How do you know whether the farmed fish you buy has been fed soy bean
pellets or rendered cows? Where do consumers go for
objective, validated evidence and the latest information when research
is ongoing on whether to eat farmed or wild-caught fish?
Do they go to their doctors? Farmed fish start out by having the
rous sarcoma virus
implanted into a specialized gene early in their embryonic development
in order to amplify the fish’s growth hormone. The virus acts as a
carrier. It’s called a vector (meaning a carrier virus). The farmed fish
are made to grow faster and larger.
This specific
rous sarcoma virus has been known since 1911 to cause cancer in chickens. See the article titled,
"The Rous Sarcoma Virus (RSV)." For more information, also see
The Cholersterol Hoax, by Sherry A. Rogers, M.D., page 193. In the book,
The Cholesterol Hoax, the section on page 193
specifically mentions that farmed fish are implanted with the rous sarcoma virus. On page193, the reader also is referred to the doctor's newsletter,
Total Wellness, 2001.
On top of this retrovirus type of implant, farmed fish also may be
getting a diet of byproducts rendered from cows. See the article,
"Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy and Aquaculture," published in
the June 2009 issue of the
Journal of Alzheimer's Disease. Reference to the study also appears in the June 26, 2009
Reuters article, "
Risk of Mad Cow Disease From Farmed Fish?"
A brief
Journal of Alzheimer's Disease abstract
of pages 277-279 reports that, "Dietary consumption of fish is widely
recommended because of the beneficial effects of omega-3 polyunsaturated
fatty acids on the risks of cardiovascular and Alzheimer’s diseases.
The American Heart Association currently recommends eating at least two
servings of fish per week. We are concerned that consumption of farmed
fish may provide a means of transmission of infectious prions from cows
with bovine spongiform encephalopathy to humans, causing variant
Creutzfeldt Jakob disease."
And what about the implant of the
rous sarcoma virus into a
specialized gene early in the fish's embryonic development? Experts are
going to refute that based on FDA laws forbidding genetic alteration
of farmed fish.
Yes, everyone knows the FDA doesn't allow farmed fish to be
genetically altered, but what do you say to a doctor and the doctor's
book and newsletter articles that insist the rous sarcoma virus is
implanted into a farmed fish embryo not to genetically change the fish's
DNA, but merely to enhance the ability of the fish to produce more of a
hormone that makes it grow faster?
The faster the farmed fishes grow, the sooner they'll reproduce. And
maybe they'll get a bit bigger, too, but growing faster means higher
turnover and more generations of fish to be sold, hence more money to be
made. Follow the money. If consumers ask too many questions, experts
might give details or they might try to confuse consumers by pulling out
the 'misinformation' card.
Then consumers are left to validate on their own which information is
correct and which is flawed or so-called 'misinformation,' a word
commonly used by public relations executives for industry to silence
blue-flamers, that is reporters or consumers that ask too many questions
of scientists or industry spokespersons. So where do you go next? To
physicians?
Do you ask your doctor where the information came from? And when
the doctor cites a medical journal article that's not that recent,
where do you go to validate it if the article's authors are not easy to
find?
You might ask a scientist is the DNA altered or not altered during
the fish's fetal stage? You could ask when the fish is implanted with
the rous sarcoma virus, does the carrier virus only strengthen and
nourish the fish's growth hormone without genetically altering the genes
of the fish?
The outcome is that the fish grows faster. Or is the DNA of the fish
altered anyway, but with some loophole that consumers haven't been told
about to get around the FDA laws of not genetically altering farmed
fish?
Where can consumers go for answers? What happens when consumers
question authority? Do public interest research groups help? Is there a
way to bridge the communication gaps between scientists and physicians
sharing information?
Consumers won't know the answer unless they talk to scientists. But
would scientists have the time to talk to consumers asking
questions? Then there's the problem of farmed fish being fed rendered
cows.
The consumer is
questioning whether or not this practice is
safe. These are not scare tactics. It's realistically and objectively
being concerned, and wanting to know how farmed fish are treated, fed,
and cared for medically.
