They ban the consumption of shad because it is contaminated with record levels of pesticides

‘Record levels’ contamination with pesticides in the fish salty riverin the province of Santa FeThey represent a danger to public health. The warning comes after a study by researchers from the National University of the Coast (UNL) in conjunction with the Conicet. Authorities have recommended people not to eat fish from the aforementioned river.

He Santa Fe Nature Protection Center (Cepronat) warned that “tarpons from the lower Salado River are not suitable for consumption due to very high levels of pesticides in their bodies” and that they represent a “danger to public health”.

“The team led by the Conicet researcher and professor of ecotoxicology at the UNL, Raphael Lajmanovitch, detected in all samples obtained record levels of glyphosate, glufosinate ammonium and other pesticides and their metabolites,” the statement from the entity reads. According to the report, the world’s highest concentrations of nine biocides (insecticides, herbicides and fungicides) widely used in transgenic crops, mainly soybeans, corn and cotton, have been recorded.

In this context, the Cepronat specified that “These agrotoxins constitute sublethal levels of contamination in tarpon, but due to the phenomenon of bioaccumulation, they become a danger to public health and the availability of food for the population.”

“The sheer number of poisons that have been used in agriculture for many years, and which do not magically disappear, tells us that wherever we look for them, we will find them,” he warned. “Now in the tarpon as well as in our vegetables and fruits, in the cotton, in the Paraná River and the waterways or wetlands, in the air,” he added.

In this regard, the entity called for “urgent measures” with “with the aim of safeguarding the health of the population in an integral way”. “We know that it is difficult to make certain decisions, but the authorities must take into account that the lives of all citizens are in danger,” they warned.

“Today, the Cepronat delivered notes of interpellation to the Ministries of Health, Production, Environment and the Food Security Agency of Santa Fe (ASSAL)” in which it requested “information on the measures to be taken or to be taken, given the seriousness of the situation described. We await an urgent decision from the authorities”, they concluded.

The work of Conicet and UNL entitled “Pesticide residue cocktails in Prochilodus lineatus fish from the Río Salado (South America): first record of high concentrations of polar herbicides”, demonstrated that tarpon populations, in a river basin surrounded by the genetically modified crops, incorporated “multiple pesticide residues into their tissues”.

In this regard, the researchers evaluated “the presence of pesticides in sediment and tarpon tissue samples during a summer period at different sites in the lower part of the Salado River basin”.

in dialogue with telam, Lajmanovich warned that the contamination indices “are extremely high and there are no records of this magnitude in the scientific literature, which is why the work indicates that these are the highest values. recorded in the world”. This has been approved by a scientific committee of one of the world’s most prestigious environmental pollution magazines”.

The Conicet researcher clarified that Argentina “is the third country in the world that uses the most glyphosate”, a number that reaches “five provinces”. “It is heavily concentrated in Santa Fe, Córdoba, Entre Ríos, Buenos Aires and Salta. We use a similar proportion in Brazil,” added the specialist.

The work was carried out by scientists Rafael Lajmanovich, María Repetti, Ana Cuzziol Boccioni, Melina Michlig, Luisina Demonte, Andrés Attademo and Paola Peltzer, belonging to the Ecotoxicology Laboratory of the Faculty of Biochemistry and Biological Sciences of the UNL, at Conicet and at the Chemical Residues and Contaminants Research and Analysis Program of the Faculty of Chemical Engineering of the same study house.

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