A U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) study has criticized the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and the Department of Agriculture’s Food Safety Inspection Service (FSIS) for their failure to ensure that imported seafood does not contain unsafe levels of antibiotic or other drug residues. According to the GAO, about 90 percent of the seafood eaten in the United States is imported, and about half of imported seafood is raised on fish farms where producers treat fish to prevent infections and foodborne illnesses. GAO makes five main recommendations: (i) FDA should pursue agreements with exporting countries to test for “drugs of concern” and residue levels; (ii) FSIS should conduct onsite audits of fish farms instead of limiting visits to government offices, commercial food processing facilities and food testing labs; (iii) FSIS should require exporting countries to include residue-monitoring plans in equivalence determinations; (iv) FDA and FSIS should collaborate to develop…
Tag Archives fish/seafood
A Chilean appellate court has ruled that the nation’s National Fisheries and Agricultural Services must issue its data about antibiotics in Chilean salmon, which revealed that 50 salmon firms jointly used 450.7 metric tons of antibiotics in 2013. Chile’s Council for Transparency previously refused to release the information to conservation organization Oceana, arguing that the disaggregated data could be used against individual companies. The court disagreed, reportedly ruling, “The reasons given by the claimed party to refuse the requested information are not consistent with what establish the applicable regulations.” The report comes months after Costco Wholesale Corp. announced it would reduce the proportion of its salmon stock from 90 percent Chilean salmon to 40 percent in favor of salmon from Norway, whose fish-farming companies on average use lower amounts of antibiotics. See Fish Information & Services, September 11, 2015; Undercurrent News, September 21, 2015. Issue 579
A multidistrict litigation court in Missouri has denied motions for class certification in 24 transferred cases against companies that make baby bottles and sippy cups allegedly containing bisphenol A (BPA). In re: Bisphenol-A (BPA) Polycarbonate Plastic Prods. Liab. Litig., MDL No. 1967 (W.D. Mo., decided July 5, 2011). The plaintiffs sought to certify various classes, including individual state classes and multi state classes as to certain claims and defendants. The court focused on the commonality, predominance and superiority prongs of class certification to conclude that differences in state laws and facts unique to each putative class member rendered the claims unsuitable for class treatment. Still, the court dismissed the requests to certify individual statewide classes without prejudice, finding it appropriate to allow the transferor courts to determine whether these classes met the certification requirements when the cases are returned to their jurisdictions. The court also indicated that it would delay remand…
The Bahamas Ministry of Agriculture and Marine Resources has reportedly announced its decision to prohibit all commercial shark fishing in its waters, citing a shark tourism industry that generates $80 million in revenue each year. According to media reports, the ban would encompass 240,000 square miles and protect approximately 40 shark species present in the area. The new protections were purportedly needed after a seafood export firm last year proposed fishing the Bahamas for shark fins, a plan that quickly met resistance from the Bahamas National Trust and the Pew Environment Group. “The Bahamas government is determined to enhance the protection extended to sharks,” stated Agriculture and Marine Resources Minister Lawrence Cartwright. “As we are all aware, sharks are heavily fished in many corners of the world’s oceans.” See The Washington Post, July 5, 2011.
Several consumer protection organizations have filed a citizen petition with the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), seeking a rulemaking “for labeling and point of sale advisories concerning mercury in seafood to minimize methylmercury exposure to women of childbearing age and children.” According to the petition, some 200,000 children in the United States, between ages two and five, have blood mercury levels nearly 50 percent higher than base levels recommended by the Environmental Protection Agency. Noting that the percentages of women and children exceeding recommended mercury levels are higher in coastal regions and among African-Americans, Asians, the affluent, and those in the fishing industry, the petition claims that consumers “do not know the risks inherent in exposing themselves and their families to this potent neurotoxin.” Jane Hightower, a physician who authored Diagnosis: Mercury—Money, Politics & Poison, signed the petition, which was also brought on behalf of Earthjustice, the Zero Mercury Working…
The Government Accountability Office (GAO) has issued a report criticizing the Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA’s) oversight of imported seafood safety. Noting that about one-half of imported seafood comes from fish farms that may use antibiotics to prevent bacterial infections, the report claims that “residues of some drugs can cause cancer and antibiotic resistance.” Titled “FDA Needs to Improve Oversight of Imported Seafood and Better Leverage Limited Resources,” the report urges FDA to enhance its import sampling program. “FDA’s oversight program to ensure the safety of imported seafood from residues of unapproved drugs is limited, especially as compared with the European Union,” the report states, adding that FDA inspectors “generally do not visit the farms to evaluate drug use or the capabilities, competence, and quality control of laboratories that analyze the seafood.” The report also recommends that FDA (i) “study the feasibility of adopting practices used by other entities to…
California EPA’s Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment (OEHHA) recently finalized its decision to add ethanol in alcoholic beverages and Chinese-style salted fish to the state’s list of carcinogenic chemicals. The listing was effective April 29, 2011. Companies that sell products containing listed chemicals in California are required to notify consumers that their products contain a chemical known to the state to cause cancer under the Safe Drinking Water and Toxic Enforcement Act of 1986 (Prop. 65). More information about OEHHA’s decision appears in Issue 385 of this Update.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) has announced two public meetings on a proposed rule requiring mandatory FSIS inspections of imported and domestic catfish and catfish products. The meetings will be held May 24 in Washington, D.C., and May 26 in Stoneville, Mississippi. The proposed rule was highlighted in Issue 383 of this Update. See Federal Register, May 9, 2011.
“Known in the food business as ‘aquatic chicken’ because it breeds easily and tastes bland, tilapia is the perfect factory fish; it happily eats pellets made largely of corn and soy and gains weight rapidly, easily converting a diet that resembles cheap chicken feed into low-cost seafood,” writes New York Times correspondent Elizabeth Rosenthal in a May 2, 2011, article exploring the global tilapia market. “[P]romoted as good for your health and for the environment at a time when many marine stocks have been seriously depleted,” tilapia is mostly imported from Latin America and Asia for consumption in the United States, where its newfound fame has also drawn attention to aquaculture practices overseas. In particular, Rosenthal notes that critics have raised questions about raising tilapia in pens, a practice that purportedly pollutes lakes and damages local ecosystems, and on diets that nutritionists say can reduce the production and quality of omega 3…
The Department of Justice recently took action against seafood producers in Wisconsin and Alabama for products that were either processed in plants lacking Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Point (HACCP) plans or misbranded. In Wisconsin, a U.S. attorney filed a complaint to seize a variety of breaded seafood products in the possession of Soderholm Wholesale Foods, Inc. and Fellerson, Inc. and sold under the “Seaside” label. United States v. “Seaside” Breaded Cod Fillets, No. 11-277 (W.D. Wis., filed April 18, 2011). According to the complaint, these products are adulterated “in that they have been prepared, packed, or held under insanitary conditions whereby they may have been rendered injurious to health.” Investigations in 2010 allegedly revealed that the companies did not have a written HACCP plan and failed to adopt one after warning. Meanwhile, seafood wholesalers Karen Blyth and David Phelps have reportedly been sentenced in an Alabama federal court to 33…
