Morton issues correction to previous FishfarmingXpert (FFX) article
Opinion
Despite our wide-ranging differences about the appropriateness of salmon farming in British Columbian and other waters, I used to consider Alexandra Morton a friend of sorts, but that was only until she started to drape herself in a large, Norwegian flag desecrated with the numerous paintings of sea lice plastered all over it. She would parade this flag through the streets of Vancouver Island towns, having no respect for what this flag means to people like war veterans and others who survived the occupation by foreign military during the Second World War.
In respect of professional journalism, I have adjusted the previously published FFX article, based on Ms. Morton’s statements that;
- “My honourary doctorate from the Simon Fraser University was not for my "fight against salmon farming," it was for the research I published on the impact of farm salmon-origin sea lice on wild juvenile salmon”.
- "The ISA virus test results that Dr. Routledge and myself presented at a press conference in 2011, were most definitely reported first to the CFIA”.
- “I did not lose my membership in the Association of Professional Biologists, I resigned from the Association, because in my view it was being misused by the people who would like to see my work on European viruses silenced”.
FFX apologizes for any errors of reporting in the previous article.
However, the gist of the June 25 FFX article remains the same, with the Prince Edward Island Atlantic Veterinary College’s laboratory of Dr. Fred Kibenge being the facility that claimed to have found the Infectious Salmon Anemia (ISA) virus in samples of wild salmon from British Columbia provided by Ms. Morton, and this lab has now lost its status as only one of two facilities in the world to be designated as an approved ISA reference laboratory. According to the governing agency for these facilities, the World Organization of Animal Health OIE), there is no scientific justification for anyone making statements that would suggest the ISA virus has been found in fish from B.C.
Recent statements by another anti-salmon Canadian farming activist- film-maker Twyla Roscovich- also erroneously suggest that the decertification of the Fred Kibenge lab as an ISA reference facility was done by the Canadian Food Inspection Agency, while the action was taken following an inspection by the OIE.
