Before the Gulf of Mexico oil spill even happened, there were aguments for and against the eating of fish and seafood. On the one hand, we often hear about mercury toxicity in fish, but on the other hand we do know that fish provide Essential Fatty Acids (EFAs) which are essential for human health. Right now however, there are real health and ethical reasons to completely stop eating fish and other seafood. At the very least to cut down considerably.
Why? Well, because the oil leak in the Gulf of Mexico is a huge disaster that will have a long-term effect on the environment.
Even if the well is successfully closed soon there is still the issue of the remaining pollution and its impact on sea-living species (and inevitably on human health). We will have a significant clean-up job on our hands, and the pollution will remain for some time.
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Obviously the US government will not allow fishing in the water that is being directly affected by the oil spill, but that does not mean that we are ‘off the hook’ so to speak.
We have two serious issues to look at when we decide whether we are comfortable eating seafood: firstly what types of toxins could find their way into fish and shellfish, and secondly what would be the effects of overfishing in the non-oil-affected parts of the world to make up for the shortfall in the supply of fish?
In terms of toxins, we have a number of different substances polluting oil affected waters which have the ability to build up in fish and shellfish. Firstly we have crude oil and secondly we have the dispersant being used, currently Corexit 9500. Corexit 9500 is a highly poisonous substance, roughly four times more poisonous than oil. Crude oil contains both mercury and lead, which are highly poisonous heavy metals. Crude oil also includes benzene, toluene and polynuclear aromatic hydrocarbons (PAH), all of which have been recognised as causing cancer. Research is being conducted as to whether PAH can accumulate in fish, but at the very least it has been shown that it does accumulate in shellfish.
Fish will absorb pollutants from the water through their respiratory systems. These toxins will not be removed from the fish’s bodies as quickly as they are being received and so the poisonous substances such as mercury and lead tend to build up. In addition, some fish are predatory and so these larger fish will have both their own accumulated environmental poisons and those accumulated from the smaller fish. In this way, toxins increase up the food chain and it is the largest, most toxic fish that are typically fished for human consumption.
Mercury is already resulting in degenerative illnesses (typically targeting the brain) in humans and malformed foetuses in pregnant mothers. While mercury will cause degeneration of health in adults, it is significantly more concentrated when consumed by children or accumumated in a foetus and is suspected to be a leading cause of autism, chromosomal defects (such as Down’s syndrome) and other intellectual impairments.
Lead has been proven to be harmful even in the smallest doses tested on laboratory animals. No minimum quantity of lead has ever been accepted as safe. It affects the brain, the reproductive system, the nervous system and the kidneys, especially in children due to the higher level of concentration. Lead has been associated with low IQ, slow growth and hearing defects in children.
Corexit 9500, the chemical dispersant used by BP to try to break up the oil from the surface of the water is known to be both more toxic and also less effective than other chemical disbursants, requiring a heavier application. Corexit 9500 was reputedly banned in Britain over a decade ago due to its highly toxic affects on both the environment and people; in this case we have Corexit 9500 being used over a large volume of water.
The use of this chemical in such quantities and at such oceanic depths is unknown in human history, and the exact contents of the mixture are a trade secret. Expected health effects are respiratory, nervous system, liver, kidney and blood disorders, again grossly affecting children due to their smaller size. At this time over 600,000 gallons of Corexit 9500 have been utilised in an attempt to clean up the oil spill. To make things even worse, the toxicity of Corexit 9500 in a solution of water increases with water temperature, and oil in the water is resulting in higher water temperatures.
Clearly the sea-creatures living in and around the Gulf of Mexico are going to be off the menu for some time. The government won’t willingly allow people to eat contaminated seafood right?
Unfortunately however, the Gulf Coast is responsible for about 50% of the total US harvest in its peak season. Fishing in the Gulf of Mexico is estimated to be worth $2.4 billion per year. Not only is fishing an essential part of USA’s GDP, but people are still eating fish and so the demand causes pressure on other fishing localities to increase the supply.
There is also no guarantee that any fish has not come from the Gulf of Mexico and accumulated many of the poisons already. Many fish, especially deep-sea dwelling fish, will travel up to 200 miles for feeding and reproduction. They could have become caught in passages of oil and chemical disbursant while migrating through the area.
In addition to the issue of caught fish containing human-toxic substances, there is also the significant issue of overfishing to contend with. Overfishing occurs when the commercial fishing operation in an area catches the fish faster than the fish can replenish their population. This is happening globally already and will only be made worse if the same number of fish are required from fewer and less-dense fishing areas. According to overfishing.org, almost 80% of the world’s fisheries are fully to over-exploited, depleted or in a state of collapse, and over 90% of the stocks of large predatory fish stocks are already gone. Who can tell what the full impact will be when the ocean ecology is already under stress, and we increase the stress by overfishing from the surrounding areas.
Overfishing has a large effect on the ocean ecology as a whole. As fewer fish are caught in commercial fishing nets, ocean mammals and birds (such as dolphins, whales and pelicans) either have a hard time finding food, or are caught in nets themselves. Once caught in fishing nets, these animals and birds are usually killed and discarded.
So while those of us who are not yet affected by the disaster in the USA can sit back and watch everything unfold, it will be our fish stock that will be systematically removed from the oceans to make up for the shortfall in US fishing.
In my opinion, the only healthy and ethical thing to do about the seafood issue is to completely stop eating fish and their byproducts. We need to look into getting our EFAs from other sources such as flaxseeds, spirulina, chlorella and phytoplankton. Fortunately fish do not create their own EFAs, but instead break down the EFAs in the microalgae food that they consume. Humans are able to do the same, and so we can replace fish in the diet with supplemental sources of EFA. I have previously used fish oil for DHA supplementation, but I am going to try out some vegan alternatives.
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