http://www.seattlepi.com/local/conne...us-2309866.php[/url]
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/htm...nvirus30m.html
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/htm...nvirus30m.html
looks like a bit of a cover up was under way for years
- Thread starter reelfast
- Start date
Sculpin
Well-Known Member
I just heard about this on the radio. What an embarrassment.
This quote sums it up pretty good. " I have great respect for the scientists at Fisheries and Oceans, but I think sometimes the politicians get in the way."
Even the American's get it.
These politicians at DFO in Ottawa need to get out of bed with the commercial and aquaculture fisheries and get back to doing their job that WE pay them to do.
This quote sums it up pretty good. " I have great respect for the scientists at Fisheries and Oceans, but I think sometimes the politicians get in the way."
Even the American's get it.
These politicians at DFO in Ottawa need to get out of bed with the commercial and aquaculture fisheries and get back to doing their job that WE pay them to do.
Whole in the Water
Well-Known Member
I couldn't agree with you more Sculpin. But the DFO and their political master will continue to do absolutely nothing until enough people raise up and protest and demand change. We must exercise ALL our political freedoms to pressure our govt. to stop this mismangement! Write letters, send emails, organize peaceful protests, etc. If we don't do something, nothing will change!
Charlie
Well-Known Member
A 'smoking salmon' report: Was deadly fish virus detected years ago?
By JOEL CONNELLY, SEATTLEPI.COM STAFF
Published 07:35 p.m., Tuesday, November 29, 2011
(Page 1 of 2)
A 2004 draft manuscript, leaked out of Canada's Department of Fisheries and Oceans, indicates that the deadly infectious salmon anemia virus was identified eight years ago in coho, pink and sockeye salmon taken from southern British Columbia, Southeast Alaska and Bering Sea waters.
Testing done in 2002 and 2003 "lead us to conclude that an asymptomatic form of infectious salmon anemia occurs among some species of wild Pacific salmon in the north Pacific," said the manuscript.
But a senior official at the Department of Fisheries and Oceans recently rejected a request to submit the manuscript for publication.
Its lead author was Molly Kilbenge, a scientist working out of the Canadian government's Pacific Biological Station in Nanaimo, B.C. Three other authors were listed.
Sen. Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., who received a copy of the manuscript on Tuesday, issued a strong call for cross-border cooperation and open access to fisheries research, saying:
"These troubling reports reinforce the need for a coordinated, multi-national strategy to control the spread of this virus threat. American and Canadian scientists need to have access to all relevant research on this deadly virus. We can't afford to leave the Pacific Northwest's fisheries jobs at risk."
The manuscript surfaced less than a month after disputed findings of the virus in fish taken from the Harrison River in B.C.'s lower Fraser Valley, not far from the Washington border, and juvenile sockeye collected at Rivers Inlet about 400 miles north on the British Columbia Coast.
Infectious salmon anemia, or ISA, is a severe disease of marine-farmed Atlantic salmon, characterized by anemia and hemorrhaging livers as well as kidney damage.
"The disease has affected marine farmed Atlantic salmon in Norway since 1984. ... More recently, the disease has been diagnosed in marine farmed Atlantic salmon in Eastern Canada, Scotland, eastern USA (Maine), the Faroe Islands," says the manuscript.
The virus has also swept through salmon pens in Chile.
The farming of Atlantic salmon is a big business in British Columbia. It has received strong support from the Department of Fisheries and Oceans, the Canadian federal agency that also is charged with managing wild salmon stocks.
As they return to spawn in the Fraser River -- one of the world's greatest salmon streams -- fish pass close to major salmon farming operations in waters between Vancouver Island and the British Columbia mainland. Scientists worry that infected farmed fish are passing the virus on to wild salmon.
Cantwell, along with Alaska Sens. Lisa Murkowski and Mark Begich, issued a pointed letter after first reports that the ISA virus had been identified. The senators called for independent testing, resistant to manipulation by those with a vested interest in its outcome.
The 2004 manuscript has apparently not been submitted to or discussed by the Cohen Commission, a Canadian government inquiry charged with finding causes of the sudden, unexpected "crash" of Fraser River salmon runs two summers ago.
