NewsHour; Salmon Scare

[beeping] [one low tone followed by instrumental theme song] Good evening, I'm Jim Lehrer. On The News Hour tonight our summary of the news. Then a Glenn Ifill last look at tomorrow's crucial Democratic presidential primary in New Hampshire. The latest on NASA's two rovers on Mars. A report from the Pacific Northwest on the safety argument over eating salmon. And a look at today's new report on the size of the federal budget deficit. Major funding for The NewsHour With Jim Lehrer has been provided by: [Orlando Figueroa] An opportunity as well to avoid ever getting into this situation. [Reporter] Good luck with that, Orlando Figueroa, Thanks for joining us.

[Orlando] My pleasure. [Music] [Jim Leher] Now, is it safe to eat salmon or not? Lee Hochberg of Oregon Public Television reports on that debate. [Lee Hochberg] Salmon is one of the country's most popular fresh fishes. More than 23 million people eat it more than once a month. But at the Pike Place fish market in Seattle, where buying salmon usually is a fun activity, reports that some salmon may be toxic have shoppers worried. [Respondant, Susan Schweppe] Would I buy it today? No, because I don't think we need to put anymore toxins in our body and I am skeptical about what we're doing to the entire food chain. [Lee Hochberg] A top scientific journal recently published a study that farm-raised salmon contain high levels of chemical contaminants. Eighty six percent of fresh salmon sold in the U.S. is farm raised mostly imported from Chile and

Canada. Shoppers at Pike Place Market usually can choose between wild salmon, which swim freely in the Northwest rivers to the Pacific Ocean, and those farm raised breeds. Market manager Dick Yokoyama says customer shopping for King and other types of salmon are concerned. [Dock Yokoyama] Yeah, They're asking.They like to come up and they buy the king, and then they notice that its farmed King and then they change their mind you know, and buy something else. [Lee Hochberg] The study in Science magazine was the largest of its kind. It analyzed two tons of farmed salmon for 14 different organic contaminants including PCBs and dioxins which can cause cancer. It compared levels of those fish from more than 50 farms in eight regions of the world to contamination levels found in wild salmon. It concluded farmed salmon had 10 times the level of contaminants of wild salmon and eating farmed salmon can increase one's risk of getting cancer.

[Dr. David Carpenter] A recommendation for the average consumer eating farmed salmon is not to eat more than one meal a month. Unless you're willing to increase your risk of cancer. [Lee Hochberg] Study co-author Dr. David Carpenter says some European farmed salmon should be consumed only once every four months and he especially advised females to reduce consumption as dioxins and PCBs are known to interfere with the developing fetus. [Carpenter] If a woman that's pregnant has these compounds in her body of excess. The child that's born will have a reduced IQ, will have a shortened attention span it's a greater risk for disruption of Endocrine systems both thyroid hormones and sex hormones. And these compounds suppress the immune system, making one more vulnerable to infections. [Lee Hochberg] The recommendations have been disputed by the 60 billion dollar farm salmon industry concentrated in Norway, United Kingdom, Canada, and Chile. The farms provide fish year round worldwide ?fluting? what's sold in most U.S.

groceries, at cheaper prices than wild salmon. The contamination comes from this food fed to the fish. At a farm outside Seattle operated by Panfish Canada. More than a million salmon live in nets pens 80 feet square and about 10 feet deep. While wild salmon scavenge the ocean for nutrients these farmed salmon are fed food pellets made of fish oil and ground up smaller fish like Herring, mackerel, and anchovies. The smaller fish contain contaminants from industrial pollution that spread through the environment so the pellets actually contaminate the salmon. Industry leaders don't dispute that. But they disagree how dangerous the contamination is. [Dan Swecker] I think there was a level of PCBs and

dioxins that the the industry was aware of. But. But, we believe that they're safe for human consumption. Dan Swecker of the Washington fish Growers Association says over emphasis on the health risks of farmed salmon ignores their health benefit. Like the Omega three fatty acids they contain that reduce the risk of heart attack. [Swecker] I think it's a travesty. I actually think it's an attack on the consumer because it's denying the consumer the benefit of this healthy product in terms of heart impact, Alzheimer's disease, ADD salmon is one of the most important tools that we have to protect the health of american consumer and this study. scares them away. [Lee Hochberg] The salmon scare indeed comes at a time when many health conscious consumers have turned away from red meat and to salmon for health reasons. Many like Rob Miller who

manages the PanFish farm, wonder what they can eat. [Miller] I'll go ahead and eat farmed salmon once a month, and then you know going to McDonald's the rest of the month and see what get your first, the PCBs, and the dioxins, cancer, or the heart disease. [Lee Hochberg] The government has been unable to resolve the salmon dispute. Two federal agencies with expertise on contaminants offer conflicting pieces of advice. The Environmental Protection Agency guidelines say ingesting contaminated fish once a month does increase the risk of cancer by one in 100,000. Those are the guidelines used by the study's researchers. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration on the other hand says the contamination levels aren't high enough to be concerned about. It's encouraging consumers to keep eating farmed salmon. [Dr. Lester Crawford] I hope you don't say to the viewers that they shouldn't eat salmon or they shouldn't eat but one meal of salmon every two months because the data does not support

that. [Lee Hochberg] FDA Deputy Commissioner Dr. Lester Crawford says study scientists shouldn't have used the EPA guidelines for contaminants. He says those standards are designed to protect the environment not people. Instead the scientists should have used FDA guidelines which regulate food and allow 40 times more contamination. The scientists answer that those FDA standards are too lax. Written in 1984, they're out of date. [Carpenter] As a public health physician. I do not believe that the FDA guidelines in any way shape or form are protective of human health. [Lee Hochberg] The study team says the FDA is compromised by a mixed mission. It's required both to protect the public and to consider any economic impact a public warning could have on the fish business. [Carpenter] Based to a great degree on preventing economic loss to the industry Therefore they do not reflect appropriate health consumption

based advice to the consumer. [Crawford] The FDA is not concerned about the health of the industry, it is concerned about the health of human beings and we don't take that into consideration. We're talking about public health and whether people ought to stop eating salmon and the answer to that is no. [Lee Hochberg] The FDA says it will increase its sampling of fish feed as a result of the study. Still, the industry is bracing for an economic jolt. It fears some seafood restaurants may remove farmed salmon from their menus. Duke's Chowder House in Seattle already has vilified farmed fish in its radio commercials. [Duke's Commercial] You know you could be getting poisoned if you eat somewhere other than Duke's Chowder house. Studies now show farm raised salmon is dangerous to your health. That's why we serve only wild salmon. [Lee Hochberg] The aqua culture industry says it's improving its feed to reduce the risk of contamination, replacing some fish components with vegetable proteins and oils.

The industry says consumers themselves can reduce risk by cooking farm salmon before eating it and removing the skin where much of the contamination concentrates. [Music] [Lehrer] Finally tonight, the new federal deficit projections. And to Margaret Warner. [Margaret Warner] Today's report by the Congressional Budget Office projecting much higher deficits than were expected just a few months ago, immediately provoke controversy. The ranking Democrat on the Senate Budget Committee.