Canadian Salmon Farms Using Plenty Of Known Neurotoxin To Control Sea Lice

[hatrack]

VICTORIA, BC, Dec. 9 /CNW/ - A new report released today by the Raincoast Conservation Society shows that Health Canada approves the widespread use of a highly toxic emergency drug called Slice to control sea lice in Canadian farmed salmon. Residues of the drug have shown up in farmed salmon going to market; Canada exports the vast majority of its farmed salmon, and the U.S. consumes 95% of those exports.

The active ingredient in Slice is emamectin benzoate - a known neurotoxin listed by the US Environmental Protection Agency as highly toxic. Slice is used extensively in Canada, despite its designation as an emergency drug (a classification reserved for limited or experimental use). The U.S. Food and Drug Administration does not currently test Canadian farmed salmon for Slice.

"Documents we obtained reveal that over 170 million farmed salmon have been given Slice in the last five years - over 35 million in 2003 alone," said Theresa Rothenbush, Aquaculture Specialist for the Raincoast Conservation Society which commissioned the report, Diminishing Returns: An Investigation Into the Five Multinational Corporations That Control British Columbia's Salmon Farming Industry. "Our report chronicles the truth about Slice and tells an astonishing story of disease in the industry."

Documents also show that in 2000, the Canadian Food Inspection Agency
began finding residues of Slice in farmed salmon. At that time, the Agency had zero tolerance for Slice consumption. Rather than notify the public and issue a recall, Health Canada decided to change its policy and accept Slice residues in farmed salmon up to a maximum of 50 parts per billion. Only two parts per billion of emamectin benzoate are allowable under guidelines for meat set by the US Environmental Protection Agency. The use of Slice in farmed salmon is a concern to scientists. "Emamectin is one of a class of drugs known to block a major inhibitory neural transmitter in the brain," said Dr. David O. Carpenter, M.D., Director of the Institute for Health and Environment at the University of Albany in New York and author of a prominent PCB study published in Science this year. "We should not have to consume these chemicals in our salmon." Animal studies have demonstrated exposure to the chemical during development causes changes in behaviour and growth as well as pathological changes in the brain."

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http://www.newswire.ca/en/releases/archive/December2004/09/c3353.html

[knowbody0]

1. a salmon that does not make the journey is NOT a salmon

what are these freaks thinking?