In a Nov. 4 letter, Kibenge asked the Department of Fisheries and Oceans, or DFO, for permission to submit the 2004 manuscript for publication "as soon as possible." She wrote: "I would like to submit it to Diseases of Aquatic Organisms or Journal of Fish Diseases. What do you think?"
The permission to publish was denied in a letter from Simon Jones of the Aquatic Animal Health Section of the Pacific Biological Station, according to email documents obtained by seattlepi.com.
"You may recall that Fish Health staff at DFO disagreed that your data supported the conclusion that infectious salmon anemia virus, whether asymptomatic or otherwise, occurred in the salmon you examined," wrote Jones. "For example, all attempts to isolate the virus into cell culture failed."
As well, Jones said, Canada's federal inspection agency is conducting "confirmatory testing of more recent samples from Pacific salmon" where positive results for the virus were obtained.
"In addition, the Cohen Commission will reconvene for two days in December to hear evidence on ISA virus in British Columbia," Jones added. "I will wait to hear the outcome of these processes before further discussion on a seven-year-old manuscript.
"Consequently, I do not give permission to submit this work, whether in this manuscript or any other, for publication."
The manuscript may be out of the pen. In a Nov. 4 letter to Jones, the manuscript's co-author Fred Kilbenge said data from the document was being forwarded to the government, and added:
"Our lab is currently making preparations for participation in this process and will disclose this work notwithstanding its age. I think that this historical data may also clarify some of the issues around recent ISAV testing in B.C."
The Prime Minister's Office in Ottawa has, in recent months, put tight restrictions on media access to scientists working on research projects for the Canadian government.
Salmon runs, of course, recognize no national boundaries.
Adult salmon from the U.S. and Canada grow to adulthood in waters of the Gulf of Alaska before returning to spawn in rivers of both countries.
The Fraser River salmon runs use both Johnstone Strait in British Columbia and the Strait of Juan de Fuca, en route home. The United States helped build fish ladders at Hells Gate, in the Fraser Canyon, that restored runs after landslides from railroad construction blocked their migration.
The U.S. still gets a percentage of the Fraser River catch. The two countries have productively cooperated in the past.
Former Gov. Gary Locke of Washington and Canada's then-Fisheries Minister David Anderson worked out an agreement in the late 1990s that preserved two key fish stocks.
During an unusually hot early summer, U.S. fishermen let pass sockeye salmon of the Early Stuart run, which migrates nearly 900 miles up the Fraser River system. In turn, Vancouver Island charter fishermen took fewer endangered Coho salmon bound for Northwest rivers.
Now, the leaked manuscript is likely to cause particular concern in two places: Southeast Alaska and Puget Sound.
Southeast Alaska has reacted with considerable hostility to expanded salmon farming in British Columbia, fearing the spread of disease. The farming industry has strongly defended its safety practices.
But the virus was also found in spawning sockeye headed for Cultus Lake, located in the Fraser Valley just north of the U.S.-Canada border.
Read more: http://www.seattlepi.com/local/conne...#ixzz1fAydAsoS
By JOEL CONNELLY, SEATTLEPI.COM STAFF
Published 07:35 p.m., Tuesday, November 29, 2011
(Page 1 of 2)
A 2004 draft manuscript, leaked out of Canada's Department of Fisheries and Oceans, indicates that the deadly infectious salmon anemia virus was identified eight years ago in coho, pink and sockeye salmon taken from southern British Columbia, Southeast Alaska and Bering Sea waters.
Testing done in 2002 and 2003 "lead us to conclude that an asymptomatic form of infectious salmon anemia occurs among some species of wild Pacific salmon in the north Pacific," said the manuscript.
But a senior official at the Department of Fisheries and Oceans recently rejected a request to submit the manuscript for publication.
Its lead author was Molly Kilbenge, a scientist working out of the Canadian government's Pacific Biological Station in Nanaimo, B.C. Three other authors were listed.
Sen. Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., who received a copy of the manuscript on Tuesday, issued a strong call for cross-border cooperation and open access to fisheries research, saying:
"These troubling reports reinforce the need for a coordinated, multi-national strategy to control the spread of this virus threat. American and Canadian scientists need to have access to all relevant research on this deadly virus. We can't afford to leave the Pacific Northwest's fisheries jobs at risk."
