By Elizabeth M. Whelan, Sc.D., M.P.H.
Posted: Friday, August 29, 2003

EDITORIAL
Publication Date: August 29, 2003

Chefs at some of New York's finest restaurants—including Blue Water Grill, Atlantic Grill and Blue Fin—are practicing the latest form of culinary political correctness: banning farmed salmons from their menus, to supposedly protect their patrons' health.

The cause? A flurry of media reports that an environmental advocacy organization, the Environmental Working Group (EWG), found unusually high levels of PCBs —the long-banned industrial chemicals that news reports claimed "caused cancer"— in farmed salmon.

The Washington Post, for example, opined in a news piece that "farmed salmon consumption may be posing a health threat to millions of Americans." The New York Times informed readers that PCBs were "probable human carcinogens."

No wonder the chefs got reeled into a state of farmed-salmon phobia. But they—and millions of other Americans terrified by the alarming news reports—were never given two critical facts that would have allowed them to digest the fish scare with a few grains of salt:

* First, there is absolutely no credible evidence that environmental exposure to PCBs (including ingesting the trace levels in the fish) poses any risk of human cancer.

Even workers exposed in occupational settings to high levels of PCBs for decades manifest no elevated rates of cancer that could be related to PCB exposure.

The designation of PCBs as "carcinogens" is based exclusively on observations of experiments wherein animals were given high doses of PCBs. And by now, everyone should know that natural foods contain a spectrum of chemicals that cause cancer in rodents (the hydrazines in mushrooms, for example)—and no one is worrying about human cancer risk from trace levels of animal carcinogens in natural foods.

* Second, the source of these "data" on farmed salmon was no mainstream scientific group. Indeed, the EWG is something of a phantom organization. A visit to their Web page leaves one wondering, "Just who are these masked men?"

Two things we know for sure: There are no physicians or scientists associated with EWG—yet they are advising us on how to avoid cancer.

Furthermore, EWG is funded by agenda-driven entities, including private foundations committed to restoring the "natural world" and eliminating the use of agricultural chemicals. EWG repeatedly urges consumers to "buy organic."

Clearly, the technical sophistication of the farmed salmon industry is "unnatural" and thus unacceptable in the eyes of EWG and their funders.

These basic facts spawn, if you will, two questions:

First, why were the media so gullible that they reported this story as if it had scientific legitimacy from a credible source? Why in this age of "transparency" did the media not tell us that the "data" were generated by a group that had no scientific or medical credentials or credibility—and has an ideological commitment to only "natural" food production?

Second, why were scientists from universities across America—academics who knew this report was bogus—not outraged, issuing press releases to correct the record? Why did scientists and physicians (with the exception of the group I direct, the American Council on Science and Health) remain silent as critical facts on cancer risk were distorted in the press?

Even more curious, why did the world's foremost experts on cancer causation—the cancer epidemiologists at the National Cancer Institute —not instantly respond to correct the record and declare that, contrary to media reports, there is no evidence at all that trace levels of chemicals that cause cancer in animals—including the purported PCB traces in farmed salmon—pose a human cancer risk?

What's a chef to do? If the media headlines proclaim "cancer" and the scientific community remains mute, the "silence-is- assent" rule prevails. It's time not only to grill farmed salmon, but also to grill scientists and the media for spreading junk science. Instead, they should have called "tripe" when tripe is served.

Dr. Elizabeth M. Whelan is president of the American Council on Science and Health.

Source Notes:  
New York Post

Related Links
What's the Story? — PCBs