Poison in Fish from Aquacultures

Ethoxyquin needs to be added as a flame resistant to fish meal and fish oil by the rules of internatinal organization for ocean traffic. Otherwise the charge may inflame and explode. Besides this Ethoxyquin prevents fats from going rancid. The fish breeded in aquaculture can not be fed solely vegetarian. Nonetheless the portion of soy in salmon feed amounts up to 75% today. Fish fed like this do of course accumulate less of the healthy omega-3 fatty acids than their wild living relatives which eat them with their food. Wild salmon contains about 5% to 7% fat, whereas farmed salmon has between 15% and 34% of fat content.

However Ethoxyquin is a heavy poison. Up to 2011 it was allowed to be used as pesticide (developed by Monsanto); today it is forbidden to use it as biocide. Ethoxyquin can trigger genetic mutations and is a suspected carcinogen. It can harm the development of the brain of unborn children. Ethoxyquin can cross the blood brain barrier. Ethoxyquin weakens the immune system and harms the liver and the thyroid. There is an exposure limit for meat products but unintelligibly not for fish. The flame resistant was found in all samples of fish from aquaculture in high concentrations. One sample did exceed the exposure limit for meat by 80 times. Ethoxyquin was found in samples of 38 different food fish from conventional aquaculture by Greenpeace; among the tested fish were salmon, trout, gilthead and seabass.

The European Commission has decided that from 2020 onwards the controversial poison shall also be forbidden at fish farming. However it remains a question whether the lobbyists from the USA, China and Norway will succeed again to undermine the ban.

However this is not the only negative effect from the breeding of salmon which is a predatory fish in nature. Since many fish are penned up on very little space at fish farms they fall ill very easily. The salmons are attacked by sea lice which spread epidemically in the small cages. The response is chemical warfare against the sea lice. However sea lice become resistant against the chemicals after a few treatments. Fish infected by these parasites can escape from the cages if they are not simply dumped by fish breeders into the free water. These fish can then infect wild living salmons which may also die of the sea lice.

Not even the soy used as food for so many land animals and fish as food may be seen as safe and harmless. In Brazil genetically modified soy crops are cultivated in huge farms. Brazil is the world´s largest user of pesticides. 20% of all pesticides worldwide are deployed in Brazil. As soon as the planes spraying toxic pesticides come close to the house of the peasant farmer da Silva he feels as under a chemical attack. His wife and his children complain about diarrhoea, nausea, allergy, headache and difficulty in breathing. However this is not the only threat that the big famers pose to these people. Some time ago da Silva was patrolling with his hunting rifle at night because he was in fear of the security personnal of the big farmers. When five peasants had been tortured and murdered near the town of Sorriso in 2017 the media was reporting it.

The extent of area under cultivation for soy crops does spread more and more - in the North into the Amazon, in the South into the swamps of the Pantanal and in the center of the country into the savannah of the Cerrado. Peasant farmers and indigenous people need to flee and find themselves again in the slums. Between 1995 and 2017 more than 22,000 families were in need to flee from their land solely in Mato Grosso. According to the Catholic country pastoral about 2000 people have been killed. Also reporters are threatened; 26 journalists have been murdered since 2010.