How healthy are farmed fish? What's injected or implanted into fish?
What's the difference between farmed and wild caught fish? Are fish
treated with insecticide-type chemicals? Why? But consumers aren't going
to learn about all the diseases of fish if there's no one to interview.
So who do you turn to?
The most approachable with a phone call would be the public relations
department of a fish farm business. You could ask your doctor, but your
doctor may or may not have the time to discuss fish choices with you.
If doctors and scientists had a choice of what to feed their children, would they choose wild caught or farmed fish and why?
It has been said that you are what you ate. Do you realize how much
the food industry has changed since 1959? My son and my son in law both
are physicians dealing with neuroradiology specializations and internal
medicine. My grandchildren are in medical school. Our family sits down
together for a meal and discusses genetics. Our family's goal is to
discuss answers based on evidence.
So which type of fish is safest for consumers? The problem is that
although the fish may not be genetically altered, the embryonic fish are
implanted with a carrier virus not to change their DNA. No, that would
be genetically altering them. Instead, they're implanted with a carrier
virus to
stimulate their own body's growth hormone. It makes fish grow faster.
There's a difference between genetically altering a fish and giving
the fish a boost of strength in its growth hormone. So is there a
loophole to get around the FDA's rules?
Can you inject a fish or a cow with a chemical that makes the
creature grow faster by stimulating its hormone levels without changing
its genes or DNA? The question keeps me up at night, but the doctors
around my dinner table shrug their shoulders and joke, "there's power in
numbers." And that leaves me standing alone wondering whether the
consumer has the right to have a voice of confidence and resilience as a
party of one.
The rous sarcoma virus (RSV) is an
oncogenic virus — that
is, a virus capable of causing cancer. This virus originally came from
tumors of sick chickens back in 1911. The tumors were sarcomas, tumors
of connective tissue. The virus was named the rous sarcoma virus (RSV)
during those first 1911 experiments. Back then, healthy chickens were
vaccinated with the virus from sick chickens that had cancer.
The purpose of the 1911 experiment showed that healthy chickens could
be made to get cancer from a specific virus. The rous sarcoma virus is a
retrovirus. Cancer can be induced in healthy chickens by injecting them with a
cell-free extract of the tumor of a sick chicken. There's another problem.
Aids also is a retrovirus.
So
are a lot of other tumor viruses taken from one animal and put into
another. Why genetically alter fish with retroviruses just to increase
the growth hormone? There's a reason why farmed fish are implanted with
the rous sarcoma virus in order to increase their growth hormones.
The faster and bigger farmed fish grow, the more money they make. Each business and each hired scientist has a reason for
genetically engineering farmed fish. But there's more. Omega 6 fatty acids replace much of the omega 3 fatty acids in farmed fish.
You’ll find more omega 3 fatty acids in
wild caught fish than you'll find in genetically engineered farmed fish. The elevated levels of
omega 6 fatty acids in
farmed fish
keep rising year after year, replacing the omega 3 fatty acids. Part of
the reason why is because farmed fish are fed increasingly more
commercial soybean pellets that contain pesticides.
The
soybean pellets also have been
genetically engineered (unless
you’re raising fish yourself and feeding them organic fish foods). The
commercial soybean pellets fed to farmed fish are full of pesticides
such as
Roundup that originally had been sprayed on the
commercial soybean pellets along with other commercial insecticides,
sometimes even with herbicides (for getting rid of weeds around the
soybeans) and various pesticides.
On top of the insecticides in the soybean fish food pellets, the levels of
PCBs in farmed fish are
higher, in fact, ten times higher (in numerous studies) than you find
in wild-caught fish from cleaner waters. So now you’re also getting PCBs
in the fish. The farmed fish is exposed to more pollutants than wild
fish in the open ocean. Yes, there are still some pockets of ocean
not as polluted as some fish farms.
There are some cleaner spots in the ocean. Some of those oceanic
areas include parts of the Arctic and Alaska. Wild-caught fish may not
be irradiated, but farmed fish are irradiated so they won’t spoil while
in transit to local supermarkets.
