Customers choose from a variety of sushi made by Hybrid Sushi. (Photo Courtesy of Anne Cusack/Los Angeles Times/TNS)
A new study conducted by two ASU scientists has found that sea life, including shrimp, catfish, tilapia, swai and salmon, have antibiotics present in their bodies.
For some people who enjoy seafood, like Laura Maynard, this could be worrisome and be a problem in grocery stores.
“I think that shopping in supermarkets and knowing that the seafood could potentially have antibiotics in them is still daunting because they have chemicals in them,” she said.
Graduate student and doctoral candidate Hansa Done and ASU professor Rolf Halden, both researchers at ASU’s Biodesign Institute, have looked at the presence of antibiotics in sea life from a total of 11 countries.
Done said she believes these antibiotics in sea life do not pose a threat to people who consume them.
“Antibiotics used are not usually not regulated,” said Done. “Chemically seafood is safe. Antibiotics are used every day.”
Done and Halden’s research is the first to analyze previously unmonitored antibiotics. Their research is also the biggest observation conducted on the presence of antibiotics in seafood.
According to the study, the researchers found five different types of antibiotics in the seafood they studied.
They found oxytetracycline in wild shrimp, farmed tilapia, farmed salmon and farmed trout. The researchers also found sulfadimethoxinein in farmed shrimp and epioxytetracycline, ormetoprim and virginiamycin in farmed salmon, Done said.
The researchers found out that oxytetracycline was the most commonly used antibiotic in sea life.
This antibiotic, which they found in wild shrimp from Mexico, was the result of coastal pollution from sewage contamination or cross-contamination from handling and processing, Done said.
The researchers found the seafood they studied complied with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration's acceptable levels.
Halden said these antibiotics could have gotten into the sea life through improper water treatment or through the feed they receive in farming practices.
“Antibiotics can be present in the feed used in aquaculture,” said Halden. “Antibiotics are also present in municipal wastewater, which can get into surface waters in the absence of treatment and during sewer overflows.”
According to the Infectious Diseases Society of America, certain antibiotics account for 2 million people getting sick each year, with about 23,000 being killed by particular antibiotics.
Today the largest consumer of antibiotics are animals farmed for people to eat, which includes a lot of fish.
These antibiotics can harm animals that consume them, leading to alterations in their genes.
Antibiotics used in aquaculture are also present in human medicine and are used to treat bacterial infections and pneumonia.
Halden said he agrees with Done that the antibiotics are safe and are not a direct threat to people.
“At the levels we found, antibiotics do not pose a threat,” said Halden. “We did not assess microbiological risks, however, microbial pathogens can be present on seafood and when they are drug resistance, they are more dangerous. Contact of microorganisms with antibiotics promotes selection for drug resistance.”
Reach the reporter sggoldst@asu.edu
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