The manuscript surfaced less than a month after disputed findings of the virus in fish taken from the Harrison River in B.C.'s lower Fraser Valley, not far from the Washington border, and juvenile sockeye collected at Rivers Inlet about 400 miles north on the British Columbia Coast.
Infectious salmon anemia, or ISA, is a severe disease of marine-farmed Atlantic salmon, characterized by anemia and hemorrhaging livers as well as kidney damage.
"The disease has affected marine farmed Atlantic salmon in Norway since 1984. ... More recently, the disease has been diagnosed in marine farmed Atlantic salmon in Eastern Canada, Scotland, eastern USA (Maine), the Faroe Islands," says the manuscript.
The virus has also swept through salmon pens in Chile.
The farming of Atlantic salmon is a big business in British Columbia. It has received strong support from the Department of Fisheries and Oceans, the Canadian federal agency that also is charged with managing wild salmon stocks.
As they return to spawn in the Fraser River -- one of the world's greatest salmon streams -- fish pass close to major salmon farming operations in waters between Vancouver Island and the British Columbia mainland. Scientists worry that infected farmed fish are passing the virus on to wild salmon.
Cantwell, along with Alaska Sens. Lisa Murkowski and Mark Begich, issued a pointed letter after first reports that the ISA virus had been identified. The senators called for independent testing, resistant to manipulation by those with a vested interest in its outcome.
The 2004 manuscript has apparently not been submitted to or discussed by the Cohen Commission, a Canadian government inquiry charged with finding causes of the sudden, unexpected "crash" of Fraser River salmon runs two summers ago.
In a Nov. 4 letter, Kibenge asked the Department of Fisheries and Oceans, or DFO, for permission to submit the 2004 manuscript for publication "as soon as possible." She wrote: "I would like to submit it to Diseases of Aquatic Organisms or Journal of Fish Diseases. What do you think?"
The permission to publish was denied in a letter from Simon Jones of the Aquatic Animal Health Section of the Pacific Biological Station, according to email documents obtained by seattlepi.com.
"You may recall that Fish Health staff at DFO disagreed that your data supported the conclusion that infectious salmon anemia virus, whether asymptomatic or otherwise, occurred in the salmon you examined," wrote Jones. "For example, all attempts to isolate the virus into cell culture failed."
As well, Jones said, Canada's federal inspection agency is conducting "confirmatory testing of more recent samples from Pacific salmon" where positive results for the virus were obtained.
"In addition, the Cohen Commission will reconvene for two days in December to hear evidence on ISA virus in British Columbia," Jones added. "I will wait to hear the outcome of these processes before further discussion on a seven-year-old manuscript.
"Consequently, I do not give permission to submit this work, whether in this manuscript or any other, for publication."
The manuscript may be out of the pen. In a Nov. 4 letter to Jones, the manuscript's co-author Fred Kilbenge said data from the document was being forwarded to the government, and added:
"Our lab is currently making preparations for participation in this process and will disclose this work notwithstanding its age. I think that this historical data may also clarify some of the issues around recent ISAV testing in B.C."
The Prime Minister's Office in Ottawa has, in recent months, put tight restrictions on media access to scientists working on research projects for the Canadian government.
Salmon runs, of course, recognize no national boundaries.
Adult salmon from the U.S. and Canada grow to adulthood in waters of the Gulf of Alaska before returning to spawn in rivers of both countries.
The Fraser River salmon runs use both Johnstone Strait in British Columbia and the Strait of Juan de Fuca, en route home. The United States helped build fish ladders at Hells Gate, in the Fraser Canyon, that restored runs after landslides from railroad construction blocked their migration.
The U.S. still gets a percentage of the Fraser River catch. The two countries have productively cooperated in the past.
Former Gov. Gary Locke of Washington and Canada's then-Fisheries Minister David Anderson worked out an agreement in the late 1990s that preserved two key fish stocks.
