alexandra morton

What a year!

In the final weeks of 2013, the CFIA got reassigned to the Minister of Health and I finally got an answer my question. The CFIA never did retest my samples.

Now what - how do we evaluate the ISA virus risk to British Columbia?

Despite their commitment to offer wholesome food, I found Whole Foods uses standards that exceed WHO toxin recommendations to sell Norwegian farmed salmon in some stores.
These two incidents have shaped my course of action for 2014.

If you think I should keep going I need your help. Here is a summary of 2013. Thank you so much for your encouragement, help and brilliant ideas!

Political careers and markets are critically compromising themselves to accommodate this industry. 2014 is the year we move on to a much more brilliant form of aquaculture and relationship with wild salmon

2013 - What We Accomplished from Alexandra Morton on Vimeo.

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BREAKING NEWS:

It is Official the CFIA Never Retested My Samples!

Dear Whole Foods, toxins in your farmed salmon

Dear Whole Foods toxins in your farmed salmon

Dear Whole Foods

Thank you for sending your Quality Standards - did you know your farm salmon toxin - standards are 7 times higher than considered safe by the WHO?

According to your Jan. 1, 2013 Quality Standards that you sent to me - Whole Foods only requires farmed salmon producers to show they are making “progress toward meeting maximum allowable contaminate levels” for PCBs, dioxins, furans, dioxin-like PCBs and mercury in their product. This means your customers don’t actually know the levels of dangerous toxins present in Norwegian farmed salmon from Whole Foods. Download WFM Quality Standards for Farmed Seafood_salmon finfish shrimp_ Jan 1 2013.V2_0-1.pdf (341.5K)

Compared to international, current dietary recommendations for fatty fish, your limit of 2.16 pg/g for dioxins and dioxin-like PCBs in farmed salmon is not safe at all according to the World Health Organization that established in 1998 a goal to reduce human intake levels below 1 pg TEQ/kg body weight/day (http://www.who.int/ipcs/publications/en/exe-sum-final.pdf">source:). (TEQ means Toxic Equivalent Unit)

According to your Jan. 1. 2013 quality standards for farmed salmon, when a 60 kg person eats a single 200 gram serving of Norwegian farmed salmon from Whole Foods their body may receive 432 pg of toxins (2.16 pg x 200 grams). This is more than 7-times the daily safe intake levels established by the WHO and over 3.5-times the tolerable levels established by the European Food Safety Authority (EFTA) (2 pg/kg body weight/day and 14 pg/kg body weight/ week. Source:).

So:

If your customer is a girl or woman, she will store the chemicals received each time she tucks into farmed Norwegian salmon from Whole Foods and then release up to 94% of them to her babies during pregnancy and lactation. Dioxins and PCB toxins are well known to interfere with brain development, the hooking up of brain cells essential to being able to think, cause cognitive (reasoning ability) impairment in children and adults, and are known carcinogens according to the International Agency for Research on Cancer (Source: The Lancet Oncology, Volume 14, Issue 4, Pages 287 - 288, April 2013).

Current research indicates that babies from mothers that consume high levels of PCBs will be at higher risk of autism, ADD, reduced brain size, all the while your customers think that shopping at Whole Foods is protecting their family from doses of toxins like this.

Why does Whole Foods ask the salmon farming industry to work towards meeting requirements that are not safe for babies? Did you not know that your limits are 7 times higher than the World Health Organization recommends? Or did you think your customers were never going to find out? I don't know which is worse.

I was one of your customers, but I no longer have confidence in any of your products. Personally, I feel it is unforgivable to threaten babies with life-long disabilities to make a profit selling food.

Please explain why you sell farmed salmon that only has to show “progress” towards meeting toxin levels that are 7 times higher than recommended by the WHO.

Thank you,

Alexandra Morton, ex-Whole Foods customer

Dear Whole Foods toxins in your farmed salmon

Dear Whole Foods

Thank you for sending your Quality Standards - did you know your farm salmon toxin - standards are 7 times higher than considered safe by the WHO?

According to your Jan. 1, 2013 Quality Standards that you sent to me - Whole Foods only requires farmed salmon producers to show they are making “progress toward meeting maximum allowable contaminate levels” for PCBs, dioxins, furans, dioxin-like PCBs and mercury in their product. This means your customers don’t actually know the levels of dangerous toxins present in Norwegian farmed salmon from Whole Foods. Download WFM Quality Standards for Farmed Seafood_salmon finfish shrimp_ Jan 1 2013.V2_0-1.pdf (341.5K)

Compared to international, current dietary recommendations for fatty fish, your limit of 2.16 pg/g for dioxins and dioxin-like PCBs in farmed salmon is not safe at all according to the World Health Organization that established in 1998 a goal to reduce human intake levels below 1 pg TEQ/kg body weight/day (http://www.who.int/ipcs/publications/en/exe-sum-final.pdf">source:). (TEQ means Toxic Equivalent Unit)

According to your Jan. 1. 2013 quality standards for farmed salmon, when a 60 kg person eats a single 200 gram serving of Norwegian farmed salmon from Whole Foods their body may receive 432 pg of toxins (2.16 pg x 200 grams). This is more than 7-times the daily safe intake levels established by the WHO and over 3.5-times the tolerable levels established by the European Food Safety Authority (EFTA) (2 pg/kg body weight/day and 14 pg/kg body weight/ week. Source:).

