By Roni Rabin. STAFF WRITER | New York Newsday | January 14, 2004
When a study reported that farmed salmon contain high levels of PCBs and dioxins, just weeks after a cow tested positive for mad cow disease, fish wholesalers joked that the embattled beef industry was behind the salmon study.
The beef and farmed salmon industries compete to produce low-cost animal protein, but critics say both have adopted similar production methods as they evolved from small farms and fishing enterprises to large so-called "factory farms" that dominate the market and mass produce animals.
In the industrialized settings, cattle, fish as well as market-bound hogs and poultry, are penned in small areas, fed an artificial diet that keeps costs down and fattens them for market, and given medication to control infectious diseases that spread quickly in the crowded quarters, critics say.
Cattle are treated with growth-promoting hormones, an industry spokeswoman acknowledged. A dye is added to the feed to make farmed salmon pink. (They would be white or gray otherwise; wild salmon gets its color from shrimp and krill in the diet). And antibiotics are routinely added to the feed of many animals, increasing the risk of antibiotic resistance in consumers, according to the American Public Health Association.
"It's not Farmer Brown on the family farm anymore, just giving the cow hay, and it's not fishermen grabbing the salmon out of the ocean," said Dr. Lynn Goldman, professor of environmental health sciences at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health in Baltimore. "It's a completely different world now that requires careful attention by our regulatory agencies to make sure it's safe."
An official with the Food and Drug Administration press office said the agency has not considered changes in labeling or standards since the study on salmon was published in the journal Science last week. The study found levels of contaminants, including PCBs and dioxins, were up to 10 times higher in farmed salmon than in wild salmon, and though the levels are within FDA limits, the study's authors recommended eating less than a meal of farmed salmon a month.
Last year, the American Public Health Association called on local, state and federal government health agencies to impose a "precautionary moratorium" on all new farming, dubbed Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations.
Such factory farms have been under fire for years from environmentalists who charge they cause air pollution and contaminate local drinking water, but the association of health providers also cited concerns over the antibiotics, arsenic and other metal compounds that are added to animal feed to promote growth.
"What's the result of all these antibiotics? One result is that the farm environment has antibiotic-resistant bacteria in it that gets transmitted in the meat when it goes to the grocery store," said Dr. David Wallinga, a member of APHA and co-director of the food and health program of the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy, a Minneapolis-based advocacy and research group that supports resilient family farms and ecosystems.
The flip side is that efficient production makes animal protein both plentiful and affordable. "Fish farming is very much here to stay; We have six billion people in the world to feed," Goldman said.
Salmon farms, which raise hundreds of thousands of smolts, or baby salmon, to adulthood in large meshed-net cages dropped into the ocean just off shore, have been criticized by ecologists for their impact both on the water and other species. Uneaten fish feed deposited directly into the water as well as untreated feces flow into the ocean, where it accumulates on the ocean floor, said Rebecca Goldburg, senior scientist at Environmental Defense, a not-for-profit research and advocacy group based in Manhattan that works on marine conservation issues.
Fish often escape from the nets, especially during stormy weather, and they can have a grave impact on the indigenous fish, especially on weakened populations like the endangered wild Atlantic salmon, Goldburg said.
Some of the environmental concerns have immediate implications for human health. A recent lawsuit brought by the U.S. Public Interest Research Group against three large salmon farms in Maine has resulted in changes in operations, said Joshua Kratka, senior attorney at the National Environmental Law Center. One change has been a ban on the use of prophylactic antibiotics on the salmon. The ban "really only applies to Maine," he said, not to salmon farmed in Washington state, Chile or elsewhere.
The routine non-therapeutic use of antibiotics in many animals bred for market accounts for 13 million pounds of antibiotics consumed annually, compared to 3 million pounds of antibiotics that are prescribed for humans, according to the public health association, a group of 50,000 health providers.
But officials from both salmon and beef industries say they have reduced their reliance on antibiotics.
"We have better husbandry now, and better preventive medicines," said Steve Page, the general manager for Atlantic Salmon of Maine, one of the defendants in the lawsuit. He said the company stopped using antibiotics in 2000 and now vaccinates the baby fish against three fish diseases.
Michele Peterson of the National Cattlemen's Beef Association said antibiotics are not used to promote growth, though hormones are.
"Antibiotics are primarily used just to keep animals healthy, not as growth promoters," said Peterson, whose trade group represents American beef producers.
Life On The Farm
Farmed salmon are hatched in freshwater habitats and then matured in offshore saltwater pens, roughly simulating the life cycle of wild salmon. The farming procedure, however, brings health and environmental concerns.
1) HATCHERY STAGE
4-6 Weeks:
Eggs from brood stock are incubated until they hatch.
Up to 18 Months:
The salmon are fed a diet of fishmeal, fish oil, amino acids, vitamins and minerals.
OCEAN STAGE
After 18 Months: The salmon, now in smolt stage, are transferred to ocean pens (shown above and below), where they grow to full size and later are harvested.
Some potential problems of farming:
Waste: Because of the cloistered farm environment, waste and uneaten feed are concentrated and can seep into surrounding waters.
Disease: Closed habitats also aggravate potential for disease. Illness can harm other fish, especially if any salmon escape the net.
Chemicals: Antibiotics used to ward off disease in farmed salmon may have health implications for humans.
PCBs: Studies show farmed salmon have higher levels of PCB contaminants. This happens when factory runoff taints the small fish that are ground up to make feed, which are then ingested by the salmon.By Roni Rabin. STAFF WRITER
