The Pew Environment Group recently obtained documents from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration showing that Chilean salmon farmers are using chemicals and medications banned by regulators in the United States and Europe.
Chile is America’s biggest suppliers of salmon and the second largest exporter of salmon in the world, reports PR Newswire.
The farms — including Chile’s two largest salmon producers — are using the antibiotics flumequine and oxolinic acid, plus emamectin benzoate, a pesticide, to treat salmon destined for foreign markets.
People who eat fish treated with antibiotics may develop resistance to the drug, making them vulnerable to certain types of bacterial infection, according to the report.
Emamectin, the pesticide, is known to be “very toxic to aquatic organisms” and harmful to the environment.
–Julia Hengst/Newsdesk.org
Source:
“U.S. FDA Reports Show Unapproved Chemicals Used by Largest Chilean Salmon Farms; Pew Urges FDA to Increase, Expand Tests on Imported Farmed Fish”
PRNewswire, February 5, 2009