Science

Contributor: Factory farming of fish is brewing pathogens

Published

4 months ago

February 11, 2026

Contributor: Factory farming of fish is brewing pathogens

The federal government recently released new dietary guidelines aimed at “ending the war on protein” and steering Americans toward “real foods” — those with few ingredients and no additives. Seafood plays a starring role. But the fish that health advocates envision appearing on our plates probably won’t be caught in the crystal blue waters we’d like to imagine.

Over the past few decades, the seafood industry has completely revolutionized how it feeds the world. As many wild fish populations have plummeted, hunted to oblivion by commercial fleets, fish farming has become all the rage, and captive-breeding facilities have continually expanded to satiate humanity’s ravenous appetite. Today, the aquaculture sector is a $300-billion juggernaut, accounting for nearly 60% of aquatic animal products used for direct human consumption.

Proponents of aquaculture argue that it helps feed a growing human population, reduces pressure on wild fish populations, lowers costs for consumers and creates new jobs on land. Much of that may be correct. But there is a hidden crisis brewing beneath the surface: Many aquaculture facilities are breeding grounds for pathogens. They’re also a blind spot for public health authorities.

On dry land, factory farming of cows, pigs and chickens is widely reviled, and for good reason: The unsanitary and inhumane conditions inside these facilities contribute to outbreaks of disease, including some that can leap from animals to humans. In many countries, aquaculture facilities aren’t all that different. Most are situated in marine and coastal areas, where fish can be exposed to a sinister brew of human sewage, industrial waste and agricultural runoff. Fish are kept in close quarters — imagine hundreds of adult salmon stuffed into a backyard swimming pool — and inbreeding compromises immune strength. Thus, when one fish invariably falls ill, pathogens spread far and wide throughout the brood — and potentially to people.

Right now, there are only a handful of known pathogens — mostly bacteria, rather than viruses — that can jump from aquatic species to humans. Every year, these pathogens contribute to the 260,000 illnesses in the United States from contaminated fish; fortunately, these fish-borne illnesses aren’t particularly transmissible between people. It’s far more likely that the next pandemic will come from a bat or chicken than a rainbow trout. But that doesn’t put me at ease. The ocean is a vast, poorly understood and largely unmonitored reservoir of microbial species, most of which remain unknown to science. In the last 15 years, infectious diseases — including ones that we’ve known about for decades such as Ebola and Zika — have routinely caught humanity by surprise. We shouldn’t write off the risks of marine microbes too quickly.

My most immediate concern, the one that really makes me sweat, is the emergence of drug-resistant bacteria among farmed fish. Aquaculturists are well aware that their fish often live in a festering cesspool, and so many growers will mix antibiotics — including ones that the World Health Organization considers medically important for people — into fish feed, or dump them straight into water, to avoid the consequences of crowded conditions and prevent rampant illness. It would be more appropriate to use antibiotics in animals only when they are sick.

Because of this overuse for prevention purposes, more antibiotics are used in seafood raised by aquaculture than are used in humans or for other farmed animals per kilogram. Many of these molecules will end up settling in the water or nearby sediment, where they can linger for weeks. In turn, the 1 million individual bacteria found in every drop of seawater will be put to the evolutionary test, and the most antibiotic-resistant will endure.

Numerous researchers have found that drug-resistant strains of bacteria are alarmingly common in the water surrounding aquaculture facilities. In one study, evidence of antibiotic resistance was found in over 80% of species of bacteria isolated from shrimp sold in multiple countries by multiple brands.

Many drug-resistant strains in aquatic animals won’t be capable of infecting humans, but their genes still pose a threat through a process known as horizontal transfer. Bacteria are genetic hoarders. They collect DNA from their environment and store it away in their own genome. Sometimes, they’ll participate in swap meets, trading genes with other bacteria to expand their collections. Beginning in 1991, for example, a wave of cholera infected nearly a million people across Latin America, exacerbated by a strain that may have picked up drug-resistant adaptations while circulating through shrimp farms in Ecuador.

Today, drug-resistant bacteria kill over a million people every year, more than HIV/AIDS. I’ve seen this with my own eyes as a practicing tuberculosis doctor. I am deeply fearful of a future in which the global supply of fish — a major protein source for billions of people — also becomes a source of untreatable salmonella, campylobacter and vibrio. We need safer seafood, and the solutions are already at our fingertips.

Governments need to lead by cracking down on indiscriminate antibiotic use. It is estimated that 70% of all antibiotics used globally are given to farm animals, and usage could increase by nearly 30% over the next 15 years. Regulation to promote prudent use of antibiotics in animals, however, has proven effective in Europe, and sales of veterinary antibiotics decreased by more than 50% across 25 European countries from 2011 to 2022. In the United States, the use of medically important antibiotics in food animals — including aquatic ones — is already tightly regulated. Most seafood eaten in the U.S., however, is imported and therefore beyond the reach of these rules. Indeed, antibiotic-resistance genes have already been identified in seafood imported into the United States. Addressing this threat should be an area of shared interest between traditional public health voices and the “Make America Healthy Again” movement, which has expressed serious concerns about the health effects of toxins.

