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Loading ...Junk science doesn’t get too much fishier than last week’s scary headlines about farmed salmon being a cancer risk. Farmed salmon is so contaminated with PCBs, dioxins and other “toxic” chemicals, reported the news media, that it shouldn’t be consumed more than once per month.
It was gullible media alarmism run amok as even the “scientists” whose much-reported study appeared in the Jan. 9 issue of “Science” plainly acknowledged there was no factual basis for concern.
Moreover, PCB levels found in commercial fish are well within the hyper-safe levels set by the Food and Drug Administration and have been declining for some time. FDA testing in 1989 indicated an average level of PCBs in salmon of about 0.39 parts per million. Last week’s study reported PCB levels about 20 times lower.
We can expect that the media will ignore such facts in favor of hype ? fear-mongering, not level-headedness, attracts readers and viewers. That the study authors decided to hype their results with a media release titled, “Farm raised salmon presents greater health risks” ? despite conflicting statements in the fine print of the study ? is also no surprise given the study’s origins.
David Carpenter, the study leader who gave many interviews to the media last week, has crusaded against PCBs for years. From the Hudson River-General Electric controversy to the Anniston, Ala. –Monsanto controversy, Carpenter has consistently tried to foment panic about PCBs. He’s a well-known health-scare hyperventilator who likes to masquerade as an impartial “expert” from the University of Albany’s Institute for Health and the Environment.
Another study author, Jeffrey Foran, is associated with the eco-activist group, Citizens for a Better Environment (search), which is currently waging a cleanup crusade over PCBs in Wisconsin’s Fox River and Green Bay.
The study’s roots in eco-extremism (search) extend to the radical Environmental Working Group (search). EWG released a small but similarly hysterical report last summer about PCB levels in farmed salmon. Coincidentally (or not), the same Canadian laboratory tested the salmon for EWG’s report and the salmon for last week’s study. Last week’s study was funded by the Pew Charitable Trusts ? the piggy bank for many extreme environmental groups and eco-activist “researchers.” Again, coincidentally or not, Pew also supports EWG.
Fox News and JunkScience.com have the rest of the story.