So:

If your customer is a girl or woman, she will store the chemicals received each time she tucks into farmed Norwegian salmon from Whole Foods and then release up to 94% of them to her babies during pregnancy and lactation. Dioxins and PCB toxins are well known to interfere with brain development, the hooking up of brain cells essential to being able to think, cause cognitive (reasoning ability) impairment in children and adults, and are known carcinogens according to the International Agency for Research on Cancer (Source: The Lancet Oncology, Volume 14, Issue 4, Pages 287 - 288, April 2013).

Current research indicates that babies from mothers that consume high levels of PCBs will be at higher risk of autism, ADD, reduced brain size, all the while your customers think that shopping at Whole Foods is protecting their family from doses of toxins like this.

Why does Whole Foods ask the salmon farming industry to work towards meeting requirements that are not safe for babies? Did you not know that your limits are 7 times higher than the World Health Organization recommends? Or did you think your customers were never going to find out? I don't know which is worse.

I was one of your customers, but I no longer have confidence in any of your products. Personally, I feel it is unforgivable to threaten babies with life-long disabilities to make a profit selling food.

Please explain why you sell farmed salmon that only has to show “progress” towards meeting toxin levels that are 7 times higher than recommended by the WHO.

Thank you,

Alexandra Morton, ex-Whole Foods customer

It is Official - the CFIA never retested my samples

After 6 months of asking the CFIA to confirm whether they retested my ISA virus samples or not - I got an answer from the Ministry of Health.

This unforgivable situation risks the wild salmon economy of the North Pacific and Canada's reputation as a trade partner.

Dear Minister Ambrose

Thank you for prompting the CFIA to finally answer my question; did they retest the samples I sent to the Kibenge lab for ISA virus testing or not?

Dr. D. Ian Alexander (CFIA) says in his letter to me that my samples were never retested. Download Ltr to Alexandra Morton re ISA BC Salmon.pdf (439.9K)

This is highly significant and something is very wrong here.

I accept that the CFIA has its reasons for not retesting my samples, however they took my samples from the lab and went to lengths to inform the World Organisation of Animal Health (OIE) that the ISA virus results by the Kibenge lab were "non-repeatable".
Download CFIA (Evans) Letter (00627482).PDF (414.2K)

The Kibenge lab was one of only two labs in the world designated by the OIE as an ISA virus reference lab. That is why I chose to use this lab. The CFIA recommended the lab be suspended, the OIE complied, but will not state why. The word "non-repeatable" suggests the CFIA repeated the tests with different results. But clearly that was not the case.

The CFIA needs to report to you why they told the OIE that the Kibenge results were "non-repeatable." Who exactly repeated tests on my samples taken from the Kibenge lab and where is that data?

In one of Canada's biggest newspapers, the CFIA urged the OIE to suspend the Kibenge lab because "government labs couldn’t replicate his results."

The Kibenge lab is not alone it its findings. Several Canadian government labs submitted test results to the Cohen Commission that were positive for sequences of the ISA virus in BC (exhibits 2040, 2053-136a, 2055, 2043, 2060, 2051, 2052). As well, Dr. Are Nylund, University of Bergen, testified at the inquiry that he got results positive for ISA virus sequence in BC.

ISA virus is an internationally reportable virus for all members of the World Organization for Animal Health.

"Mr. Warkentin [Cermaq, owned largely by the Norwegian government] said the aquaculture industry, which raises about 32-million fish a year in B.C., 91 per cent of which are Atlantic salmon, is holding its breath while the Canadian Food Inspection Agency investigates the ISA positive findings made by Fred Kibenge, at the University of Prince Edward Island, Atlantic Veterinary College."

The CFIA testified at the Cohen Commission that if ISA virus is in BC - borders would close to BC farmed salmon. It appears as if the industry held its breath and the CFIA compromised its integrity.

When ISA virus repeats its grimly inevitable global pattern and mutates into a virulent outbreak in British Columbia, risking the wild salmon economy of the North Pacific, and Canada's reputation as a responsible member of the world trade community, the record will show results from a top Canadian lab could have been used to contain the virus. Look at what is underway in Eastern Canada. The CFIA allows ISA-positive farmed salmon to remain in the water and approved them for sale to the public. New variants of ISA are now spreading along the coast of eastern Canada. ISA is not something that can remain hidden.

Minister Ambrose, you were given oversight of the CFIA last month because Stephen Harper can see there are serious problems with the CFIA and this is one of them

This goes beyond the CFIA. I also attach a "confidential" memo wherein the BC government veterinarian briefed a provincial minister that ISA virus is not a threat to BC because live Atlantic salmon eggs have never been imported to BC. In fact, nearly 30 million live Atlantic salmon eggs had been imported when Dr. Sheppard wrote that and he was the man in charge of their health. Dr. Sheppard now works for Fisheries and Oceans Canada - still in charge of farmed salmon health. This further erodes confidence in Canada's response to this virus. Download ISA Confidential BCP1001938 exhibit 1679.pdf (491.4K)

All I ask is that you do what you can to allow the Kibenge lab to continue its work without further harassment. There is a reason the OIE chose this lab in the first place. The Kibenge lab diagnosed the ISA epidemic before it hit Chile with a $2 billion bill. Norway has used this lab, the industry has used this lab. They are on the leading edge of scientific publication on the ISA virus. There was never an issue with the Kibenge lab until it reported ISA virus sequence in BC, which apparently threatens trade in BC farm salmon.

Again, thank you Minister Rona Ambrose, I have been asking the CFIA to confirm whether they retested my samples or not for 6 months, one letter to you and I get the answer. Prime Minister Harper was right to appoint you to oversee the CFIA.

Respectfully,

Alexandra Morton