The use of Malachite Green has been prohibited in aquaculture production for several years.
Despite this ban, there continue to be positive findings of the substance in aquaculture products.  Frequently this has a significant negative impact to the farmer who is required to slaughter out affected fish stocks.
Evidence suggests that many of the positive sampling results for malachite green are a result of environmental pollution.
Surveys have revealed that malachite green frequently occurs in the natural environment. This in turn can lead to trace amounts of malachite green being found in both aquaculture and wild fish stocks.
Malachite green is a due habitually used in many industrial processes on a global basis and a potential result of this is for an increased incidence of residues of malachite green occurring in the natural environment in addition to any naturally occurring traces of malachite green.
At the same time laboratory testing is being constantly refined, allowing for the detection of increasingly lower levels of malachite.
Improvements in laboratory testing may lead to the increased detection of trace amounts of malachite green in aquaculture products.
Current EU legislation regulating malachite green is inappropriate. It does not take into consideration the issue of malachite green entering fish as a pollutant. Furthermore there is a zero tolerance approach towards the presence of malachite green despite the lack of conclusive evidence that it poses any threat to human health.
FEAP wishes the EU Commission to address the issue of positive test results for malachite green that have resulted from environmental pollution. We also request the EU Commission to undertake an assessment of any threat that malachite green may cause to human health.  Depending upon the outcome of any such research we then would look to the EU Commission to set an appropriate limit for any malachite green residues in fish products.

Zero tolerance
FEAP wish the EU Commission to address industry concerns with problems created by the current “zero tolerance” approach to finding residues of all other substances in fish products.
Improvements in laboratory testing now allow for the detection of trace residues at increasingly lower levels.
The ability to detect such low level residues increases the potential for detecting trace elements of environmental pollutants in fish.
Findings that in no way pose any risk to human health, but findings that can result in killing and destruction of fish, and closing of fish farms producing healthy fish products.