During an unusually hot early summer, U.S. fishermen let pass sockeye salmon of the Early Stuart run, which migrates nearly 900 miles up the Fraser River system. In turn, Vancouver Island charter fishermen took fewer endangered Coho salmon bound for Northwest rivers.
Now, the leaked manuscript is likely to cause particular concern in two places: Southeast Alaska and Puget Sound.
Southeast Alaska has reacted with considerable hostility to expanded salmon farming in British Columbia, fearing the spread of disease. The farming industry has strongly defended its safety practices.
But the virus was also found in spawning sockeye headed for Cultus Lake, located in the Fraser Valley just north of the U.S.-Canada border.
Read more: http://www.seattlepi.com/local/conne...#ixzz1fAydAsoS
Charlie
Well-Known Member
Canada kept detection of salmon virus secret
A decade before this fall's salmon-virus scare, a Canadian government researcher said she found a similar virus in more than 100 wild fish from Alaska to Vancouver Island. But Canadian officials never told the public or scientists in the United States about those tests.
By Craig Welch
Seattle Times environment reporter
A decade before this fall's salmon-virus scare, a Canadian government researcher said she found a similar virus in more than 100 wild fish from Alaska to Vancouver Island.
Canadian officials never told the public or scientists in the United States about those tests — not even after evidence of the virus discovered in October was treated as an international emergency, according to documents and emails obtained by The Seattle Times.
The researcher's work surfaced only this week after she sought and was denied permission by a Canadian official to try to have her old data published in a scientific journal.
Scientists and wild-fish advocates long have feared the arrival of infectious salmon anemia (ISA) virus, a pathogen linked to aquaculture that has killed millions of farmed salmon in Europe and Chile. They say it could mutate and devastate wild fish stocks.
The virus never has been confirmed on the West Coast by follow-up tests, but word of the earlier research raises new questions about the Canadian agency charged with assessing the risk.
Environmentalists in Canada and some U.S. politicians worry that Fisheries and Oceans Canada may be ill-equipped to deal aggressively with the risk because it's responsible both for protecting the country's wild fish and for promoting British Columbia's salmon farms.
U.S. scientists on Tuesday expressed dismay that the Canadians never had mentioned the researcher's work. The scientists also said they feared there had been little effort to conduct new tests to see whether she'd been right.
"We had no knowledge of any of this," said Jim Winton, a top fish virologist at the U.S. Geological Survey in Seattle, who reviewed the researcher's findings this week. "No one ever revealed that there was a publication that was ready to go to a journal or that the data were as compelling as they appear to be. This is puzzling and very frustrating. It's unfortunate that this information was not available sooner. This should have been followed up years ago."
Ted Meyers, Alaska's chief fish pathologist, agreed.
"If it were my lab," he said, "we would have looked a lot more thoroughly before we let 10 years pass. I have great respect for the scientists at Fisheries and Oceans, but I think sometimes the politicians get in the way."
Fisheries and Oceans Canada declined to answer questions Tuesday. It issued a brief statement acknowledging the researcher's work, but said the tests were in error. "Based on the best science available, it was concluded that her results had produced a false positive," the statement said.
But Winton and other scientists said the research appeared to be thorough. The type of genetic tests the Canadian scientist performed were unlikely to have produced all false positives, unless all samples were contaminated.
"The Canadian response is less than satisfactory," Winton said. "It seems inadequate to the occasion."
Why virus is a threat
While not harmful to humans, a virulent, highly contagious form of ISA linked to farmed Atlantic salmon has killed millions of fish in farms in Europe since 1984. Evidence suggests ISA then traveled from Norway to Chile on imported fish eggs, where it killed tens of millions more farmed Atlantic salmon in 2007 and 2008.
Scientists and wild-fish advocates worry that, if the virus gets into one of the 150 or so Atlantic-salmon farms that dot the British Columbia coast, it could fester among tightly packed fish, work its way into wild salmon and mutate into a new lethal form.
The virus is considered so dangerous that, if its presence is confirmed, Canada is obligated to report it to the World Organization for Animal Health, just as it would foot-and-mouth disease or bird flu. Such a report would be a devastating blow to British Columbia's aquaculture industry.
