News Coverage
PCBs high in farmed salmon?
Published July 29, 2003
A sharp rise in the consumption of farmed salmon may be posing a health threat to millions of Americans because of high levels of PCBs found in limited samples of the popular fish, according to a study released yesterday.
Diet- and health-conscious Americans have turned to salmon in growing numbers in recent years, and about 23 million people now eat the fish more than once a month.
But a study by the Environmental Working Group found that seven of 10 farmed salmon recently purchased at grocery stories in Washington, San Francisco and Portland, Ore., contained concentrations of PCBs 16 times higher than those found in wild salmon fished from the ocean and roughly four times higher than those found in beef and other seafood.
A majority of the salmon consumed in the United States is produced on aquatic farms and is fed fishmeal that consists of mostly ground-up small fish that have absorbed PCBs, or polychlorinated biphenyls.
PCBs, which were used as industrial insulators, are among a dozen chemical contaminants targeted for worldwide phaseout under the U.N. treaty on persistent organic pollutants. They have been linked to cancer and impaired fetal brain development.
"When Congress banned PCBs in 1976, no one contemplated that 20-odd years later, we would have invented a new industry that re-concentrates these toxins in our bodies," said Jane Houlihan, vice president for research at the Environmental Working Group, an advocacy organization.