Many private fisheries in Tianjin's Tanggu riverside district are using illegal chemicals to keep their farmed fish alive, a report said on Tuesday.
Commercial fish farms in Tanggu can contain up to 6,000 fish per acre. Fish reared in such crowded conditions are especially vulnerable to contagious diseases, so each farm receives seven or eight rounds of chemical treatments a year, Chen said.
These treatments include disinfectants, antibiotics, and drugs meant for plants. "We never eat our own fish," Chen said.
Tanggu has over 100 fish farms.
The news comes as live fish have been vanishing from the capital's supermarkets after word got out that the China Food and Drug Administration (CFDA) was planning to conduct random inspections on aquaculture products in 12 Chinese cities.
On Thursday, the CFDA responded to rumors about the disappearing fish by releasing a detailed plan of their upcoming inspections. Agency staff members said that dwindling fish stocks were due to supermarkets' worries over the inspections, and not large-scale contamination of live fish.
The planned CFDA inspections of live freshwater fish will include tests for traces of malachite green, an antimicrobial compound used in dyes. Livestock producers in China are banned from using malachite green on their animals. But fishery owners in Tanggu can easily get away with using it because their fish are rarely inspected.
Malachite green has been linked to cancer and DNA damage, according to the European Food Safety Authority. The overuse of antibiotics by fishery owners could also "present a great risk to humans" by encouraging the growth of drug-resistant bacteria, said Beijing Yujing Biotechnology Co. executive Jiang Huojin.
Many private fisheries in Tianjin's Tanggu riverside district are using illegal chemicals to keep their farmed fish alive, a report said on Tuesday.
