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."
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