Stop Eating Fish Immediately! (the Effects Of The Gulf Of Mexico Oil Spill)

If you care about your health and care about the planet then you should stop eating fish and seafood right now. There are very real health and ethical reasons to do so.

Why? Well, because we have a massive oil leak in the Gulf of Mexico.

I won't pretend to know much about how to stop the leak (I'm sure there are already ample armchair experts). However, even once it is stopped we will still have a significant clean-up job on our hands, and the pollution will remain for some time.

Do not ignore the issues because the US government has disallowed fishing in the water that is being directly affected by the oil spill. We are not 'off the hook' so to speak. What happens under the surface of the water is not obvious to the eye of a casual observer.

There are two serious issues to consider when you decide whether you are comfortable eating seafood. Firstly what types of toxins could find their way onto your plate? Secondly, are you willing to accept the ecological disaster waiting to happen in the form of overfishing the remaining good fishing locations?

Due to the oil spill there are a number of different substances polluting the Gulf of Mexico area and surrounding waters. Firstly we have crude oil and secondly we have the dispersant being used, currently Corexit 9500. Constituents of crude oil include both mercury and lead which are two heavy metals that are highly poisonous to humans. Crude oil also includes benzene, toluene and polynuclear aromatic hydrocarbons (PAH), all of which cause cancer. Scientists do claim that PAH does not accumulate in fish, but concede that it does accumulate in shellfish. The Corexit 9500 dispersant is a highly toxic chemical, roughly four times more poisonous than oil.

Heavy metals (such as mercury and lead) dispersed in water accumulates in the bodies of fish as the water is filtered through the fish's respiratory system. Additionally predatory fish tend to eat other fish, resulting in a greater heavy metal load. By the time a larger fish, prized by humans as a tasty morsel, is caught and sold as human food the heavy metals have been recycled and accumulated many times over.

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 affects the nervous system, brain, kidneys and reproductive system. In children it has been associated with low IQ, slow growth and hearing defects. In laboratory tests on animals, no minimum quantity of lead has been considered a safe dose; even the smallest quantities have had a harmful effect.

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 exact contents of Corexit 9500 are a trade secret, but it is already known to be very poisonous, affecting children most of all due to their smaller size. Its use in such quantities and at such oceanic depths has never before been tested, however it is known that Corexit 9500 increases in toxicity as it heats up, and that oil tends to increase the temperature of water. At this time over 600,000 gallons of Corexit 9500 have been utilised in an attempt to clean up the oil spill. Expected health effects are respiratory, nervous system, liver, kidney and blood disorders.

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 the people to eat contaminated fish 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.

Do not also forget that some fish are highly migratory, particularly deep ocean fish, sometimes travelling up to 200 miles for feeding and reproduction. It is not possible to identify whether any individual fish has ever come into contact with the oil or the disbursant that is choking the Gulf of Mexico 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 and sea animals that will be increasingly removed from the oceans to make up for the shortfall in US fishing.

In my opinion, the only way we can feel confident that the pollution will not reach our own bodies via the consumption of fish is to no longer consume fish. Likewise, by saying no to eating fish, we can take an active stance against the overfishing of the waters in our backyards. 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. There are already a number of supplements being manufactored for vegans who want to increase the number of EFAs in their diet; your local health food shop should have them available. Personality I only consume fish as the occasional fish oil supplement, but I have already switched over to a marine phytoplankton supplement.