Food and Drug Administration (FDA) banned the importation of salmon from a major producer in Chile on Wednesday, following the discovery of the banned carcinogenic chemical known as crystal violet in a shipment of the fish. Marine Harvest, the Norwegian company who farms the contaminated salmon in Chile, launched an official investigation into the source of the crystal violet (also called gentian violet). Use of the chemical, which is used as an antifungal, in food preparation and animal feed is banned in both Chile and the U.S. due to its carcinogenic effects.
“[Marine Harvest] does not use crystal violet, and our own analysis and that of official Chilean bodies did not detect it in the salmon,” Gianfranco Nattero, director of sales and marketing for Marine Harvest in the Americas, told fish farming and aquaculture website IntraFish.
The company says it will be closely examining every aspect of fish production — from fish feed, to the processing and the packaging of the fish — to determine the source of the chemical.
Despite Marine Harvest’s denial of intentional use of the chemical, the director of environmental organization Ecocéanos, Juan Carlos Cardénas, sees these revelations as “no surprise,” and accuses Marine Harvest of belonging to a “culture of violation.”
