Health and fishing industry officials in Europe and the United States denounced as “misleading†a study which warned that farmed salmon is so full of carcinogens that consumers should eat much less of it.
Reaction to the US-Canadian study reported in Science magazine, which sampled 700 wild and farmed salmon, was swift from both sides of the Atlantic Ocean as experts moved to allay public fears that the popular fish caused cancer if consumed more than three times a year.
Officials in Norway, Scotland, Sweden and the United States slammed the report published Friday, while the scientists received backing from environmental groups and Green party politicians.
“Research published in Science magazine this week appears to be deliberately misleading in the advice it gives on farmed salmon consumption,†Scottish Quality Salmon, a quality assurance body for the Scottish salmon industry, said in a statement.
“In advising how much salmon should be eaten the study ignores all the health benefits of regular farmed salmon consumption as reported in over 5,000 scientific studies,†it said.
The British Food Standards Agency recommended that people stick to their eating habits regarding salmon, and that everyone should eat two portions of fish a week -- one of them oily like salmon -- to reduce the risk of heart attacks.
Nutritionists have long recommended salmon as a healthy choice, with benefits for the heart and brain, as well as relatively low levels of mercury contamination.
US food regulators said they were unconcerned over the study, carried out across shops in North and South America and Europe, and co-authored by David Carpenter, who heads the Institute for Health and the Environment at the University at Albany in New York State.
Carpenter called for all salmon to be clearly labeled as wild or farmed, and their country of origin to be displayed.
“We do not see a public health concern here. If anything, we'd like to see people eat more,†said Terry Troxell, who heads the Food and Drug Administration's (FDA) office of plant and dairy foods and beverages.
Norwegian health officials -the Nordic country is one of the world's leading producers of farmed salmon, with some 450,000 tons in 2002- touted salmon from fish farms, saying the toxin count was "much lower" than what international agencies allow.
The levels of polychlorinated biphenols (PCBs), dioxins or dieldrin found in farmed salmon were "much lower than the international limits" set by the European Union or the World Health Organization, said Oyvind Lie of the National Institute of Nutrition and Seafood Research.
Lie received backing from Sweden's National Food Administration, which admitted that farmed fish contained higher levels of toxins than wild salmon, but said there was “nothing new†in the report.
The French fishing industry trade association formally contested the findings, saying that consumers would be worried because health officials recommend eating both farmed and wild fish. The average French citizen consumes two kilos (4.4 pounds) of salmon annually.
The US Environmental Working Group, which warned about salmon contamination last year, meanwhile criticized the fishing industry for relying on standards that dated back two decades.
The authors of the study said they based their work on newer Environmental Protection Agency standards rather than FDA rules from the early 1980s.
In Scotland, a top producer of salmon with 145,000 tons annually, the leader of the Green party called the findings “devastating.â€
“I want to know why it is that this polluted food is finding its way on to the dinner plates of Scots,†Robin Harper said.