Wild-caught fish are more expensive
than farmed fish.
When there's an overrun of wild fish, the overrun is canned and
costs less per pound than fresh fish. The overrun is still the safe
wild-caught fish in the can for three or four dollars that you'd buy in
the supermarket for $17.00 per lb.
The irradiation of farmed fish not only destroys the bad bacteria. It
also neutralizes some of the vitamins. So now you have fewer vitamins
in farmed fish than in wild fish. When you get the cheaper farmed fish
home, perhaps the fish are microwaved.
Now the fish coming out of the microwave oven has had all the
antioxidants destroyed. Microwaved food destroys almost all of the
nutrients, about 95% of them, according to the study, “
Microwaved cooking zaps nutrients,” J. Randerson, New Scientist, Oct 25, 2003, page 14. Also, see the book titled,
Optimal Nutrition for Optimal Health, by T.E. Levy. Keats Publishing, a division of McGraw-Hill, NY, 2001.
According to the article,
Microwaved cooking zaps nutrients, “Steaming left antioxidants almost untouched, while microwaving virtually eliminated them, the team found” (
Journal of the Science of Food and Agriculture, vol 83, p 1511). Also see the article, "
Looking at the Science on Raw vs. Cooked foods," by Jean Louis-Tu.
If you're interested in reading about what antibiotics are given to farmed fish for human consumption, see the book,
Improving Farmed Fish Quality and Safety, edited by Torger Borresen. There's also a problem of how to improve disease immunity in order to reduce
antibiotic use in farmed fish. How will the antibiotics given to farmed fish effect your resistance to antibiotics when you need them?
The
solution to this problem is to eat wild-caught canned salmon packed in
water with the “no salt added” label. It’s less costly than buying wild
salmon for $16-17 per lb. Wild salmon usually is Alaskan king salmon
caught from the overrun and canned.
It’s the same type of wild Alaskan salmon that you pay a lot more
money for in the supermarket fish and meat department. A can of wild
salmon usually costs three or four dollars. And there are two servings
in the can.
One excellent brand is Crown Prince Wild Caught Natural Alaskan Pink
Salmon. The low in sodium variety that comes with only 50 mgs sodium.
The can notes that it contains 1.5 grams of omega 3 oils per serving.
There are about 3.5 servings per can.
A serving size is ¼ cup of salmon. It also comes in a variety
containing more salt. To stretch a serving further, you can mix it with
chopped vegetables and a teaspoon of extra virgin olive oil. That way
you get a balance of the omega 3 and omega 6 oils from the fish and
olive oil.
Another possibility is to add a tablespoon of grape-seed oil
mayonnaise to canned fish such as sardines or salmon. Sardines also are
good if they are wild caught and canned in water without added salt. An
excellent brand is Brunswick sardines canned in spring water, no salt
added.
There are already 200 mg of sodium per serving in the sardines, even
with no salt added. A serving size of the sardines is one can drained,
which contains one gram of omega-3 fatty acids per serving and also is a
good source of calcium.
Risks and benefits of eating fish are hot topics. Then again, you can
always buy a bottle of contaminant-free Carlson's cod liver oil or take
two Nordic Naturals (no mercury) brand of fish oil capsules. The
controversy surrounding farmed versus wild-caught fish is all about what
the research tells you. Consumers often follow the money.
Look for the $4 cans labeled "wild caught" when you buy Alaskan pink
salmon. They contain the overrun of the same king salmon that is sold as
fresh wild-caught fish in supermarkets and marked up to $17 per
lb. You'll find a variety of those cans in local grocery and produce
markets that offer organic foods.
Are Farmed Fish Fed Rendered Cows?
What type of animal feed is safe from any risks of passing prions into both the human and animal food chain?
Farmed
fish are being fed too high on the food chain. Instead of fish eating
fish and seaweed, farmed fish commonly are being fed rendered cows and
bone meal from animals that never lived in the oceans.
See the article, "
You Are What They Eat" on animal feed at the
Consumer Reports.org site. Also see the June 2009 article on farmed fish and what types of food that farmed fish are fed in the
Journal of Alzheimer’s Disease by
Robert P. Friedland, M.D.
