Editor’s Note: How many among us are even aware we are eating farmed fish, rather than wild caught, when we buy fillets at the supermarket? How many among us are aware of the issues related the industrialized, overcrowded conditions that lead to artificial conditions for our ocean and river-dwelling live fish and aquatic food stocks including, but not limited to, sex changes and hormone therapy in the fish; unnatural food sources – including GMO corn, soy and feces; genetic engineering for size and meat content; and mass vaccination to stave off the diseases inevitably associated with unnatural conditions?
Even careful tracing of the source of your “fresh catch” can leave it difficult to know what all is going on. Now, this fascinating and unsettling report shows how Norwegian scientists are sounding the alarm on the health effects their farmed fish have been enduring, in part due to the unintended consequences of vaccinations. According to this report by the Norwegian School of Veterinary Science, everything from organ damage, to discoloration, to anorexia and stunted growth is affecting an “unacceptable” number of farmed fish – but the public knows next to nothing about it, because nearly all the problems with fish vaccinations have been settled by industry fish farmers and vaccine manufactures. What is really going on? And are our families eating it?
Be forewarned, please, that this will not be very pleasant reading, especially if readers eat farm-raised fish and, in particular, salmon, a highly-farm-raised fish. “Wild-caught” need not apply.
During my years of research, I’ve come across all sorts of information, studies, and papers relating to animal vaccines, but this one sort of “takes the cake,” in my opinion. Farmed fish are vaccinated because, according to the Norwegian School of Veterinary Science (NSVS),
Modern fish farming is highly industrialized and relies heavily upon effective vaccines to minimize losses caused by infectious diseases.  Want to know how to vaccinate a fish?
Please see slide 4 of the 28-slide presentation, “Side-effects of vaccination: an example of the conflict between guidelines and real life.”
It looks like a PowerPoint presentation made by Trygve T. Poppe and Gunvor Knudsen of the NSVS.
However, before I go any further about fish vaccinations, readers ought to know that there’s a 404-page book detailing the science of fish vaccinations titled—what else but—“Fish Vaccination,” May 2014 published by John Wiley & Sons, Inc. The book obviously is a guide to sustainable bio-production, disease prevention to reduce losses by employing the use of antimicrobials and vaccinations, which are considered effective in stimulating the immune system of fish.
Did anyone ask the fish? That may sound like an unlikely and stupid question, but in the NSVS PowerPoint presentation, slide 10 states,
Over the years fish farmers in Norway (and strangly [sic] enough to a very limited extent in other countries) have experienced severe and unacceptable side-effects in vaccinated fish. [Hmmm! I could have told them to expect that; it’s a no brainer!] [CJF emphasis added] There’s a photograph of a fish carcass with some sort of black “diseased-like” flesh inside the abdominal cavity. Check it out for yourself here (No. 12) .
The two slides following No. 12 show other fish health problems such as generalized granulomatous peritonitis and abdominal lesions affecting internal organs that often have heavy melanization, meaning causing tissue to turn dark or black.
Something I find rather interesting, and bordering on empathetic, is the remark on slide 15 that vaccines save fish lives [sounds familiar] from acute death from bacterial infections, but some fish are sentenced to “life-long suffering due to severe pathological lesions in internal organs.” If that happens to fish from vaccines, what, if anything, happens to human vaccinees’ organs?
But, the real “kicker” is the remark on another slide about their having no consensus about pain perception in fish! Interestingly, though, there is a caveat that’s added, “…but anorexia and retarded growth are good indicators.” Anorexia in fish! Retarded growth too! Hmmm. Can autism occur in fish?
A fish liver granuloma [nodular inflammation in tissue] with multinucleated giant cell is featured on slide 16.
Slide 18 features the inside cavity of a fish that has to be seen – really – to believe, and people eat vaccinated farmed fish! Or, hopefully, diseased fish never make it to market. But, what if their diseased organs are removed—are those fish marketed? I wonder, “What will happen with vaccinated GMO fish?”
Candidly, the PP presentation reports that the magnitude and significance of fish disease cases are unknown and “certainly underreported” [probably just like human vaccine damage] “as most cases have been closed in agreement between the fish farmers and the vaccine manufacturer. This is confirmed by The Norwegian Medicines Agency (NMA).” Since the fish obviously don’t have legal rights, this sounds familiar and probably similar to what apparently goes on at the U.S. Vaccine Court, in my opinion.
Slide 20 has a chart of “Reported side-effects from fish veterinarians to Norwegian Medicines Agency, 1996 to 2004.” Not knowing how to interpret that chart correctly, I wouldn’t want to take a guess since I was not in the audience to hear the presenters’ interpretation. However, following that on the very next chart, we read two rather disconcerting statements, I think:
- Is this an example of testing where results obtained in experiments are far from what happens in real life? [Again, human vaccine tests are fudged; we know that from some whistleblowers  and a federal court case .]
