How Can Farmed Salmon Impact Your Health and the Environment?

Farmed Salmon Can Pose a Threat to Consumer Health

PCBs, dioxins and pesticides:

Farmed salmon can contain, on average, higher concentrations of PCBs, dioxins, flame retardants, pesticides and other toxins than wild fish, and this is most likely due to their diet. It is true that these contaminants are sometimes present at low levels in wild salmon, as they have been introduced to the environment by human activities. However, commercial fish feed for salmon typically includes a highly concentrated amount of wild fish (ground up into fishmeal and fish oil), whose toxins are passed up the food chain from the fish eaten as food to the salmon, and on to consumers. One prominent study on this subject has suggested “consumption of farmed salmon may result in exposure to a variety of persistent bioaccumulative contaminants with the potential for an elevation in attendant health risks.” Both PCBs and dioxins are considered potential carcinogens, meaning that they may cause cancer. Meanwhile, a study conducted by French investigative journalists in 2010 found scandalously high levels of toxic chemicals in Norwegian fish, which were attributed to the pesticides fed to farmed salmon to combat sea lice. The journalists talked with an anonymous salmon farmer who confirmed usage of a pesticide called diflubenzuron, and said he’d seen fish and sharks in the vicinity of his farm die after consuming his farmed salmon. He said he wouldn’t eat his fish himself.

Read the fact sheet to learn more.