A short video with the crew I work with to monitor the health of young wild salmon in the Discovery Islands since 2005
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2 entries from July 2023
Is this Research Fraud?
Dear Dr. Simon Jones,
I write to you again regarding scientific conclusions that you provided on impact of the salmon farming industry that do not appear to be supported by your own research.
While you continue to refuse to answer my letters, they provide a public record of DFO Aquaculture’s suppression of scientific evidence of the risk from salmon farms to wild salmon, should an audit occur. Today, the salmon farming industry is aggressively pursuing the Minister of Fisheries for not relying on what appears to be manipulated science, some of it yours, and this is a serious threat to wild salmon.
Below is the evidence that you misrepresented findings by your lab on the threat of sea lice released by the industry’s hydrogen peroxide de-licing treatments. Your conclusions were used by the salmon farming companies to satisfy their Condition of Licence 6.13. Five months later, DFO staff reviewed ATIP material I requested that included internal comms on this research, appear to have recognized your conclusions were misstated, and wrote media lines correcting your work in case media got wind of this.
The evidence
The 2020 condition of licence s.6.13 required the companies to conduct research into whether hydrogen peroxide treatments used to dislodge sea lice from farm salmon was releasing sea lice into the ocean that were capable of infecting wild salmon. You entered ACRDP agreement 21-P-01 with Cermaq, Grieg and the BC Salmon Farmers Association to complete this study.
On May 31, 2022, the day before the study was due, Cermaq sent an email to DFO veterinarian Dr. Laura Sitter titled “Smon Jones ACRDP Presentation to AMD Staff” stating, “Here is the Cermaq summary for the ACRDP project conducted by Simon Jones.” Attached was PDF “2022-05-30 Condition 6.13”.
This PDF states: “The conclusions from the above studies showed that laboratory treatment with 500 and 1500 ppm H202 caused: …. Significant reduction in infectivity of adult female L. salmonis [salmon lice].” This suggests that the lice released after hydrogen peroxide (H202) treatments would not infect young wild salmon and so were not a threat.
However, the data provided to you by your staff Eliah Kim on April 1, 2022, does not support this conclusion. In some trials it was the opposite – there were more treated than untreated lice infecting young salmon.
Despite this, Mowi and Cermaq used the conclusions you provided, that H202 treatments significantly reduced sea lice capacity to reattach to salmon. This matters to wild salmon because these treatments may dislodge millions of sea lice into the ocean.
Then in October 2022, DFO Communications was reviewing an ATIP containing the ACRDP 21-P-01 results that was about to be released to me. They sought a second opinion on your conclusions. DFO epidemiologist, Dr. Derek Price described the results of your work as “inconclusive” not “significant”:
“The hydrogen peroxide exposure studies were conducted through an ACRDP partnership between DFO Science (Simon Jones) and the BC Salmon Farmer's Association. The results of these studies agree with existing scientific literature that sea lice are immobilized for several hours after treatment with hydrogen peroxide. The studies also suggested reattachment is unlikely, but the results were inconclusive...”
This means Dr. Price does not agree with your interpretation of your data and it means that when millions of farm lice are broadcast from treatment vessels into wild salmon habitat DFO doesn’t know what will happen.
The difference between “significant” and “inconclusive” looms large for the salmon farming companies using BC waters. DFO veterinarian Dr Laura Sitter looked at the study and recommended “…filtration should be considered as a mitigation on vessels performing hydrogen peroxide treatments…” (Nov 14, 2022)
However, filtration of H202 effluent is problematic for the industry. The window of time between removing the lice and killing the farm salmon is slim. If the tanks are not purged immediately at the end of a treatment, the farm salmon may be burned alive. Filtration slows purging, lowering risk for wild salmon, but elevating risk for the farm salmon.
Your interpretation of your results could lull managers into thinking further filtration is unnecessary. Good for the salmon farmers, risky for wild salmon.
These internal communications suggest that senior DFO management staff in the Pacific Region know that ACRDP 21-P-01 contains overstated, inaccurate conclusions and that the hydrogen peroxide lice treatment effluent does pose a threat to young wild salmon. Whether they did anything about it is unknown.
I recommend that your research reported via ACRDP 21-P-01 as submitted by Mowi and Cermaq to DFO in compliance with their 2020 Licence be evaluated using the international principles of research fraud. It is a simple checklist. Were results suppressed that altered the conclusion, benefitted the salmon farming industry and put wild salmon are risk? Here is a link to the documents I have described. Please note this document contains an email from Jay Parsons that includes his recommendation that DFO not release internal communications about development of your CSAS sea lice science. However, it was released to me and 16 independent scientists who objected to your conclusions where you ignored some results which happened to benefit the salmon farming industry.
I have copied First Nation leaders who are receiving information from you on the impact of farm lice on the wild salmon that they are responsible for as they pass through their territory. If they want wild salmon to survive, I believe an audit of the information you are providing to them is essential to their achieving their goals.
Respectfully,
Alexandra Morton