Canadian laboratory stripped of designation as an ISA reference facility
Odd Grydeland, FishfarmingXpert, June 25, 2013
Following a complaint about its positive findings of ISA virus in samples of salmon from British Columbia, the Prince Edward Island University laboratory of Fred Kibenge is no longer a designated lab for this disease agent.
The National Veterinary Institute in Oslo, Norway is now the only laboratory in the World that is designated as an ISA (Infectious salmon anaemia) reference facility, following the cancellation of the Atlantic Veterinary College’s previously held designation by the Paris- based World Organization for Animal Health (OIE) whose members voted unanimously to de-list the previously held designation. The otherwise highly respected Canadian laboratory came into the spotlight when one of its researchers claimed to have found evidence of the presence of the deadly ISA virus in samples of wild salmon provided by the B.C.- based anti-salmon farming activist Alexandra Morton. The claimed positive finding of the ISA virus was announced in a press conference held in October, 2011 at the Simon Fraser University (SFU) in Vancouver, where Morton had previously received an honourary doctorate for her fight against salmon farming- claiming she was attempting to protect wild salmon. According to the blog “farmfreshsalmon”, Fred Kibenge’s lab has in the past been criticized for producing an abnormal number of “false positive” test results.
Besides Morton, the October, 2011 press conference was also attended by SFU statistician Rick Routledge, and both of them eagerly announced that they had “found” a foreign fish virus that must have been brought in by the salmon farming industry. Any such finding is to be reported to government agencies at once, but this was not done in favour of the highly publicized press conference. The massive media coverage of the event and the findings of the Kibenge lab prompted a huge investigation and sampling program designed to test both wild and farmed salmon for the disease-causing virus. After thousands of samples, no evidence of the presence ISA virus has been found in fish from British Columbia. Morton has also lost her membership in the Association of Professional Biologists- her only justification for being referred to as a “biologist”.
In November 2011, Paul Kitching, B.C.’s chief veterinary officer told reporters that anyone who said the virus was present in the province, based on results from the PEI lab, was misrepresenting the science. “I can also say that as an editor-in-chief of an international veterinary journal, this would be considered poor science and not likely publishable” he said of the positive claims about ISA virus in B.C. salmon.
