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Science 9 January 2004:
Vol. 303. no. 5655, pp. 226 - 229
DOI: 10.1126/science.1091447
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Reports

Global Assessment of Organic Contaminants in Farmed Salmon

Ronald A. Hites,1* Jeffery A. Foran,2 David O. Carpenter,3 M. Coreen Hamilton,4 Barbara A. Knuth,5 Steven J. Schwager6

The annual global production of farmed salmon has increased by a factor of 40 during the past two decades. Salmon from farms in northern Europe, North America, and Chile are now available widely year-round at relatively low prices. Salmon farms have been criticized for their ecological effects, but the potential human health risks of farmed salmon consumption have not been examined rigorously. Having analyzed over 2 metric tons of farmed and wild salmon from around the world for organochlorine contaminants, we show that concentrations of these contaminants are significantly higher in farmed salmon than in wild. European-raised salmon have significantly greater contaminant loads than those raised in North and South America, indicating the need for further investigation into the sources of contamination. Risk analysis indicates that consumption of farmed Atlantic salmon may pose health risks that detract from the beneficial effects of fish consumption.

1 School of Public and Environmental Affairs, Indiana University, Bloomington, IN 47405, USA.
2 Citizens for a Better Environment, Milwaukee, WI 53202, USA.
3 Institute for Health and the Environment, University at Albany, Rensselaer, NY 12144, USA.
4 AXYS Analytical Services, Post Office Box 2219, 2045 Mills Road, Sidney, British Columbia, Canada V8L 3S8.
5 Department of Natural Resources, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY 14853, USA.
6 Department of Biological Statistics and Computational Biology, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY 14853, USA.

* To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: HitesR{at}Indiana.edu

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