Talk:Goherr: Project
GOHERR website
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GOHERR recommendations discussion
Recommendation about health
| Fact discussion: Dioxin is a concern (disc9167) |
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| Opening statement: Dioxin is still a concern. Keep the current recommendations (consumption limits for young women), monitoring programs, and concentration limits in food.
Closing statement: Resolution not yet found. (A closing statement, when resolved, should be updated to the main page.) |
| Argumentation:
arg5270: . BONUS GOHERR health benefit-risk assessment (WP5) showed that Baltic fish improves public health and even in the target group (fertile women planning to have children), the benefits and risks are close to each other. (type: truth; paradigms: science: relevant attack) arg5271: . BONUS GOHERR survey (WP5) showed that recommendations to limit Baltic herring and salmon use are ineffective on average and even counterproductive with many people. (type: truth; paradigms: science: relevant attack) |
| Fact discussion: Dioxin is a minor concern (disc9168) |
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| Opening statement: Dioxin is a minor concern. Stop health-based dioxin restrictions, but promote eating small fish with less dioxin, just to be on the safe side.
Closing statement: Resolution not yet found. (A closing statement, when resolved, should be updated to the main page.) |
| Argumentation:
arg5272: . I think the statement is too controversial for SLU. Andreas (type: relevance; paradigms: science: relevant attack) arg5273: . I cannot support this very general recommendation as you in your analyses do find health risks to children and fetuses, incl serious ones like IQ. The health benefits comes not from Baltic fish, but from any source of omega3, so there is no need to promote eating dioxin-containing fish if there is any risk at all to humans. If you want to have a recommendation on removing the ban for men > 45yr where you saw the health benefits, and for women older than fertile age, that’s fine with me. Anna (type: ; paradigms: science: relevant attack)
2 food security argument encourages us to eat Baltic herring, so you have to balance between two harms anyway. We didn't quantify the value of food security so this is done only qualitatively. Jouni Tuomisto (type: ; paradigms: science: relevant attack) arg0903: . I think the thing to keep is that we should promote is better use of small-bodied fish for human consumption, and incorporate that in the first suggested recommendation above (i.e. to keep current recommendations) Magnus (type: ; paradigms: science: relevant comment) arg5275: . If we believe that dioxin risk is below concern, why do we need extra measures? This gives conflicting messages and deteriorates the main message that people can stop worrying about dioxin in their food. (type: ; paradigms: science: relevant attack)
arg9018: . Promoting small fish has other reasons, too. Different foods can be made from small fish, and that potential is largely unused (except maybe in Estonia). (type: ; paradigms: science: relevant defense) arg9019: . The policy analysis model of GOHERR (WP6) demonstrated that all the consumer groups benefit from eating smaller herring (also salmon) as the dioxin concentrations are lower in smaller fish. (type: ; paradigms: science: relevant defense)
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| Fact discussion: Dioxin is not a concern (disc9169) |
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| Opening statement: Dioxin risk has decreased to level below concern. Stop health-based dioxin restrictions.