That's why some, such as Sen. Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., have encouraged Canadian officials to share information about the virus with U.S. scientists.
"We should not rely on another government — particularly one that may have a motive to misrepresent its findings — to determine how we assess the risk ISA may pose to American fishery jobs," Cantwell said this month.
This fall's fish scare erupted in October when a Simon Fraser University professor announced that a highly regarded independent laboratory had detected traces of the virus in two juvenile wild sockeye taken from Rivers Inlet in northern British Columbia. Independent follow-up tests proved inconclusive because the samples were so degraded.
Cantwell and Alaska's two senators pushed a measure through Congress to coordinate a salmon-testing and research plan.
But no one in the U.S. apparently knew those two fish weren't the first on the West Coast to test positive.
What researcher found
The first appear to have been found by Molly Kibenge.
In 2002, she was a visiting fellow in fish biology at a government lab on Vancouver Island. There, she took samples of wild chinook, coho, chum, sockeye and pink salmon from Southeast Alaska, the Bering Sea and the West Coast of Vancouver Island.
She found evidence of a European strain of the virus — but no illness — in 117 fish, according to a paper she prepared later. She concluded a nonlethal form of the virus may exist naturally in wild Pacific salmon. Her results went nowhere.
In the wake of the October virus report, she sought permission from her lab colleague, Simon Jones, who works for a division of Fisheries and Oceans Canada, to submit her old research to a journal.
"Your email is timely," Jones wrote back last month. "Recent events in BC concerning the alleged detection of ISA brought to mind the research you conducted ... and some of the questions it raised."
But Jones reminded her that his agency had disputed her results. He declined to give his permission.
Her husband, Fred Kibenge — a respected fish virologist who has led much of the world's ISA research and who performed the tests on the two British Columbia sockeye — wrote Jones back 10 days later. Kibenge said he still would share his wife's data with virus investigators to "clarify some of the issues."
The Kibenges declined to be interviewed. Jones referred calls to Fisheries and Oceans Canada.
But Winton and other U.S. scientists said Molly Kibenge's paper looked sound, and that research on the virus was notoriously hard to replicate. Her work suggested wild salmon may contain a natural variant of ISA — information that would have helped point to new avenues of research.
"It would have been nice to find out sooner," said Meyers, the Alaska fish pathologist. "I would have revisited that data in a heartbeat."
"It was certainly a surprise," said Bruce Stewart, with Northwest Indian Fisheries Commission, which is trying to help map out plans to test U.S. salmon for the virus. "I guess it's good that it came out now."
Cantwell agreed. "These troubling reports reinforce the need for a coordinated, multinational strategy to control the spread of this virus threat," she said in a statement. "American and Canadian scientists need to have access to all relevant research."
In fact, the three U.S. scientists agree that a fuller airing of Molly Kibenge's work may well have tempered initial fears this fall. Her research points away from the possibility that any ISA virus found in wild Pacific salmon likely started with farmed fish.
"Maybe we've got our own homegrown version of ISA right here," Meyers said.
And if Kibenge's work is verified, he said, the risk to wild fish may be far less than once thought.
Craig Welch: 206-464-2093
or cwelch@seattletimes.com.
On Twitter @craigawelch.
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2016890291_salmonvirus30m.html
A decade before this fall's salmon-virus scare, a Canadian government researcher said she found a similar virus in more than 100 wild fish from Alaska to Vancouver Island. But Canadian officials never told the public or scientists in the United States about those tests.
By Craig Welch
Seattle Times environment reporter
A decade before this fall's salmon-virus scare, a Canadian government researcher said she found a similar virus in more than 100 wild fish from Alaska to Vancouver Island.
Canadian officials never told the public or scientists in the United States about those tests — not even after evidence of the virus discovered in October was treated as an international emergency, according to documents and emails obtained by The Seattle Times.
The researcher's work surfaced only this week after she sought and was denied permission by a Canadian official to try to have her old data published in a scientific journal.
Scientists and wild-fish advocates long have feared the arrival of infectious salmon anemia (ISA) virus, a pathogen linked to aquaculture that has killed millions of farmed salmon in Europe and Chile. They say it could mutate and devastate wild fish stocks.
