Fishmeal kept setting ships on fire, so the industry added a carcinogen
The fire retardant in the seafood chain
Fishmeal, the powder that feeds most farmed seafood, spontaneously combusted and was tied to at least 90 ship and plant fires from the 1950s to the 1970s. Cargill's answer in 1967 was ethoxyquin, a fire retardant that worked — and that studies later linked to cancer and genetic damage. The EU banned it in animal feed in 2017, but it remains legal in the U.S., Australia, Japan and South Korea, and its leading replacement, BHA, carries its own cancer concerns.
The aquaculture and fishmeal industries find themselves in a perilous loop: pivoting from deadly ship fires to a carcinogenic fire retardant, and then to yet another one.
- jazzyjackson
> if left untreated, is known for spontaneously combusting as it decays and oxidizes.
Does anyone remember the 90s when as a laymen it seemed like an open debate whether humans would occasionally combust spontaneously? I guess it stopped happening once falling asleep with a cigarette lost popularity
But my point is I wasn’t aware that “spontaneous combustion” was a real thing one has to worry about it. Linseed oil rags will do this too, and that’s why patent leather shoes are coated in plastic now instead.
- enoint
I make a lot of chili. Ethoxyquin is a good reason to mix your own chili powder.
- brudgers
About Ethoxyquin, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethoxyquin