Your salmon might be high on cocaine
Not only do we have to worry about being tricked into eating farmed salmon, new research has revealed that salmon fillets could be contaminated with cocaine.
A paper published in the journal Environmental Pollution found that salmon caught in the US, near Seattle, have been contaminated by waste water containing 81 different types of drugs, including cocaine, antibiotics, nicotine, and antidepressants.
As a result of the drugs and "other personal products" in the waste water, the researchers found high levels of the drugs in tissue samples of Chinook salmon in the Seattle area.
Lead author of the study Jim Meador said: "The concentrations in effluent [an outflowing of water] were higher than we expected. We analyzed samples for 150 compounds and we had 61 percent of them detected in effluent. So we know these are going into the estuaries."
Meador added that he doubts the chemicals in the fish can have any effect on human health, as the levels - while significant - are too low to cause any damage in humans: "However, you have to wonder what it is doing to the fish."
This isn't the first time studies have found salmon contaminated with potentially harmful substances.
In 2004, it was found that Farmed Atlantic salmon from Scotland contained the highest levels of cancer-causing chemicals in the world and could increase the risk of cancer by at least one case in 100,000.
Similarly, in 2008 salmon products were recalled from supermarketsamid fears they were contaminated with diesel. It was believed that the fresh fish were tainted by diesel from a vehicle during transportation to a nearby processing plant and the contamination was only noticed when customers complained of an unpleasant "white spirit" taste.
No comments:
Post a Comment