There are a lot more details to know regarding animal feed. Some cows
may be born with a gene variation that gives them a higher risk of
later developing mad cow disease or of being carriers, passing that gene
to other animals, or the prions to humans, without being infected with
outward symptoms.
The quick solution to this dilemma is for government regulators to
ban the feeding of cow meat byproducts or bone meal to farmed fish (and
to other animals) until the safety or danger of this common practice can
be ascertained. The basic problem is that farmed fish are not being fed
what they normally would eat.
When restaurants buy farmed fish, or when you buy farmed fish from
supermarkets, are there prions in the farmed fish that could cause mad
cow disease in humans? According to a
Science News article, published June 17, 2009, "
Farmed Fish May Pose Risk For Mad Cow Disease," University of Louisville neurologist
Robert P. Friedland, M.D., questions the safety of eating farmed fish in
Journal of Alzheimer’s Disease, adding a new worry to concerns about the nation’s food supply.
For those people anywhere in the world that have been diagnosed with
fatal mad cow disease, did they get it from previous farmed fish meals
or from beef? Are other prion-caused diseases of the brain,
including Creutzfeldt Jakob disease caused by eating meat from infected
animals?
Most consumers know it's not safe to eat fish that ate bonemeal. How
long will it take to prove it? And is Alzheimer's also linked to what
people eat? Who's studying prions in the brain related possibly to diet?
A press release on neurologist
Robert P. Friedland's research results, titled, "
Farmed Fish May Pose Risk for Mad Cow Disease," appeared in the
Journal of Alzheimer's Disease on
June 16, 2009. Based on his research, he and his team question the
safety of eating farmed fish that are fed byproducts rendered from cows.
Recently,
Dr. Friedland
also has been working on the patterns of disease occurrence, including
risk and protective factors, with studies of the Kikuku in Kenya, Jews
and Arabs in Israel, and Caucasian and African-American subjects in
Cleveland. Friedland and his co-authors suggest farmed fish could
transmit Creutzfeldt Jakob disease--commonly known as mad cow
disease--if the farmed fish are fed byproducts rendered from cows.
The
scientists researching the question of whether there are prions in
farmed fish urge government regulators to ban feeding cow meat or bone
meal to fish until the safety of this common practice can be confirmed.
“We have not proven that it’s possible for fish to transmit the
disease to humans. Still, we believe that out of reasonable caution for
public health, the practice of feeding rendered cows to fish should be
prohibited,” Friedland said. “Fish do very well in the seas without
eating cows,” he added.
Creutzfeldt Jakob disease (CJD) is an untreatable, universally-fatal
disease that can be contracted by eating parts of an animal infected
with bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE or mad cow disease). An
outbreak in England attributed to infected beef prompted most countries
to outlaw feeding rendered cow material to other cattle because the
disease is so easily spread within the same species.
The risk of transmission of BSE to humans who eat farmed fish would
appear to be low because of perceived barriers between species. But,
according to the authors, it is possible for a disease to be spread by
eating a carrier that is not infected itself. It’s also possible that
eating diseased cow parts could cause fish to experience a pathological
change that allows the infection to be passed between the two species.
“The fact that
no cases of Creutzfeldt Jakob (CJD) disease have been linked to eating farmed fish does
not assure that feeding rendered cow parts to fish is safe. The
incubation period of these diseases may last for decades, which makes
the association between feeding practices and infection difficult.
Enhanced safeguards need to be put in place to protect the public,”
Friedland said.
What if any prions remain in the fish's digestive tract? All you need
is one molecule, and the prion will replicate itself. Fish or any
animal infected with prions also might be a carrier without getting
symptoms. That's one way prions might possibly get into the human food
chain.
There are three major categories of CJD: sporadic CJD, hereditary
CJD, and acquired CJD. There have been 163 deaths from Creutzfeldt Jakob
disease (CJD) in the United Kingdom attributed to eating infected beef.
