Fish counter paper towel caused the problem — not the Irish product

I AM afraid that the normally high standards of journalism maintained by the Irish Examiner were dragged down to an unfortunate level on Friday, July 1, when a letter from Roderick O’Sullivan was published entitled ‘Is farmed salmon a flying pig?’

The contents of the letter centered around a supposed finding of an anti-fungal compound called malachite green in samples of organic Irish farmed salmon. This is a complete non-story that has been fully explored in the press here and in the UK.

What really happened was that green paper hand towels used in the fish handling counter of a British supermarket accidentally caused a cross-contamination, at minute trace levels, of the salmon.