Study: eating salmon can damage your health

9 January 2004

MADRID – Eating salmon twice a month can damage your health, a study said Friday.

Changes to the nervous, reproductive  and immune systems can result from eating factory-farmed salmon.

Those salmon reared in Europe also had significantly higher levels of contaminants than other parts of the world, according to the research.

The levels of pollutants in European salmon were 14 times higher than those found in river salmon.

According to the study, published by Science magazine and carried out  by six Canadian and US scientists, eating salmon raised in a fish factory more than once or twice a month represented a health risk.

The study includes the analysis of over two tonnes of salmon from around the world, both the fish factory and river varieties.

The scientists reported the presence of 14 organic contaminants in fish factory salmon, which exceed the safety limits established by the World Health Organisation.

As a result of these findings, a petition has been made to identify fish factory salmon with a special label.

The international organisation for the protection of the oceans, Oceana, has asked the EU to develop a programme to eliminate fish factory pollution and regulate salmon production.

According to Oceana, whose European headquarters are in Madrid, all of the contaminants found in this study are included on the list of highly toxic elements for human health.

[Copyright EFE with Expatica]

Subject: Spanish news