Salmon Survey Stokes Debate About Farmed Fish

摘要

Salmon's popularity has boomed in the past 2 decades as aquaculture has made salmon available year-round at low cost. The fish is a good source of protein, vitamin D, and heart-friendly fats. But fish farms have boosted less welcome ingredients: The largest survey yet of pollutants in salmon, reported on page 226, has found that farmed fish have higher levels of polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) and other organochlorine compounds than do wild-caught salmon. The source, as many researchers suspected, is the feed. "This is a definitive study," says nutritionist and toxicologist Miriam Jacobs of the University of Surrey, U.K., and Royal Veterinary College, London. "Further action has to be taken to reduce the contaminant levels in feed." The authors argue that consuming more than one meal of farmed salmon per month may hike the risk of cancer. "The punch line is that eating the wrong kind of fish has real dangers," says team member David Carpenter of the State University of New York, Albany, in Rensselaer.