“Permitted concentrations of the lice-killing chemical, emamectin, in the sediment of sea lochs have increased from 12 to 272 nanograms per kilogram between 2017 and 2023.”
In 2016 Scotland’s environment agency proposed banning emamectin outright. Salmon farmers and manufacturer Merck lobbied, and the limit went from 12 to 23.5 to 131 to 272. The last jump came from an “industry-owned study report” the regulator’s own scientists had never seen in full. The shrimp, crabs and lobsters in the lochs got no consultation.