U.S. says fish is safe here, but tests go on

Canadian and U.S. officials agreed Wednesday that no consumers are at risk from salmon or other fish that were fed melamine-spiked feed, even as the chemical was traced to 57 fish-rearing operations from Yukon to Ontario.

The feed — imported from China — contains the same chemical that triggered a massive pet-food recall, and underscores how unexpected contaminants can turn up in an increasingly international food supply.

Though the fish feed was being voluntarily recalled by its major distributor, Skretting Canada, there have been no reports of unusual mortality among the millions of young salmon or other fish that ate the rations containing the low levels of melamine.

After considering safety reviews, Canadian officials Wednesday said they had no plans to quarantine — or test — any of the affected fish before they eventually head to market.

"Based on the risk assessments, that is not our intent," said Paul Mayers, an official with the Canadian Food Inspection Agency.

Those U.S. and Canadian reviews indicated that the melamine — unlike other chemicals such as mercury — does not accumulate in the body but is rapidly excreted. Therefore, it is not expected to end up in significant amounts in fish flesh that people would eat.

"We do not believe this poses any significant human-health threat," said David Acheson, a Food and Drug Administration (FDA) commissioner. But he said the agency would be sampling fish that received the Skretting feed to determine how much melamine they contain.

Those fish include young salmon, trout and other species in six hatcheries in Washington and seven in Oregon. All of those hatcheries release fish into Northwest waterways for sport and sometimes for commercial or tribal fishing.

John Kerwin, hatchery division manager for the Washington State Department of Fish and Wildlife, said at least 3.2 million small fish ate the melamine-spiked starter feed. It is typically fed only for a few weeks before the fish are switched to another formula.

State officials noted that none of the fish appeared to have any ill effects. There were no plans to destroy any of the fish.

Shoppers unconcerned

In Seattle, grocery shoppers interviewed Wednesday were mostly weren't alarmed by the latest melamine news.

Some said they already try to avoid farmed salmon for other reasons.

Some shoppers who have pets said they knew of melamine only because of the pet-food recall and the time they spent going over lists of recalled pet food.

At a QFC store in the Queen Anne neighborhood, 44-year-old Eric Oberg paid $13 a pound for wild sockeye.

"My wife and I try to buy wild-caught, wild sockeye," he said. But that's because they believe it's more nutritious.

This latest news is but the latest in a widening circle of discoveries about contaminated Chinese food imports.

Melamine, a chemical normally used industrially, is also used to inflate the protein value of food.

Since March the FDA has confirmed 16 pet deaths and has received more than 17,000 complaints of pet illness that might be associated with tainted pet foods.

Some dead pets had melamine in their kidneys, but the FDA is trying to figure out why the melamine was so lethal. Researchers are investigating whether the chemical combined with another contaminant, cyanuric acid, to create crystals that have been found in the urine and tissue of dead pets.

Some swine and poultry feed has been contaminated, leading to the quarantine of some pigs and chickens, though federal officials said they don't think the animals pose a health threat to humans. The U.S. Agriculture Department (USDA) is conducting tests and has not decided whether to kill the animals.

Now they can add fish feed to the list of imports to analyze.

More testing ahead

Skretting spokesman Chris Beattie said Wednesday the feed was intended for use at hatcheries as an initial food source for newly hatched fish.

The company has traced the contamination to shipments of Chinese wheat gluten that was mixed with wheat flour containing melamine. But he stressed there is no indication of cyanuric acid.

Skretting officials will be trying to determine whether other batches of its feed were contaminated, Beattie said.

"We are certainly going to be looking at more testing," he said. "This is a totally new issue."

Kerwin, the state hatchery official, wondered whether melamine could have been in hatchery feed for a long time before the pet-food scare made people look for it. He said the state may ask Skretting to expand testing to include samples from feed shipped as long as three years ago.

At the same time, officials and others were cautioning that a much larger seafood-safety concern remains: other contaminants including mercury, which may alter brain development in children, and polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), industrial chemicals linked to cancer. The pollutants have shown up in farmed fish as well as commercially and recreationally caught fish in the state.

Mercury contamination has prompted recommendations that pregnant women and young children limit consumption of halibut and red snapper to once a week, and avoid eating white tuna steaks completely.

PCB levels in some pen-reared salmon have triggered an industry effort to find cleaner sources of feed. And earlier this year, contaminant levels found in wild Puget Sound chinook salmon triggered a state recommendation that pregnant women and children should limit consumption to once a week.

State officials and others emphasize that people should eat fish because it's generally healthy if they follow guidelines to minimize risk.

Hal Bernton: 206-464-2581 or hbernton@seattletimes.com

Seattle Times staff reporter Susan Kelleher and researcher David Turim contributed to this report.