The virus never has been confirmed on the West Coast by follow-up tests, but word of the earlier research raises new questions about the Canadian agency charged with assessing the risk.
Environmentalists in Canada and some U.S. politicians worry that Fisheries and Oceans Canada may be ill-equipped to deal aggressively with the risk because it's responsible both for protecting the country's wild fish and for promoting British Columbia's salmon farms.
U.S. scientists on Tuesday expressed dismay that the Canadians never had mentioned the researcher's work. The scientists also said they feared there had been little effort to conduct new tests to see whether she'd been right.
"We had no knowledge of any of this," said Jim Winton, a top fish virologist at the U.S. Geological Survey in Seattle, who reviewed the researcher's findings this week. "No one ever revealed that there was a publication that was ready to go to a journal or that the data were as compelling as they appear to be. This is puzzling and very frustrating. It's unfortunate that this information was not available sooner. This should have been followed up years ago."
Ted Meyers, Alaska's chief fish pathologist, agreed.
"If it were my lab," he said, "we would have looked a lot more thoroughly before we let 10 years pass. I have great respect for the scientists at Fisheries and Oceans, but I think sometimes the politicians get in the way."
Fisheries and Oceans Canada declined to answer questions Tuesday. It issued a brief statement acknowledging the researcher's work, but said the tests were in error. "Based on the best science available, it was concluded that her results had produced a false positive," the statement said.
But Winton and other scientists said the research appeared to be thorough. The type of genetic tests the Canadian scientist performed were unlikely to have produced all false positives, unless all samples were contaminated.
"The Canadian response is less than satisfactory," Winton said. "It seems inadequate to the occasion."
Why virus is a threat
While not harmful to humans, a virulent, highly contagious form of ISA linked to farmed Atlantic salmon has killed millions of fish in farms in Europe since 1984. Evidence suggests ISA then traveled from Norway to Chile on imported fish eggs, where it killed tens of millions more farmed Atlantic salmon in 2007 and 2008.
Scientists and wild-fish advocates worry that, if the virus gets into one of the 150 or so Atlantic-salmon farms that dot the British Columbia coast, it could fester among tightly packed fish, work its way into wild salmon and mutate into a new lethal form.
The virus is considered so dangerous that, if its presence is confirmed, Canada is obligated to report it to the World Organization for Animal Health, just as it would foot-and-mouth disease or bird flu. Such a report would be a devastating blow to British Columbia's aquaculture industry.
That's why some, such as Sen. Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., have encouraged Canadian officials to share information about the virus with U.S. scientists.
"We should not rely on another government — particularly one that may have a motive to misrepresent its findings — to determine how we assess the risk ISA may pose to American fishery jobs," Cantwell said this month.
This fall's fish scare erupted in October when a Simon Fraser University professor announced that a highly regarded independent laboratory had detected traces of the virus in two juvenile wild sockeye taken from Rivers Inlet in northern British Columbia. Independent follow-up tests proved inconclusive because the samples were so degraded.
Cantwell and Alaska's two senators pushed a measure through Congress to coordinate a salmon-testing and research plan.
But no one in the U.S. apparently knew those two fish weren't the first on the West Coast to test positive.
What researcher found
The first appear to have been found by Molly Kibenge.
In 2002, she was a visiting fellow in fish biology at a government lab on Vancouver Island. There, she took samples of wild chinook, coho, chum, sockeye and pink salmon from Southeast Alaska, the Bering Sea and the West Coast of Vancouver Island.
She found evidence of a European strain of the virus — but no illness — in 117 fish, according to a paper she prepared later. She concluded a nonlethal form of the virus may exist naturally in wild Pacific salmon. Her results went nowhere.
In the wake of the October virus report, she sought permission from her lab colleague, Simon Jones, who works for a division of Fisheries and Oceans Canada, to submit her old research to a journal.
"Your email is timely," Jones wrote back last month. "Recent events in BC concerning the alleged detection of ISA brought to mind the research you conducted ... and some of the questions it raised."
But Jones reminded her that his agency had disputed her results. He declined to give his permission.
