The global seafood industry has learned a lot about infectious salmon anemia (ISA) since it began impacting salmon farms in Norway in 1984, but most consumers have never even heard of it. So what happens when a little-known fish virus goes mainstream?
News sources from Seattle to California and New York to Washington, D.C., in October reported extensively on researchers claiming to have detected ISA in juvenile wild sockeye salmon harvested from British Columbia waters. The tests were conducted by Simon Fraser University fisheries scientist Rick Routledge on behalf of wild salmon activist Alexandra Morton.
However, upon further investigation, there was no cause for alarm.
“There are several reasons why one positive can turn up in testing, which is why follow-up testing and sequencing is such an important part of the diagnostic process. Those follow-up steps were not undertaken by the activists and researchers involved in the initial news release,” says Mary Ellen Walling, executive director of the British Columbia Salmon Farmer’s Association. “While we do not know what caused those first results, we do know that PCR tests are prone to false positives, particularly when samples are not in optimal condition, because the tests are so sensitive.”
Unfortunately, the news that follow-up testing by the Canadian Food Inspection Agency showed no traces of ISA received noticeably less mainstream media coverage. The lackluster secondary coverage doesn’t bode well for the seafood industry, which bears the brunt of misinformation being fed to consumers.
Thankfully, Walling says it didn’t seem that the news ruffled too many feathers outside the industry.
“We haven’t seen any indication that this news has changed the way people buy salmon,” says Walling. “It was very important to us to emphasize that ISA has no human health impacts and that if it were confirmed, that would not be a concern.”
Of more concern to Walling was the potential impact on the industry’s exports — not surprising since past outbreaks have cost billions of dollars and killed tens of millions of farmed salmon in Chile.
“Nonetheless, there was a concern about exports of our product, which could seriously harm our business in British Columbia. We are told that the Canadian Food Inspection Agency has been communicating regularly with international trading partners about this issue and they will be following the story as it progressed,” says Walling.
“It’s always a challenge for our industry though to overcome misinformation in the public about our business — particularly when, like this case, the truth is a complex scientific explanation while the accusations are presented as simple answers,” she adds.
But it’s a battle that the industry needs to fight if it’s to prevent flawed testing and subsequent misinformation from influencing the way consumers feel about salmon aquaculture.
