January 3, 2001. Copyright 2001. Graphic News. All rights reserved. FISH FINGERED IN LATEST FOOD SCARE LONDON, January 3, Graphic News: SCIENTISTS in Britain have found that farmed salmon can contain up to 10 times higher levels of toxic polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) than their wild cousins, and are calling for urgent research to be carried out. The call, made on a BBC documentary ÒWarning from the Wild -- The Price of SalmonÓ to be screened on Sunday, comes just months after the government advised that oily fish should not be eaten more than once a week to reduce exposure to deadly chemicals. Last year, research by the Ministry of Agriculture and the Department of Health found low levels of dioxins and PCBs in all brands of fish fingers bought in supermarkets. PCBs include a group of cancer-causing agents used prior to the 1970s in coolants, lubricants, hydraulic fluids, plastics, paints and pesticides. The chemicals accumulate in oceans after being released by industrial waste and concentrate in the fatty tissues of fish. Dioxins are toxic industrial by-products -- although they can also occur naturally -- that have been linked to cancer. Dr. Miriam Jacobs of Surrey University, working with the United StatesÕ Environmental Protection Agency, traced the contamination of farmed salmon to feed that includes salmon offal and off-cuts from other fish, trawled from the worldÕs oceans in vast quantities by industrial fleets. When these are concentrated into high-protein fish-feed pellets for farmed salmon the minute traces of toxins present are increased into a more significant dose. Once ingested, PCBs build up in body fat and take years to break down. The chemicals are among the most toxic and persistent pollutants in existence -- attacking the human nervous, immune and reproductive systems and causing learning difficulties in children. Studies indicate the chemicals can cause decreased sperm counts, deformed genitals and sterility. They are also thought to be responsible for so-called gender bending effects because they mimic the female sex hormone oestrogen. Last month research published in America by University of Idaho and Washington State University scientists showed that eight out of ten chinook salmon in one stretch of the Columbia River had changed sex from male to female. The researchers ruled out radiation as a possible cause of the apparent gender bending and suggested pesticides and other chemicals that could mimic hormones, including oestrogen, could be among the culprits. In the United States the EPA recommends that people limit their consumption of salmon caught in the Great Lakes due to PCB contamination. The EPAÕs one-meal-per-month advisories suggest that Òwomen of childbearing age and children should be careful to space their fish meals. For example, if you eat a fish from the ÔOne Meal a MonthÕ group, wait a month before eating another meal of fishÉ (to) prevent contaminants from building up to unhealthful levels in the body.Ó Fish on the one-meal-per-month list include chinook salmon. MichiganÕs Department of Community Health goes as far as recommending that no one shoud eat lake trout from the Great Lakes According to the World Health Organisation children are already exposed to levels of PCBs and dioxins that exceed its safety limits, which puts them most at risk from polluted fish. The WHO has cut its guidelines on the recommended consumption of salmon to just one tenth of the previous figure and the European Union has also reduced its limits by 90%. But BritainÕs government watchdog the Food Standards Agency has not followed these leads. The research adds to growing concern about the state of BritainÕs food, following the BSE fiasco, scares about high levels of pesticides in vegetables, and warnings about antibiotics in meat. World farmed-salmon production is more than one million tonnes per year, worth over $5.2 billion (£3.5 billion) with 45 percent from Norway, 25 percent from Chile and 12 percent from Scotland. /ENDS Sources: BBC, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, U.S. National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences, Reuters, Our stolen Future by Theo Colborn, John Petersen Myers and Dianne Dumanoski ÒWarning from the Wild -- The Price of SalmonÓ will be screened on BBC 2, January 7, 20:00GMT.