Public health institutions also need to build stronger surveillance infrastructure — for both disease and antibiotic use — in potential hotspots. Surveillance is the backbone of public health, because good decision-making is impossible without good data. Unfortunately, many countries — including resource-rich countries — don’t robustly track outbreaks of antibiotic-resistant pathogens in farmed animals, nor do they share data on antibiotic use in farmed animals. By developing early warning systems for detecting antibiotic resistance in aquatic environments, rapid response efforts involving ecologists, veterinarians and epidemiologists can be mobilized as threats arise to avert public health disasters.

Meanwhile, the aquaculture industry should continue to innovate. Genetic technologies and new vaccines can help prevent rampant infections, while also improving growth efficiency that could allow for more humane conditions.

For consumers, the best way to stay healthy is simple: Seek out antibiotic-free seafood at the supermarket, and cook your fish (sorry, sushi lovers).

There’s no doubt that aquaculture is critical for feeding a hungry planet. But it must be done responsibly.

Neil M. Vora is a practicing physician and the executive director of the Preventing Pandemics at the Source Coalition.

Science

Video: NASA Announces Artemis III Crew

Published

12 hours ago

June 9, 2026

Press Room

new video loaded: NASA Announces Artemis III Crew

transcript

NASA Announces Artemis III Crew

NASA announced the crew of Artemis III mission, which will fly to low-Earth orbit to test rendezvous and docking maneuvers with one or two lunar landers.

: “I am excited to welcome you as the next crew in the Artemis journey to successfully return to the moon — this time to stay.” “I’m honored by the role that I’ve been given. I’m also very humbled by the task in front of us. But first and foremost, I’m grateful.” “So with that, the Artemis II crew, comrade, hands you the baton. You got the controls.” “As you know, we had a significant anomaly at our Launch Complex 36A on May 28. We’ve redoubled our efforts and are moving forward.”
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NASA announced the crew of Artemis III mission, which will fly to low-Earth orbit to test rendezvous and docking maneuvers with one or two lunar landers.

By Alisa Shodiyev Kaff

June 9, 2026

Science

Santa Monica Mountains’ last steelhead trout survived the Palisades fire — and even had babies

Published

23 hours ago

June 9, 2026

Press Room

Santa Monica Mountains’ last steelhead trout survived the Palisades fire — and even had babies

Scientists feared the Santa Monica Mountains’ last remaining steelhead trout were dead, smothered by debris flows unleashed by the Palisades fire.

But the endangered fish surprised them: A team of biologists recently spotted 30 of the rare trout — and 21 babies — in Topanga Creek.

“There was a lot of happy dancing in the creek,” said Rosi Dagit, principal conservation biologist for the Resource Conservation District of the Santa Monica Mountains, which works with public and private landowners to conserve natural resources.

That’s because the steelhead here are endangered, at both the state and federal levels. Once, they swam in most streams of the Santa Monicas, but their numbers plummeted amid overfishing and coastal development. Increasingly frequent wildfire has further stressed their habitat. Topanga Creek, a biodiversity hot spot, is home to their last known population in the mountains that stretch from the Hollywood Hills to Point Mugu in Ventura County.

The trout that were spotted, including this one, are part of a distinct Southern California population that’s listed as endangered at the state and federal levels.

(RCDSMM Stream Team)

The California Department of Fish and Wildlife spearheaded a complex mission to rescue trout threatened by the Palisades fire that sparked in January 2025.

Time was of the essence. The fire hadn’t yet been fully contained. But rain was on the way, which would sweep massive amounts of sediment from the denuded hillsides into the water. Fish are often killed this way.

Crews stunned the fish with electricity, scooped them up in buckets, trucked them to a hatchery and ultimately moved them to Arroyo Hondo Creek in Santa Barbara County.

Within days, Topanga Creek was choked with mud. Some assumed the fish left behind were goners.

But in March, the conservation district’s team found four. The following month, when water conditions were clearer, they saw more.

“These fish continue to amaze me,” said Kyle Evans, environmental program manager for the state Department of Fish and Wildlife, who had seen the damage to the creek. “I had seen populations get wiped out in similar situations. So when I heard, I was thrilled.”

Evans surmises the fish that survived were in an area of the creek where less charred material and sediment were swept in.

“These fish likely hunkered down, were hiding under some rocks or places to try to get away from the main concentration of flow,” he said. “And luckily they weren’t buried.”

The ones that were spotted were fairly small, around 6 to 14 inches. Rainbow trout and steelhead trout are the same species, but with different lifestyles. If the fish remain in freshwater, they’ll be considered rainbows. However, they can migrate to the ocean and become steelhead, where they typically grow larger before returning to their natal waters to spawn.