- Possible problems are not addressed well enough prior to release of the products [vaccines]
Whereas, on another slide (22) this most pointed of questions appears:
How can this happen as long as these vaccines are approved by NMA following their testing protocols (since 2001)? [That seems like vaccine adverse event history just repeating itself when human vaccines are used, especially in the USA as the VAERS reports indicate.] [CJF emphasis added] Apparently, a similar question can – and should be – asked regarding human vaccines and the testing/approval process.
At one point, slide 25, this blunt and self-searching question is asked about vaccines for fish:
Should we INCREASE the number of experimental fish for vaccine testing prior to release in order to reduce the number of side-effects? (or how should we REFINE present testing?) It would seem that the NSVS scientists have more concern about fish than the U.S. FDA has about vaccines harming children. With all the complaints about the HPV vaccines causing harms, even deaths, to teenage girls, the FDA apparently is not asking any questions!
Now, we get down to what, for me, was the “nitty-gritty” of the fish’s health issues:
- They were concerned about animal welfare and the “quality of life” for the fish prior to slaughter.
- That the side-effects from vaccines in fish were still occurring after 12 years of extensive use of vaccines, and people were eating vaccinated fish!
- They want to find ways to refine present testing to reduce side-effects! So, they realize that side effects still go on after 12 years, and continue to use vaccines. Duh!
I think I know how they can reduce all those vaccine side effects. Eliminate the vaccines; take the fish out of farms, tanks, and pens and let fish be fish! What’s happening with “farmed” fish confirms what happens when corporate-food-production ‘innovates’ on the way in which Nature intends for food production: free roaming; not-confined in close quarters thereby promoting infectious diseases from exposure to filth; and not being subjected to chemical intervention from feed or vaccines.
Vaccines for Other Animals
Other corporate-food-producers, e.g., egg production and chickens, are notorious for cramped quarters, even stacked cages for egg-laying hens, plus supplemented GMO feed ‘enhanced’ with antibiotics and other chemicals for faster growth, or for earlier harvesting than would be normal naturally. Merck & Company produces vaccines for chickens, turkeys, and ducks. (Source)
Feed lots for cattle are another example of stress on animals grown for food. Stress in any form enables or promotes animals from all genres to produce stress-related hormones. Humans produce certain hormones like cortisol and epinephrine. Furthermore, cortisol is also produced by cattle!  Some researchers contend that animals in fear, or under stress, produce excess adrenalin, cortisol-like excretions and steroid-like hormones, which are secreted into their tissues and have been found in their meat served to research lab animals. Here’s the “Beef cattle herd health vaccination schedule.”
In the above information about fish vaccine adverse effects, it is interesting to learn that two veterinary scientists seem concerned about “quality of life” for fish prior to slaughter.
Animal vaccines for pets have been responsible for tumor growths at injection sites, especially in cats. [3, 4] That’s why veterinarians recommend vaccinating on cats’ limbs, so the limbs can be amputated, if need be.
Vaccines are BIG business for both humans and animals, too. Here are just a few animal vaccination schedules:
The Chicken Vet – Vaccination
Cattle Vaccines and Their Use
Vaccination Schedule for Goats and Sheep
Vaccination Schedule for Pigs
Caring for Rabbits, Guinea Pigs and Ferrets
Vaccinations for Adult Horses
Overview of Vaccination for Exotic Mammals
Preventive Medicine for Zoo Animals
So, what’s in your meat or fish?
Vaccines for fish in aquaculture
Vaccine Associated Fibrosarcoma
Catherine retired from researching and writing, but felt compelled to write this article.
Catherine J Frompovich (website) is a retired natural nutritionist who earned advanced degrees in Nutrition and Holistic Health Sciences, Certification in Orthomolecular Theory and Practice plus Paralegal Studies. Her work has been published in national and airline magazines since the early 1980s. Catherine authored numerous books on health issues along with co-authoring papers and monographs with physicians, nurses, and holistic healthcare professionals. She has been a consumer healthcare researcher 35 years and counting.
Catherine’s latest book, published October 4, 2013, is Vaccination Voodoo, What YOU Don’t Know About Vaccines, available on Amazon.com.
Her 2012 book A Cancer Answer, Holistic BREAST Cancer Management, A Guide to Effective & Non-Toxic Treatments, is available on Amazon.com and as a Kindle eBook.
Two of Catherine’s more recent books on Amazon.com are Our Chemical Lives And The Hijacking Of Our DNA, A Probe Into What’s Probably Making Us Sick (2009) and Lord, How Can I Make It Through Grieving My Loss, An Inspirational Guide Through the Grieving Process (2008)