Closing statement: Resolution not yet found. (A closing statement, when resolved, should be updated to the main page.) |
| Argumentation:
arg5272: . I think the statement is too controversial for SLU. Andreas (type: relevance; paradigms: science: relevant attack) arg5277: . Again: I suggest we do not give this recommendation, but WP5 can tell about the results. Päivi Haapasaari (type: ; paradigms: science: relevant attack) arg5270: . BONUS GOHERR health benefit-risk assessment (WP5) showed that Baltic fish improves public health and even in the target group (fertile women planning to have children), the benefits and risks are close to each other. (type: truth; paradigms: science: relevant defense) arg9020: . We must remember that it is not only about individual choices. Rather, the large retail companies make significant decisions on behalf of consumers. For example, if Prisma in Finland decides to remove a product from their selection, one million Finns will stop using that product. Therefore, the health-based recommendations should be clear and also guide decisions of retail companies. (type: ; paradigms: science: relevant defense) arg9021: . We can recommend this because there is no zero-risk situation. If people eat less fish, some people will actually die. So, I guess we agree that in general, we should recommend more fish consumption, even Baltic species that contain some pollutants. (type: ; paradigms: science: relevant defense)
arg9022: . For more than 20 years in Finland, there has been discussion about dangerous dioxins in Baltic herring. At the same time, the Baltic herring consumption has decreased by 90 %. Of course this is not only due to the dioxin warnings, but it has probably had a significant role. So, we have lost a lot of people due to cardiovascular diseases that could have been avoided by more fish eating. We have gone too far with our restrictive recommendations. (type: ; paradigms: science: relevant defense) arg5279: . You say “dioxin warnings, but it has probably had a significant role” - do we have any results in any GOHERR analyses that shows that this is the case? If not, we cannot recommend abandoning dioxin ban, because we do not know how this will affect consumption. Anna (type: ; paradigms: science: relevant attack) arg5280: . We don’t have data about historical impacts of recommendations. But we do have data about what people say they would do if recommendations are changed. And that is one part of the model and thus recommendations. (type: ; paradigms: science: relevant attack) arg9023: . The tooth and IQ problems in children are mild, so we are not putting any identifiable people in great risk. This is in compliance with the "first, do no harm" principle by Hippocrates. Also, the total disease burden in children is not large and it is not that different from the benefits to their families, so there is a fairly good balance also on the subpopulation level. (One additional premise that is not in the model is that if we hope that adults eat fish in the future, they need to learn that when they are children. Therefore, we should not scare young families with horrors of fish eating, because although the risks are not zero, they are not large.) (type: ; paradigms: science: relevant defense) arg9024: . Recommendation related to fertile women (or even more specifically: fertile women that are planning to get children at some point) is fine. But due to the reasons described above, I think that that is only the second-best recommendation we can make. The best recommendation is that we could just stop worrying about the minor dioxin risk and focus on promoting the consumption of fish, which is healthy for public health, and in the case of Baltic herring also sustainable (unlike many ocean species). Dioxins were the problem of 1980's, but now they are largely in control. In 2010's, we should focus on sustainability, climate change, and food security. Those are the real threats today and the near future (type: ; paradigms: science: relevant defense)
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Recommendation about dioxin management
Possible management strategies (several strategies may be applied together)
| Fact discussion: Fishery management (disc9170) |
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| Opening statement: Manage the dioxin problem at the fisheries level.
Closing statement: Resolution not yet found. (A closing statement, when resolved, should be updated to the main page.) |
| Argumentation:
arg5281: . BONUS GOHERR (WP4) showed that manipulating fish stock sizes and catching strategies is ineffective (type: ; paradigms: science: relevant attack) arg5282: . Ecological sustainability should be the first criteria for fisheries management. This is important both from the perspective of ecosystem’s stability and the societal food security. (type: ; paradigms: science: relevant attack)
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| Fact discussion: Emission management (disc9171) |
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| Opening statement: Manage the dioxin problem by reducing dioxin emissions.
Closing statement: Resolution not yet found. (A closing statement, when resolved, should be updated to the main page.) |
| Argumentation:
arg5283: . I don’t see why we need this splitting up. I’ve rephrased a recommendation on which to prioritize based on our modelling results, at the beginning of this document. Anna (type: ; paradigms: science: relevant attack)
arg9027: . Many dioxin sources are still point sources and can be effectively managed. This approach reduces problems everywhere, not only in Baltic fish. (type: ; paradigms: science: relevant defense) arg9028: . Dioxins come mostly from burning processes, waste incineration, and metal smelting. Cleaning these processes also helps tackling greenhouse gas and other emissions, not only dioxins. (type: ; paradigms: science: relevant defense) arg9029: . The integrated policy analysis of BONUS GOHERR (WP6, integrating the outputs from the other WPs) showed that reducing the dioxin load is the only effective way to (further) decrease the concentrations in herring and salmon (in comparison with fisheries and nutrient load management). (type: ; paradigms: science: relevant defense) |
| Fact discussion: Food management (disc9168) |
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| Opening statement: Manage the dioxin problem at the food and feed sector. See “Recommendation about health”.
Closing statement: Resolution not yet found. (A closing statement, when resolved, should be updated to the main page.) |
| Argumentation:
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