Fish farmers fight state's test protocol

UTAH - Private fish growers took their complaints to lawmakers on Wednesday, charging that state officials are closing down their hatcheries after conducting a single, sometimes unreliable, test for whirling disease.

Leonard Blackham, head of the Utah Department of Agriculture and Food, defended his agency's insistence that a single test is evidence enough that private fish farms are contaminated with the parasite that attacks trout.

"These are DNA tests - we've sent people to their deaths on these types of tests," said Blackham, referring to the execution of killers linked to crimes through DNA testing.

Blackham also compared fish farmers getting unfavorable test results to cancer patients - both "cannot accept the tests results so they want another test," he said during a meeting of the Natural Resource Interim Committee.

Source: The Salt Lake Tribune