By Gilbert Ross, M.D.
Posted: Wednesday, August 27, 2003

LETTER
Publication Date: August 27, 2003

To the Editor:

Julia Levy's article on farmed vs. wild salmon and alleged health risks ("Restaurants Switch Salmon, But Underlying Science is Fishy") correctly notes that, despite all the publicity, none of the national scientific insititutes charged with determining health risks for Americans has established a link between PCBs and cancer from eating fish. The American Council on Science and Health's own peer-reviewed literature review concurs: (see Public Health Concerns About Environmental Polychlorinated Biphenyls (PCBs).

So why are many restaurants now avoiding farmed salmon? Because no less an authority on our health than some shadow organization calling itself the "Environmental Working Group" says so! The truth is, firstly, PCB levels to which we are exposed from eating fish are not a cause of any health risk, including cancer; second, the EWG is not a scientific organization, but an activist group whose lifeblood depends on alarming consumers about nonsensical "risks" to health from a variety of trumped-up threats in our environment—they have no scientists in their group and have no peer-reviewed publications to support any of their fear-mongering assertions. Yet, their unfounded scares routinely make the evening news as though delivered by the Surgeon General or the head of the NIH.

Perhaps the media also delight in scaring their viewers and readers with these periodic "carcinogen du jour" stories, giving EWG and their fellow alarmists get all the ink they need from this symbiosis. Consumers Beware: next time you hear one of these fishy scares, don't get reeled in!

Gilbert Ross M.D.
Medical/Executive Director, The American Council on Science and Health
1995 Broadway, 2nd floor
New York NY 10023