Looks like that will be the next problem, if the Purdey/Brown hypothesis concerning Mad Cow Disease
is accurate, and the evidence seems to support it much more than any other hypothesis. If I had a
choice, I'd eat organic beef rather than farm raised salmon, but I'd boil the beef - cooking it
while exposed to air is a very bad idea, leading to oxidized cholesterol, etc.
"Farm-raised salmon higher in contaminants than wild salmon, study finds Eric Pianin,
Washington Post
Published January 9, 2004 SALM09 Farm-raised salmon, a growing staple of U.S. 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 study of commercial fish
sold in North America, South America and Europe. The study, using Environmental Protection Agency
health guidelines, concluded that while consumers could safely eat four to eight meals of wild
salmon a month, consumption of more than one 8-ounce portion of farmed salmon a month in most cases
poses an "unacceptable cancer risk." People in Washington, D.C., New York, Los Angeles, Chicago and
Seattle should not eat farmed salmon more than once or twice a month, the study advises. The two-
year study was paid for by the Pew Charitable Trust and published Thursday in the journal Science.
Officials of the Food and Drug Administration and the fishing industry took issue with the findings.
They said the contaminant levels in salmon have declined by 90 percent since the 1970s and the
remaining "trace levels" do not warrant consumers denying themselves the high protein and
cardiovascular benefits of eating salmon. "We've looked at the levels found . . . and they do not
represent a health concern," said Terry Troxell, director of the FDA's Office of Plant and Dairy
Food and Beverages. "In the end our advice is not to alter consumption of farmed or wild salmon."
The salmon farming industry points out that all the pollutant levels are well within the FDA's legal
limits and says other foods eaten more often, such as beef, are bigger sources of exposure. On
average, farmed salmon has concentrations of health-threatening contaminants 10 times greater than
those found in wild salmon, according to the study. Farmed fish contain higher concentrations of
contaminants than wild fish largely because they are fed a meal that consists of ground-up fish
tainted with the contaminants, while wild salmon feed on smaller fish and tiny aquatic organisms.
Removing the skin and grilling salmon removes a significant amount of stored PCBs, dioxins and other
pollutants, the FDA noted. The Associated Press contributed to this report.
startribune.com4309047.htmlOpen ↗"