Appellate Court Orders Chile to Release Data About Antibiotic Use in Salmon

A Chilean appellate court has ruled that the nation’s National Fisheries
and Agricultural Services must issue its data about antibiotics in Chilean
salmon, which revealed that 50 salmon firms jointly used 450.7 metric
tons of antibiotics in 2013. Chile’s Council for Transparency previously
refused to release the information to conservation organization Oceana,
arguing that the disaggregated data could be used against individual
companies. The court disagreed, reportedly ruling, “The reasons given by
the claimed party to refuse the requested information are not consistent
with what establish the applicable regulations.” The report comes months
after Costco Wholesale Corp. announced it would reduce the proportion
of its salmon stock from 90 percent Chilean salmon to 40 percent in
favor of salmon from Norway, whose fish-farming companies on average
use lower amounts of antibiotics. See Fish Information & Services,
September 11, 2015; Undercurrent News, September 21, 2015.

Issue 579