Her husband, Fred Kibenge — a respected fish virologist who has led much of the world's ISA research and who performed the tests on the two British Columbia sockeye — wrote Jones back 10 days later. Kibenge said he still would share his wife's data with virus investigators to "clarify some of the issues."
The Kibenges declined to be interviewed. Jones referred calls to Fisheries and Oceans Canada.
But Winton and other U.S. scientists said Molly Kibenge's paper looked sound, and that research on the virus was notoriously hard to replicate. Her work suggested wild salmon may contain a natural variant of ISA — information that would have helped point to new avenues of research.
"It would have been nice to find out sooner," said Meyers, the Alaska fish pathologist. "I would have revisited that data in a heartbeat."
"It was certainly a surprise," said Bruce Stewart, with Northwest Indian Fisheries Commission, which is trying to help map out plans to test U.S. salmon for the virus. "I guess it's good that it came out now."
Cantwell agreed. "These troubling reports reinforce the need for a coordinated, multinational strategy to control the spread of this virus threat," she said in a statement. "American and Canadian scientists need to have access to all relevant research."
In fact, the three U.S. scientists agree that a fuller airing of Molly Kibenge's work may well have tempered initial fears this fall. Her research points away from the possibility that any ISA virus found in wild Pacific salmon likely started with farmed fish.
"Maybe we've got our own homegrown version of ISA right here," Meyers said.
And if Kibenge's work is verified, he said, the risk to wild fish may be far less than once thought.
Craig Welch: 206-464-2093
or cwelch@seattletimes.com.
On Twitter @craigawelch.
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2016890291_salmonvirus30m.html
Last edited by a moderator:
Klob
Well-Known Member
I suggest we forward this to as many people as possible. Most people have no idea what is really going on, and put blind faith in the system to look after our best interests. Rose colored glasses. Hopefully this will be the chink in the armour. As sad as this sounds, and I hope it doesn't happen, is if this virus is found in U.S. waters it may be our only hope of getting some action that will see results. Sad day for Canadians...................
Klob
Well-Known Member
Here is the contact info for the moron at DFO. Send him a note, I did.
http://www.meds-sdmm.dfo-mpo.gc.ca/sdb-bds/profile-profil.do?id=14&lang=eng
http://www.meds-sdmm.dfo-mpo.gc.ca/sdb-bds/profile-profil.do?id=14&lang=eng
cuttlefish
Well-Known Member
That guy should be toast. If he doesn't get the ax, then you know the fix is in.
Islandgirl
Well-Known Member
Klob
Well-Known Member
Here is the press release from the Ministers put in charge of this public resource:
Statement from the Federal Minister of Fisheries and Oceans Canada, Keith Ashfield and British Columbia Minister of Agriculture, Don McRae on new test results indicating that there are no confirmed cases of ISA in British Columbia Salmon November 9, 2011
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Ottawa, Ontario – Federal officials from the Canada Food Inspection Agency, along with officials from Fisheries and Oceans Canada and British Columbia’s Chief Veterinary Officer, provided a technical briefing yesterday on new test results indicating that there are no confirmed cases of Infectious Salmon Anaemia in British Columbia salmon.
The National Reference Laboratory has completed Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR) testing, a sensitive but preliminary test, that has shown no presence of ISA in the samples provided; this is the same process that was reportedly used in the original claims of positive test results by individual sources. Officials provided information on the extensive actions underway by the Government of Canada to investigate claims about the presence of the disease, the timeline of test results, and the proper, science-based requirements for testing. Officials also indicated that there will be investigations into the collection, handling, transportation and storage of samples by other sources that led to the original claims.
Minister Ashfield said: “It has been a difficult few weeks for the fishing industry in
British Columbia, and across the country, while waiting for these preliminary test results to come back. Because some have chosen to draw conclusions based on unconfirmed information, this has resulted in British Columbia’s fishing industry and Canada’s reputation being put at risk needlessly.
“Our government takes the health of our fisheries very seriously. We have taken appropriate and immediate action to follow up on the allegations of the presence of ISA in BC waters. We can now confirm that, preliminary analysis, using proper and internationally recognized procedures, has found that none of the samples has tested positive for ISA. In recent years, over 5000 fresh, properly stored and processed salmon have been tested by the BC government and Fisheries and Oceans Canada and there has never been a confirmed case of ISA in British Columbia salmon. An active, science-based sampling program continues for both farmed and wild salmon.”
