Friday, January 09, 2004
Problems with salmon
Farm-raised salmon, a growing staple of American diets, contains significantly higher concentrations of PCBs, dioxin and other cancer-causing contaminants than salmon caught in the wild, and should be eaten infrequently, according to a new study of commercial fish sold in North America, South America and Europe.
The study, using Environmental Protection Agency health guidelines, concluded that although consumers can safely eat four to eight meals of wild salmon a month, consumption of more than one eight-ounce portion of farmed salmon a month in most cases poses an "unacceptable cancer risk."
Food and Drug Administration and fishing industry officials immediately took issue with the findings. They said the contaminant levels in salmon have declined by 90 percent since the 1970s, and that the remaining threat -- when balanced against the high protein and cardiovascular health benefits of eating salmon -- do not warrant shunning the food.
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The study found that salmon contamination varied by geography. Store-bought samples from Frankfurt, Edinburgh, Paris, London and Oslo were generally the most contaminated, while samples from stores in New Orleans and Denver were the least. Cities including Washington, New York, Los Angeles, Chicago and Seattle ranked somewhere in the middle, and their residents were advised to eat farmed salmon no more than once or twice a month.
EPA guidelines say that if a person eats fish twice a week, it should contain no more than 4 to 6 parts per billion of PCBs. The study found that PCB levels in farmed salmon sold in the United States and Canada averaged about five times that amount: 30 parts per billion. On average, farmed salmon had concentrations of health-threatening contaminants 10 times as high as those found in wild salmon.
More.
posted by chris at 9:31 AM
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