The biggest seller of organic foods has decided to greatly reduce the
number of antibiotic-treated salmon it purchases from Chile, a move that's
expected to a deliver a huge financial blow to the aquaculture industry.
Costco recently announced that they will
no longer be buying the majority of its salmon from Chile, the world's second
largest producer of the fish, following an increase in consumer awareness
regarding the dangers associated with the widespread use of antibiotics.
The extensive use of human drugs on farmed
animals, including fish, is contributing to an increase in superbugs, or
microorganisms that have grown resistant to antibiotics, posing a severe threat to humans, as these types of infectious diseases are more
difficult to treat.
Costco
drastically cuts farmed salmon purchases from Chile
Previously purchasing about 90 percent of its salmon from Chile, the
membership-only warehouse says it will now buy just 40 percent from the South
American exporter as they look to Norway (the world's largest salmon producer)
to supply the majority of their demand.
Over the last few years, Wal-Mart, Wegmans and
Safeway have also reduced purchases of Chilean salmon.
For eight years, Chile has been struggling to
contain the spread of a virus that is killing millions of fish; in response to
this and widespread bacterial disease, Chilean farmers have turned to
antibiotics in order to keep their fish stock alive despite unsanitary conditions. In 2008,
Chile used nearly 350 times more
antibiotics on its farmed salmon
than Norway, its chief competitor.
Industry officials say this is because Norway
has developed vaccines to protect theirsalmon against illnesses, a development that Chile has been
unable to achieve due to a lack of funding.
Under a new "information access law,"
Chile's government, for the first time, revealed information detailing its use
of antibiotics in salmon production following a request by the environmental
group Oceana.
While the high usage of drugs raised alarm, the
industry defended its practices, claiming that the antibiotics are approved by
the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and is the only method available to
fight fish-borne illnesses including rickettsia.
Several years ago, however, three Chilean salmon-farming
companies were caught using a number
of drugs not approved by the FDA, some of which include the antibiotic
flumequine, oxolinic acid and the pesticide emamectin benzoate, according to Grist.org.
The illness plaguing millions of salmon,
rickettsia, is caused by a parasitic bacteria known as SRS which is carried by
sea lice that causes skin lesions and hemorrhaging in infected fish, resulting
in the swelling of their kidneys and spleen, which eventually kills them. The
disease was first reported in Chile in 1989.
Environmental
groups blame unsanitary conditions and cramped pens as "super lice"
infect marine life
The environmental group Food & Water Watch says[PDF] ocean aquaculture, "the mass production of fish
in large, floating net pens or cages in the sea — has often led to
environmental and other disasters in the countries where it has been practiced
commercially."
When farmed fish escape into wild, it's a major
cause for concern as they pose an enormous threat to wild fish due to the
diseases they carry.
Unsanitary and cramped living conditions allow
disease to run rampant among farmed fish (similar to factory farms on land),
making them more susceptible to pancreatic and amoebic gill disease, infectious
salmon anemia (ISA) and an increase in sea lice, a destructive parasite
commonly found in highly stocked net pens.
Sea lice has also become resistant to
pesticides, allowing them to morph into "super lice," killing both
captive and wild fish.
Despite assurances that farmed fish wouldn't
survive in the wild, they've been identified
in more than 80 rivers in British
Columbia. More than 500,000 farmed fish escapes occurred in 2009, according to
Norwegian farming statistics, including cod, halibut, salmon and trout.
It's also feared that farmed fish, which have
minimal genetic diversity due to inbreeding, may mate with wild fish and over
time cause them to lose "natural traits that help them survive in the
wild."