Minister McRae noted: “It is vitally important that we base our policy decisions on sound science so as to preserve and protect BC’s reputation as a reliable supplier of high quality seafood to the world. This is particularly true for the dozens of coastal communities that rely on wild and farmed fisheries to feed their families and maintain their way of life. Reckless allegations based on incomplete science can be devastating to these communities and unfair to the families that make a living from the sea. Since Premier Clark is currently on a trade mission to China, I have personally asked her to reassure our valued trading partners that now as always BC can be relied upon as a supplier of safe, sustainable seafood.”
Minister Ashfield continued: “Canadian and international partners can be confident that current practices and procedures to protect our wild and farmed salmon industries from disease are in place and working. I will be communicating directly with concerned parties domestically and internationally over the coming weeks to reassure my counterparts, the fishing industry and consumers that BC salmon is healthy and safe."
I wonder if this would be enough to start a class action lawsuit for "derelection of duty"?
Statement from the Federal Minister of Fisheries and Oceans Canada, Keith Ashfield and British Columbia Minister of Agriculture, Don McRae on new test results indicating that there are no confirmed cases of ISA in British Columbia Salmon November 9, 2011
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Ottawa, Ontario – Federal officials from the Canada Food Inspection Agency, along with officials from Fisheries and Oceans Canada and British Columbia’s Chief Veterinary Officer, provided a technical briefing yesterday on new test results indicating that there are no confirmed cases of Infectious Salmon Anaemia in British Columbia salmon.
The National Reference Laboratory has completed Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR) testing, a sensitive but preliminary test, that has shown no presence of ISA in the samples provided; this is the same process that was reportedly used in the original claims of positive test results by individual sources. Officials provided information on the extensive actions underway by the Government of Canada to investigate claims about the presence of the disease, the timeline of test results, and the proper, science-based requirements for testing. Officials also indicated that there will be investigations into the collection, handling, transportation and storage of samples by other sources that led to the original claims.
Minister Ashfield said: “It has been a difficult few weeks for the fishing industry in
British Columbia, and across the country, while waiting for these preliminary test results to come back. Because some have chosen to draw conclusions based on unconfirmed information, this has resulted in British Columbia’s fishing industry and Canada’s reputation being put at risk needlessly.
“Our government takes the health of our fisheries very seriously. We have taken appropriate and immediate action to follow up on the allegations of the presence of ISA in BC waters. We can now confirm that, preliminary analysis, using proper and internationally recognized procedures, has found that none of the samples has tested positive for ISA. In recent years, over 5000 fresh, properly stored and processed salmon have been tested by the BC government and Fisheries and Oceans Canada and there has never been a confirmed case of ISA in British Columbia salmon. An active, science-based sampling program continues for both farmed and wild salmon.”
Minister McRae noted: “It is vitally important that we base our policy decisions on sound science so as to preserve and protect BC’s reputation as a reliable supplier of high quality seafood to the world. This is particularly true for the dozens of coastal communities that rely on wild and farmed fisheries to feed their families and maintain their way of life. Reckless allegations based on incomplete science can be devastating to these communities and unfair to the families that make a living from the sea. Since Premier Clark is currently on a trade mission to China, I have personally asked her to reassure our valued trading partners that now as always BC can be relied upon as a supplier of safe, sustainable seafood.”
Minister Ashfield continued: “Canadian and international partners can be confident that current practices and procedures to protect our wild and farmed salmon industries from disease are in place and working. I will be communicating directly with concerned parties domestically and internationally over the coming weeks to reassure my counterparts, the fishing industry and consumers that BC salmon is healthy and safe."
I wonder if this would be enough to start a class action lawsuit for "derelection of duty"?
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and so this story starts spreading:
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/nationnow/2011/12/infectious-salmon-anemia-virus-salmon-report.html
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/nationnow/2011/12/infectious-salmon-anemia-virus-salmon-report.html
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