Your chemical Christmas - Village Magazine

6 4 December - January 2017

HE 'BOYCOTT Farmed Salmon at Christmas

campaign' has added the word ‘ORGANIC’ to

its campaign’s name after Fisheries Minister

Creed refused to accept that EU Regulations

require that whenever chemical medicines are

used on organic products “treated stock shall be clearly

identifiable”.

Asked if the limitations on chemical residues in farmed

salmon set by our government and its agencies are ade-

quate to protect health, Dr David Carpenter, Director,

Institute for Health and the Environment at the University

at Albany in the US, wrote in a personal communication

to the 'Boycott Farmed Salmon Campaign' that, “In my

judgement many of them are not”.

Deputy Eamon O’Cuív raised the issue of chemical

treatment of farmed salmon in the Oireachtas last year.

He said that he “will not touch farmed salmon because

it is a totally unnatural product”.

The ‘Wildfish.ie’ website run by the 'Boycott' cam-

paign has published the list of chemicals approved for

organic fish by Marine Harvest, the Norwegian multina

tional which produces almost all of Ireland’s ‘organic’

salmon.

16 approved chemicals, many detailed in Village ear

lier this year, include the anti-lice medication, Emamectin

benzoate, that has led to worldwide mutation in sea lice

which resist this chemical: a mutation first reported from

Killary Harbour in 2005.

Orally administered in fish

food under veterinary pre

scription, it is sold under the

trade name ‘Slice’ to para-

lyse the nervous system of

the ectoparasite sea lice, a

relative of the common head

lice. Long-standing concerns

over this chemical have led

to the banning from the food

chain in the UK of horses

treated with this product.

This biocide has been the mainstay against sea lice since

salmon farms began. Sea lice are now the major biologi-

cal problem facing the industry worldwide. The lice not

only damage fish, leading to secondary infections and

high mortality, but have a free-swimming stage in which

they have been shown to infect wild salmon, reducing

dramatically the numbers which would otherwise return

to their spawning ground. However, a 2015 peer-reviewed

scientific study shows that salmon lice have mutated,

wherever they are found, across the globe in eleven

years to resist this pesticide. It classifies the chemical

as a ‘mutagen’. As resistance was first reported from Ire-

land, the author of the 2005 study, Professor Kevin

Glovers, says that “It is not unthinkable that the origin

of the observed genetic changes was in Ireland”.

Raymond Ellard, the Director of Risk Management and

Regulatory Affairs for the Food and Safety Authority, ini

tially told campaigners that: “It is a fair point to make

– that treated stock are to be clearly identifiable”. Inform-

ing the campaigners that he would now consult with the

Marine Institute and the Minister for Agriculture, Ellard

in the end reversed his position, advised the campaign

and the Minister that this actually “was an issue of

record keeping, not labelling of packaging”.

Minister for Agriculture Michael Creed subsequently

claimed that the The Irish Certified Quality Organic

Salmon Standard (which refers to EC Regulation

710/2009 for organic aquaculture production), does not

mean that the treated stock must be clearly identified to

the consumer. The identification required is “solely for

the benefit of the producers to ensure withdrawal peri

ods are met”, he told Clare Daly, an Independent TD in a

written Parliamentary reply. “Organic operators meet

this requirement” the Minister told the Deputy, “by main-

taining information at their premises”.

The Boycotters say this makes no sense. Farmed

salmon, they say, “are treated with a range of chemicals

which, while approved by the regulatory authorities, the

consumer may not wish to ingest themselves”.

“The purpose of organic regulations are to ensure con-

sumers can differentiate chemically treated products

from products that have not been chemically treated. If

the public want to support organic production in Ireland,

then they should boycott organic farmed salmon this

Christmas”.

Tony Lowes is a Director of Friends of the Irish

Environment

Boycott campaign derides

organic standards for

farmed salmon

by Tony Lowes

The Regulation does not mean

that the treated stock must

be clearly identiﬁed to the

consumer. It is solely for the

beneﬁt of the producers and it is

sufﬁcient if the identiﬁcation is

clear at producers’ premises

Your chemical

Christmas

ENVIRONMENT