Bovine spongiform encephalopathy has been identified in nine Canadian
and three U.S. cattle.
There's a food safety problem with feeding animal by-products that
contain mad cow disease prions in meat and bone meal. Yet rendered cow
meat and bone meal is routinely fed to farmed fish. A few years ago
people even fertilized vegetable gardens and fruit trees with bovine
bone meal.
There is no single diagnostic test for CJD yet. The only way to
confirm a diagnosis of CJD is by brain biopsy or autopsy. Whereas CJD
can be transmitted to other people, the risk of this happening is
extremely small. There is no treatment that can cure or control CJD.
Patients are made comfortable and given opiates to relieve pain. Other
drugs relieve the muscle jerks.
You'll still see calcium or mineral supplements containing bone meal
from animals. How do you know the animals didn't carry a gene for mad
cow disease or had been infected with it or some other disease fatal to
humans? You've seen flu jump species from bird and pig to human, why not
mad cow disease prions from cows to humans? Of course the mad
cow prions jumped species from cow to human.
Can they jump from cow to fish to human?
Prions for mad cow disease
can't be killed by cooking. Research will eventually confirm or deny
whether fish can pass along mad cow disease based on whether the fish
ate rendered meat or bone meal from cows infected with mad cow disease.
Meanwhile, the nation's food supply is at risk as evidence mounts.
How do farmed fish get the prions in their flesh that are then eaten
by humans so that the fish and the human comes down with mad cow
disease? It's a genetic mutation within a gene called the Prion Protein
Gene that causes mad cow disease.
Prion proteins are proteins expressed abundantly in the brain and
immune cells of mammals. The questions researchers are trying to answer
is whether prions are found in farmed fish after the fish consume meat
or bone meal containing prions from cows that are carriers but not
infected themselves.
Another issue being researched is whether the meals that the fish are
fed contain prions that the fish pass on to human consumers. And is it
possible or not that humans can get mad cow disease from consuming
farmed fish?
If mad cow disease actually is a genetic mutation in the
cow, can a cow that doesn't become infected with mad cow disease act as a
carrrier, and still pass on the prions to humans to cause mad cow
disease in people or other animals--from farmed fish to chickens?
It's not only the ongoing research on whether farmed fish
are transmitting diseases to humans--diseases that range from mad cow
disease to possibly Alzheimer's or other brain diseases theoretically
caused by prions. Think of commercial pet food also made up largely of
meat by-products.
It's easy for pet food to get into the human food chain by handling
pet food and touching one's mouth, nose, or eyes, or handling human food
in the same room, dishes, or dishwasher, or transfering fluids or dust
from canned or dry pet foods to human foods.
For now, the question is whether farmed fish contain mad cow disease prions. That's what
Dr. Friedland
and his co-authors want consumers to know about as the research
continues. The goal is to see whether it's safe or not to feed farmed
fish rendered cows. The research team so far thinks it's not safe but
will continue researching to confirm or not confirm safety beyond a
doubt.
Dr. Friedland wants
consumers to know that scientists have not proven that it’s possible
for fish to transmit the disease to humans. But researchers want
consumers to be cautious. The warning is out of reasonable caution for
public health. Friedland believes rendered cows should not be fed to
fish. Friedland explained, "feeding rendered cows to fish should be
prohibited.”
His group also is using animal models to better define the pathophysiology of Alzheimer’s disease and develop new treatments.
Dr. Friedland has
documented a series of important determinants of the disease, including
physical and mental inactivity, smoking and diet. This work has focused
on interactions of genetic and environmental lifestyle elements.
Who's studying the health of the rendered cows that are currently fed
to farmed fish? Creutzfeldt Jakob disease is an untreatable,
universally-fatal disease that can be contracted by eating parts of an
animal infected with bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE or mad cow
disease).
According to "
Farmed Fish May Pose Risk For Mad Cow Disease,"
the mosts recent outbreak in England attributed to infected beef
prompted most countries to outlaw feeding rendered cow material to other
cattle because the disease is so easily spread within the same species.
