Thank you, Mr. Chair and members of the committee, for inviting me to speak today.
I am a viral ecologist and geneticist at the University of British Columbia. I work alongside a team of scientists from the Pacific Salmon Foundation and DFO. Much of my research is focused on a virus called piscine orthoreovirus, abbreviated as PRV.
I would like to talk to you about PRV, because I think it highlights some of the issues that have been raised to the committee regarding science advice. On paper, DFO sets a very high standard for scientific integrity. However, I have witnessed striking examples of where DFO has failed to meet these standards in regard to the management of PRV.
The story begins in Norway in the late 1990s. There were outbreaks of a new heart disease in Atlantic salmon farms, but it wasn't until over 10 years later that the virus, PRV, was discovered and implicated as the possible cause of disease. Thanks to some of the impressive research within DFO, it didn't take long for scientists to realize that this virus was also present in British Columbia.
In 2011 PRV was detected by Dr. Kristi Miller's lab in farmed Chinook salmon that were suffering from disease. Her work was the first sign that PRV might pose a risk to Pacific salmon.
As recently reported in the Globe and Mail, the public were kept in the dark about this research for 10 years. Had this work not been held back from the scientific community, perhaps some of the impact on salmon in B.C. from this virus may have been prevented.
Since its discovery, PRV has been linked to diseases in salmon all around the world, including diseases similar to that described in the blocked study.