News Coverage
Safety of farm-raised salmon questioned
Watchdog group says it finds high levels of PCBs
Published July 29, 2003
Farm-raised salmon, the budget-priced favorite of millions of Americans, may be laced with high levels of PCBs, according to a report being released today by the watchdog Environmental Working Group.
Farm-raised salmon from Canada, Chile, Scotland, Iceland and Maine and Washington was purchased in supermarkets in three U.S. cities and analyzed. The tests revealed that the seven of 10 samples of farmed salmon contained 16 times the level of dioxin-like PCBs found in wild salmon.
Jane Houlihan, senior vice president for research at EWG, acknowledged Tuesday that the test samples, the first studied in this country, were small. However, she said the results are consistent with a growing number of studies in Canada, Ireland and the United Kingdom.
"It looks like farmed salmon may be a significant public health threat, and we are calling on the FDA to do a more extensive study," she said.
PCBs, banned by the U.S. government in 1976, are recognized as highly toxic industrial pollutants and have been linked to cancer as well as to damage of the nervous, reproductive and immune systems.
Salmon has become America's third favorite seafood, behind tuna (mostly canned) and shrimp. Government studies show 23 million people eat salmon at least once a month and roughly 1.3 million eat salmon once a week.
The advocacy group recommends that people not eat farmed salmon and eat only wild salmon or canned salmon, which is almost always made from wild Alaska salmon. An alternative, Houlihan said, would be limiting consumption of farmed salmon to no more than once a month.
The farmed-fish industry, which has taken steps to mount an information campaign to fend off increasing attacks from environmental activists, maintains it is safe to eat farmed salmon once or more a week.
So how much is safe?
At issue is the question of what are acceptable levels of PCBs. Two government agencies, the Food and Drug Administration and Environmental Protection Agency, have differing standards of safety.
The FDA, which regulates commercial fishing, allows the sale of salmon with PCB levels as high as 2,000 parts per billion - a concentration that would trigger an EPA warning not to eat the fish. EWG asserts that the FDA standards, adopted in 1984, are out of date. EPA standards for recreational fish have a PCB tolerance for only 4 to 6 parts per billion for fish eaten twice a week.
Six of EWG's samples came from factory-scale fish farms in Canada and the United States, and five of the six were polluted at levels that would be safe to eat no more than once a month, under EPA standards. One Canadian sample was "just under the bar," Houlihan said. Two salmon from Iceland and Scotland contained PCBs at levels so high the EPA standards would suggest consumption no more than six times a year.
Repeated studies in other countries have attributed the high PCB levels in farmed salmon to the feed, consisting of ground small fish. Intensive feeding of the fish to maximize weight also contributes to the problem. The water they are raised in also may be contaminated, but studies have shown that wild fish from the same waters as farmed fish are not as contaminated.
"The salmon industry has potential solutions," Houlihan said. "They can more carefully source the feed." She noted that Wild Oats, a major chain selling organic products, is working with a supplier in Ireland that meets European organic standards.
"The West Coast of Ireland is not as contaminated," Houlihan said. "Geography can make a difference."
Locally, Dorothy Lane Market sells certified organic salmon from Scotland; while the fish feed used is tested for PCBs, the fish are not. However, Jack Gridley, director of the seafood and meat departments, responded Tuesday by sending fish to a local lab to be tested for PCBs. Results will not be available for five days, he said, but the results, good or bad, will be posted.
"If it isn't good, we don't want to be selling it," he said.
Farm-raised salmon cheaper
The continually growing consumption of fresh salmon is driven partially by price. Wild salmon, which is not available year round, opened this spring season at $24.99 a pound locally for the heralded Copper River fish, though the price gradually dropped as the catch moved from river to river in Alaska.
Wild river salmon - the fattest and the most prized from Alaskan rivers - remain as high at $16.99 a pound at Dorothy Lane Market. Leaner, troll-caught wild salmon, harvested from the open sea, currently are available at Midwest Seafood at $9.99 retail. And the seasonal Silverbrite wild salmon, regarded as having lesser quality, is currently sale-priced at $2.99 a pound for fillets at Kroger.
Farmed salmon, usually called Atlantic salmon (there are no wild Atlantic salmon left), routinely sells at local supermarkets for as little $4.99 a pound. It is raised in fish farms in Canada and Chile, Scotland and Iceland, as well as the United States and other countries.
Most restaurants use farm-raised salmon, says Jerry Pesarek of Midwest Seafood, the biggest seafood wholesaler in the region. With rare exception, only white-tablecloth restaurants that price salmon entrees from $22 and up buy wild salmon, he says.
Fish farms made salmon an affordable staple about the time the medical community began advising eating fish, especially those rich in heart-healthy Omega 3 fatty acids. And salmon has one of the highest levels of those desirable fats. However, PCB's collect in fatty tissue and accumulate over years.
Of the 10 EWG samples, one of two from Chile passed the test, Houlihan said, but she said that number is not statistically significant enough to draw any conclusions.
Today's report from EWG comes on top of mounting attacks on factory-farmed salmon. Earlier this year class-action suits were filed in West Coast cities against supermarket chains selling farmed salmon without disclosing that color additives are included in the feed of farmed salmon to make the flesh red, as it is in wild salmon. Chains, including Cincinnati-based Kroger, quickly announced the introduction of "color added" labels to farmed salmon.
Other charges mounted against the fish farms have included allegations of contamination from antibiotics, pesticides and other chemicals, as well as damage to the ocean floor.