Topanga Creek hasn’t fully recovered from the damage it sustained, but scientists say it’s looking better. Surveys last year were “so depressing,” Dagit said, with very few animals, and stretches that were essentially transformed into flat roads from all the sediment buildup. Some of the riparian canopy burned right down to the creek.

Then came 32 inches of rain over the last nine months, scouring out and moving sediment, creating deeper pools. Dagit said they recently found newt egg masses for the first time in years, as well as a few adult newts and many frogs. Plants that provide cover are starting to recover.

She provided photos comparing certain pools last year and this year, some dramatically transformed. In September 2025, the Shrine Pool could have been an overgrown hiking trail. This April, it was filled with shallow water.

Shrine Pool, Sept. 2025, left, and the same location, April 2026, right.

Topanga Creek is home to another endangered fish, the small but hardy northern tidewater goby, often described as cute. Not long before the trout operation, Dagit led a rescue of hundreds of these fish too. Many were repatriated to the lagoon at the mouth of the creek in a moving ceremony last June.

There’s still the matter of what to do with the trout that were moved to Santa Barbara County last year. Evans would like to bring them home to the Santa Monicas at some point, but isn’t sure if it will happen. On one hand, they could bolster the small, genetically isolated surviving population. On the other, they might inadvertently bring in a disease or bacteria. There is some time to decide. Evans estimates the creek still needs to recover for two to three more years.

For now, the fish are functioning fine in their adopted creek. Experts worried the trauma wrought by the move would disrupt their spawning process, but they had babies that spring. This year, they spawned again.

Science

Pacifica pier cracks, another coastal casualty as seas continue to rise

Published

3 days ago

June 7, 2026

Press Room

Pacifica pier cracks, another coastal casualty as seas continue to rise

The Pacifica Municipal Pier was shut down and taped off Thursday after city workers noticed cracks running through the landmark structure and concrete chunks falling into the ocean.

It’s just one of many coastal California structures that have recently crumbled under pressure from a rising and relentless ocean.

Officials from the small, beach city south of San Francisco said the pier was closed due to “cracking, separation, and displacement of the concrete walkway and structural elements.”

It will stay closed while structural engineers asses its safety.

Photos taken by city employees show a wide crack that runs from top to bottom and across the structure as well. Other photos show a large horizontal crack under the foundation of a small restaurant on the pier, the Chit Chat Cafe.

The cafe was also shut down.

This is not the first time the 53-year-old pier has shown signs of stress. In 2021, part of it was shut down after handrails along the edge collapsed. And in 2023, after a series of storms pummeled the Central California coast, damaging parts of the pier, the structure was partially closed for more than year.

Those same storms caused extensive damage in Aptos and Capitola, 70 miles south, where piers and waterfront infrastructure were swept away or damaged.

In 2024, a 150- to 180- foot section of the Santa Cruz wharf was ripped off by powerful waves.

At least 10 of the state’s dozens of coastal public piers were closed for part or all of 2024 due to structural damage sustained in winter storms since 2022. At least five others have longer-term upgrades planned to address structural issues.

“These things are costly to maintain,” said Zach Plopper, senior environmental director at Surfrider. “They are a part of our California coastal culture in many ways, but we’re going to need to reckon with, one, the state that they’re in, and two, the continuous and worsening threats they’re going to experience,”

He said most of the piers were constructed in the early 1900s, and they weren’t built to withstand decades of rough seas, storms and rising sea level.

“With this incoming El Niño, which is forecasted to be significant, and this marine heat wave we’re in the midst of, we’re kind of in uncharted waters as far as what this winter could bring in terms of storms and swells to the California coast, and we’re likely going to see a lot more damage,” he said. “Not just piers, but roads and other coastal infrastructure up and down the state.”

There was no storm in Pacifica earlier this week, so no single event could be blamed for the destruction.

However, a 2025 report from an outside engineering firm, GHD, found that several sections of the pier were in “poor” or “serious” condition, and they recommended closure before anticipated storms or events that could “subject the piles to high winds, swells and large waves.”

The firm found several areas of the pier where concrete was missing and rebar was exposed and corroding.

“The pier has continued to experience high winds and large waves in a harsh marine environment,” the engineers wrote in the report, noting that continuous exposure to seawater or marine spray was “detrimental” to the structure.

A 2023 city report estimated it would cost $19 million to repair.

That same year, a state law was enacted to require local governments along the California coast to plan for sea level rise in the coming decades.

Sea level has risen some 8 inches, on average, along the coast in the past 150 years, Plopper said, and researchers anticipate another foot in the next 25 years.

“We’re going to see profound shifts on our coastline, none that we have ever experienced before, and building static structures on the coast just doesn’t work all that well,” he said. “We’re going to have to make some really hard decisions.”