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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
May 18, 2011
Contact: Karen Marvin (650) 492-1763
kmarvin@stanford.edu
Center for Ocean Solutions/Stanford University
Stanford, Calif. – May 18, 2011 – The prestigious Benchley Award for Excellence in Science has been given to
Stephen Palumbi, Ph.D., for his analysis of seafood in a Japanese fish market
that revealed high levels of PCBs and heavy metals in dolphin meat being sold
as ‘safe’ whale meat. The level of
heavy metals was up to 200 times the toxic load allowed by law, and led to a
furor by Japanese authorities when Palumbi informed them of his discovery. Laws
were quickly passed that required accurate labeling of seafood.
“To start this genetic analysis, we set up a molecular biology lab in a hotel room in Tokyo,” Palumbi explained. “I don’t know if I was more surprised by the high levels of metals and PCBs or by finding toxic dolphin meat being sold as whale meat. Either way, it helped make the case for not eating whale meat.” This discovery, along with work by collaborators Scott Baker and Frank Cipriano, also inspired the Academy Award-winning movie, The Cove.
The Benchley Awards will be given
at a ceremony on May 21 in Washington, D.C. as part of the Blue Vision Summit,
a conference that brings together 500 key leaders and activists in marine
conservation, ocean dependent businesses, aquariums, coastal tribes and
others. Previous Benchley Award
winners include NOAA Administrator Dr. Jane Lubchenco, U.S. Representative Sam
Farr, Director Louie Psihoyos (The Cove)
and deep ocean explorer Don Walsh.
PCBs, or polychlorinated biphenyls, are classified as persistent organic pollutants and were banned in the United States in 1979. Like heavy metals, their presence in animals and humans still poses a threat to health. PCBs are particularly harmful because the body does not expel them except through mother’s milk, often leading to illness or death of both human and animal young. “We must protect the ocean’s food pyramid that connects to the human food pyramid,” Palumbi observed. “Only by having healthy oceans can we remain healthy.”
Palumbi is a member of the
management committee at the Center for Ocean Solutions, Director of Stanford
University’s Hopkins Marine Station, Pew Fellow in Marine Conservation and
Senior Fellow at the Woods Institute for the Environment at Stanford. The nonpartisan Center for Ocean
Solutions crafts sustainable solutions to the challenges facing the world’s
oceans. The Benchley Awards are
named for Peter Benchley, author of Jaws who spent more than 40 years educating the public about the importance of
protecting sharks and ocean ecosystems.
Center for Ocean Solutions, http://www.centerforoceansolutions.org
Benchley Awards, http://www.bluefront.org/wordpress/?p=1625
Stephen Palumbi’s TED talk on human
health and the oceans can be seen at http://www.ted.com/talks/stephen_palumbi_following_the_mercury_trail.html
The article on whale and dolphin contamination:
Simmonds, M. P. , Haraguchi, K. , Endo, T. ,
Cipriano, F. , Palumbi, S. R. and Troisi, G. M. 2002. Human health significance of organochlorine and mercury
contaminants in Japanese whale meat . Journal of Toxicology and
Environmental Health, Part A, 65(17): 1211-1235.
To link to this Article: DOI: 10.1080/152873902760125714
URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/152873902760125714
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