worries fish farmers
Study finds farmed salmon unsafe to eat because of toxins, environmental group says
Scott Simpson
Vancouver Sun
Thursday, January 08, 2004
B.C. is the world's fourth largest farmed-salmon producer after Norway, Chile and the U.K., with 85,000 tonnes last year.
B.C.'s $300-million-a-year salmon farming industry is bracing for a desperate public relations battle today as a respected international science journal delivers a "bombshell" study that examines the links between farmed Atlantic salmon and toxins that are hazardous to human health.
A U.S.-based group of researchers has spent two years sifting through more than two tonnes of farmed and wild salmon flesh -- obtained from sources all over the globe -- in a hunt for the presence of cancer-causing toxins.
The respected U.S. journal Science will reportedly carry details of their findings to a worldwide audience in this week's edition. Government agencies, researchers, industry groups, The Vancouver Sun and some other media have been provided advance copies of the study but are forbidden to divulge its contents until 11 a.m. today under strict conditions of an embargo by the publishers of Science.
The B.C. Salmon Farmers Association has not seen the study but admits it is worried it could frighten consumers away from a product that continues to have the support of Health Canada, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and the World Health Organization.
B.C. is the largest salmon farming region in North America, primarily in small coastal communities with few other employment options. Atlantic salmon are the main product of those farms.
As many as 3,500 British Columbians are employed directly or indirectly in aquaculture. Nationally, the industry industry reported operating revenues of $711 million in 2002, according to Statistics Canada.
Two B.C. environmental groups, the B.C. Coastal Alliance for Aquaculture Reform and the David Suzuki Foundation, broke the embargo agreement Wednesday by announcing that the study would appear in today's edition of the magazine.
The groups said U.S. scientists examined two tonnes of wild and farmed salmon samples from wholesalers and retailers in 16 major cities in North America and Europe, including Vancouver and Toronto.
They said study authors "recommended consumption levels based on the rigorous standards of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency."
The EPA monitors the presence of mercury, polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) and other persistent organic pollutants in recreationally caught fish and issues advisories -- not "standards" -- to the public based on its own environmental yardstick.
The EPA yardstick would effectively eliminate farmed salmon from operations in B.C., Europe and South America as a food choice for consumers.
Health Canada and FDA officials have previously dismissed the EPA's standards, which are intended as a guide for recreational fishermen in environmental hot spots around the U.S., as inapplicable to commercial food products.
According to Health Canada and the FDA, farmed salmon are safe because they contain only a tiny fraction of the allowable concentration of PCBs those agencies say is acceptable for human consumption.
The Science study represents the first authoritative study of persistent organic pollutants in salmon.
Environmental groups based in Washington, D.C., and B.C. previously undertook minor studies, each involving a handful of fish.
Both asserted that their findings proved farmed salmon were unsafe to eat, based on the EPA yardstick.
The EPA standards are intended to minimize the consumption of fish caught by anglers in heavily polluted lakes and streams.
Details and rumours about the Science study have been circulating in the scientific community for months, with Purdue University toxicologist Charles Santerre warning B.C. fish farmers last October of a "bombshell" report that would attempt to apply the EPA's standards to farm fish.
Santerre himself has repeatedly asserted that farmed salmon are a good food choice because they are rich in omega three fatty acids which offer protection against heart attacks.
But Santerre warned that environmental groups were likely to exploit the new research by using EPA recreational fishing standards as the appropriate yardstick.
Some details, including the cost and intent, of the study are available through the Pew Charitable Trust, a pro-environment U.S. foundation that financed the research for the Science study.
Pew provided $2.5 million US in September 2001 to a group of U.S. researchers led by Dr. David Carpenter of the University of New York, for a project that would "analyze and evaluate the human health impacts of persistent organic pollutants in farmed Atlantic salmon and wild Pacific salmon."
B.C. Salmon Farmers Association executive director Mary Ellen Walling said she's concerned that the study could be another obstacle to efforts to build a strong, sustainable aquaculture industry.
She said it's also likely to drive a wedge between salmon farmers and the wild salmon fishery at a time when both sectors should be looking for mutual support in marketing a product with acknowledged health benefits.
"I think we should be coordinating research on the marine environment and fish health. There are things we could be working on," Walling said.
"I'm concerned that this study and the fears that it may raise in the minds of the consumers will distract us from this important work."
Walling said the main source of PCBs in farmed salmon is in the fish oil that comprises a major portion of their feed.
That oil is derived from forage fish which are caught and processed as fish pellets for salmon farmers.
The contaminants become more concentrated as they move up the food chain, from forage fish to farm fish.
The association has previously noted that the level of PCB contaminants in the marine environment is just a fraction of levels in Europe, the world's main site for Atlantic salmon farms.
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SCALE OF PRODUCTION
B.C. is the world's fourth largest farmed-salmon producer after Norway, Chile and the U.K., with 85,000 tonnes last year.
2002: $289 million
2000: $282 million
Value of provincial harvest
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