Now people eating farmed fish have to worry not only about the
hormones and antibiotics given to the farmed fish to make them grow
faster, or the pollutants and insecticides in the farmed fish. Now
consumers have to worry about the rendered cows, those meat byproducts
fed to the fish that might be full of mad cow disease prions.
The barriers between species could be breaking down. But scientists
will have to study how a disease jumps from one species to another.
Rather than rely on a prion mutating, a person could get infected from a
fish even if barriers between species are perceived as low.
Maybe the infection barrier between species is no longer low if the
fish eats the sick mammal or infected cow as ground meal byproducts, and
then the human eats the sick farmed fish? If a disease infects a fish
that once infected a cow, could that disease also infect a human?
It's
easy for a disease to jump between a cow and a human. Mad cow disease
spread to humans through infected cows that might even have a gene
variant that makes them susceptable to mad cow disease.
The risk of transmission of mad cow disease, also known as BSE to
humans who eat farmed fish could be higher than most people thought.
According to the authors of the research, "it is possible for a disease
to be spread by eating a carrier that is not infected itself. It’s also
possible that eating diseased cow parts could cause fish to experience a
pathological change that allows the infection to be passed between the
two species."
According to the press release, Friedland notes, "The fact that no
cases of Creutzfeldt Jakob disease have been linked to eating farmed
fish does not assure that feeding rendered cow parts to fish is safe."
Scientists know it takes decades, sometimes up to 30 years, for
certain brain diseases similar to mad cow disease infections to incubate
in a human. Most people don't make the association between what meat
they ate and what that animal or fish ate before it was cooked or
sold in the market. When you go out to a restaurant for a fish sandwich,
do you think that the farmed fish in the sandwich contains mad cow
disease prions or similar infections?
Dr. Friedland
and the authors of the research studies would like consumers to know
that "enhanced safeguards need to be put in place to protect the
public.”
People
in Europe that came down with mad cow disease after eating infected
beef never had to wait very long. Certainly not for decades.
Those people that caught mad cow disease in Europe didn't have to
wait 30 years between the time they ate the beef and the time they came
down with Creutzfeld Jakob, the human form of Bovine spongiform
encephalopathy (mad cow disease).
In recent years, mad cow disease,
always fatal in humans and cows, also has been identified in nine
Canadian and three U.S. cattle.
The moral compass of this finding is that farmed fish need to be fed
safer foods, and in the meantime, eat wild-caught fish from some ocean
areas that are relatively cleaner than others.
Even wild-caught fish can be bought in cans, without added salt,
because they are canned from the overrun of wild-caught fish.
Worse yet,
some commercial chicken ranches feed their chickens rendered cow meat
and bone meal. When you buy organic chicken, do you know what they were
fed? All you know is that they weren't given hormones or anti-biotics if
the label says so.
What are turkeys fed? You are told that they're not getting hormones.
But what else is in the food animals eat if you're eating the animals?
Think about whether cows were fed grass or grain. They should have been
grazing on grass. Cows shouldn't be feeding on bone meal and rendered
other cows. And dogs/cats shouldn't be eating meat byproducts that have
been genetically altered and then injected with all types of chemicals,
hormones, or antibiotics.
Be aware of what the animal ate and what hormones, antibiotics, and
insecticides that animal absorbed before you ate it. If you're a
vegetarian, ask what herbicides, genetic alterations, or insecticides
went into the plants you eat. At least you'll know what's going into
your body. And the research continues on whether farmed fish present a
mad cow disease problem.
If a loved one has come down with CJD, you might wish to contact a
disability attorney of
your choice in order to find out related information. Also some of the
associations listed below may be able to direct you to the information
you'll need.
Here's a thought and helpful links to consider--posed by viewer,
Terry Singeltary: "Even if fish could not contract a transmissible
spongiform encephalopathy (TSE), disease, it would still be
possible
for the TSE agent to survive the digestinal tract. And then if that
fish was added as an ingredient for feed, the agent could further spread
to infect other species."
Contemplative Crows, by Deborah McCarroll, 2011; acrylic on canvas; reproduced with permission.
