Farmed Salmon in Cancer Alert
by Roger Highfield

Farmed Atlantic salmon from Scotland contains the highest levels of cancer-causing chemicals in the world, a new survey has found.

It is so contaminated that people should eat it no more than once every four months, according to American guidelines. Otherwise it will increase the risk of cancer by at lest one case in 100,000, scientists say.

Levels of cancer-causing substances, including PCBs, dioxins, dieldrin and toxaphene, were significantly more concentrated in farmed salmon than in wild fish, said the study published today in Science magazine.

Scottish samples of farmed Atlantic salmon were up to 10 times more contaminated than the least contaminated wild salmon: from Kodiak, Alaska. The cause is thought to be contaminated high-fat fish feed.

Professor Ronald Hites of Indiana University, who led the study, said: "We think it is more important for people who eat salmon to know that farmed salmon have higher levels of toxins than wild salmon from the open ocean."

Professor Barbara Knuth of Cornell University, the co-author of the report, said: "Based on these data, my choice would be, if I were to seek out farm-raised Atlantic salmon, to select north or south American sources. To cut contamination, farms should use feeds with less fish and more plant based material," she said.

But Charles Santerre, of Purdue University, Indiana, said the benefits of salmon - a good source of protein, vitamins D and heart-friendly fats - out weighed the risks. "We should be eating more farmed salmon," he said.

His point was taken up by Scottish Quality Salmon, which represents about two thirds of Scottish salmon production. It said the advice of the scientists was misleading.

Dr John Webster, its technical consultant, said: "Consumers should be reassured by this research, despite its rather obvious attempt to stir anti-fish farm headlines. It says that individual contaminant concentrations in farmed and wild salmon do not exceed US Food and Drug Administration action or tolerance levels. This is true. PCB and dioxin levels in Scottish salmon are significantly lower than the thresholds set by international watchdogs."

David Sandison, the general manager of the Shetland Salmon Farmers' Association, said: "PCBs in the diet, a result of industrial pollution between the 1920s and 1970s have fallen by 75 per cent in 20 years."

Sir John Krebs, the chairman of the Foods Standard Agency, said the study did not raise any new concerns. "Our advice is that people should consume at least two portions of fish a week, one of these should be oily like salmon. There is good evidence that eating oily fish reduces the risk of death from recurrent heart attacks and that there is a similar effect in relation to first heart attacks. We advise that the known benefits of eating one portion of oily fish outweigh any possible risks."

The new study, for which a north American team analysed about 700 farmed and wild salmon, is by far the largest and most comprehensive of its kind.

Salmon samples were bought from wholesalers in the world's eight major farmed salmon producing regions and from retailers in nearly 20 major cities. For comparison, the researchers collected samples of five wild Pacific salmon species from north America, which they said could be eaten as often as eight times a month.

The study concluded that the contamination problem was likely to be related to salmon feed, a concentrated and high fat mixture of other fish ground into fish meal and fish oil.

To make it easier for consumers to follow the consumption advice identified in the study, the authors recommended that all farmed and wild salmon should be clearly labelled and that the country of origin be displayed.

Scottish Quality Salmon said, "We have been calling for that for quite some time."

Since contaminants build up in fatty tissue, consumers may be able to reduce contaminants in farmed salmon by removing as much skin and visible fat as possible.
The Daily Telegraph, 9th January 2004

PHILLIP DAY'S COMMENT: Humans eat foods made from animals that are scavengers, such as pork, crab, shellfish, etc. When we eat these tissues, we inherit the toxins the animals scavenged when they were alive. For a list of these foods and the don'ts of food preparation, please see our new expanded recipe and food information title, Food For Thought.

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