The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has announced the availability of updated safety standard guidelines for the seafood industry. The 476-page document “supports and complements FDA’s regulations for the safe and sanitary processing and importing of fish and fishery products using hazard analysis and critical control point (HACCP) methods” required of commercial seafood processors. The revised guidance provides current information on (i) “potential hazards associated with the known commercial species of vertebrate and invertebrate seafood,” (ii) “potential hazards associated with certain processing operations,” (iii) “HACCP strategies that may be used to control the potential hazards,” and (iv) “other information related to food safety.” See Federal Register, April 28, 2011.
Tag Archives fish/seafood
Seeking a declaration about respective indemnity obligations, National Union Fire Insurance Co. of Pittsburgh, Pa. has filed a complaint in a California federal court against several other insurance companies in a dispute stemming from a neurological injury allegedly caused by the mahi-mahi fish served in a fish burrito at a Rubio’s Restaurant. Nat’l Union Fire Ins. Co. of Pittsburgh, Pa. v. Nationwide Mut. Fire Ins. Co., No. 11-00755 (S.D. Cal., filed April 11, 2011). The injured consumer apparently seeks damages in excess of $7 million. The insurance defendants are allegedly defending the fish supplier and restaurant in the personal-injury action, and National Union claims that its policy provides excess insurance only and that the other carriers have a duty to indemnify the insureds first.
According to the Department of Justice, a Massachusetts-based fish packer has been convicted of several criminal charges for falsely labeling packages of frozen fish fillets. A federal jury in Boston found Stephen Delaney guilty of a felony violation of the Lacey Act for falsely labeling $8,000 worth of frozen pollock, a product of China, as more expensive cod loins, a product of Canada. The jury also convicted Delaney of one misdemeanor violation for misbranding food under the Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act; he allegedly placed into interstate commerce $203,000 worth of Chinese frozen fish fillets falsely labeled as products of Canada, Holland, Namibia, and the United States. Evidence at trial apparently indicated that he also changed 4 oz. labels on some packages to 5 oz. labels. Delaney will be sentenced on June 8, 2011; he faces up to six years in jail and up to $350,000 in fines. See Department of…
A company that sells a variety of seafood spreads has sued one of its packers, which allegedly added undeclared eggs to the company’s smoked salmon spread. Sau-Sea Foods, Inc. v. Lukas Foods, Inc., No. 11-00104 (D. Me., filed March 23, 2011). The plaintiff apparently learned about the problem after the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) inspected the defendant’s facility and discovered that eggs had been used in the spread, thus “posing a potential health hazard.” A recall was immediately undertaken and widely reported in the media. Thereafter, FDA allegedly informed the plaintiff that its salmon spread “posed an acute, life-threatening hazard to health” and designated the recall as Class I. Alleging breach of contract, breach of express and implied warranties, negligence, unjust enrichment, breach of implied contract, and negligent misrepresentation, Sau-Sea Foods seeks damages, interest, costs, and attorney’s fees. While the company alleges damages exceeding the $75,000 jurisdictional minimum, it…
A recent study based on toenail clippings has reportedly turned up “no evidence” of any link between dietary mercury exposure and coronary heart disease, stroke, or total cardiovascular disease. Dariush Mozaffarian, et al., “Mercury Exposure and Risk of Cardiovascular Disease in Two U.S. Cohorts,” New England Journal of Medicine, March 24, 2011. Researchers evidently used toenail clippings from approximately 7,000 people to gauge long-term mercury and selenium exposure from fish consumption, as well as collected dietary and health data from a second cohort of 173,000 participants. The results reportedly found no difference in heart disease and stroke rates for those in the top quintile for mercury concentrations and those in the bottom. Previous research had raised questions about whether the mercury content of shark, swordfish and other predatory species outweighed the cardiovascular benefits associated with high fish consumption. “Basically, what we found was very simple and very clear,” one study author…
The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has denied requests to delay a final rule amending food additive regulations “to provide for the safe use of ionizing radiation for the control of Vibrio species and other foodborne pathogens in fresh or frozen molluscan shellfish.” According to FDA, it has reviewed opposition to the final rule and requests for a hearing, but concluded that objections filed by groups such as Public Citizen and the Center for Food Safety did not “justify a hearing or otherwise provide a basis for revoking the regulation.” In particular, the agency’s latest decision dismisses allegations that (i) FDA failed to consider evidence indicating “harmful effects from consumption of irradiated molluscan shellfish”; (ii) the final rule does not ensure a product “that is microbiologically safe”; (iii) there is no reasonable certainty of no harm; (iv) FDA failed to consider “several factors that could make irradiated molluscan shellfish unsafe”;…
California EPA’s Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment (OEHHA) has issued a notice of its intent to list ethanol in alcoholic beverages and Chinese-style salted fish to the list of chemicals known to the state to cause cancer (Prop. 65). Inclusion on the list requires that products containing these ingredients include label warnings. OEHHA is apparently basing its action on the inclusion of these substances in an International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) monograph. The agency is requesting comments by April 4, 2011. According to OEHHA, “[b]ecause these are ministerial listings, comments should be limited to the question whether IARC has identified the specific chemical or substance as a known or potential human or animal carcinogen. Under this listing mechanism, OEHHA cannot consider scientific arguments concerning the weight or quality of the evidence considered by IARC when identifying a specific chemical or substance and will not respond to such…
The U.S. Department of Agriculture, the Food and Drug Administration, the Office of the Under Secretary for Food Safety, and the Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition have announced a March 16, 2011, public meeting in College Park, Maryland, to provide information and receive public comments on draft U.S. positions to be discussed at the 31st session of the Codex Committee on Contaminants on Fish and Fishery Products (CCFFP) on April 11-16 in Tromso, Norway. CCFFP “is responsible for elaborating worldwide standards for fresh, frozen (including quick frozen) or otherwise processed fish, crustaceans, and mollusks.” Agenda items include proposed draft standards for fish sauce, smoked fish, smoke-flavored fish, and smoke dried fish; proposed draft codes of practice for fish and fishery products and scallop-meat processing; proposed methods for determining biotoxins in raw and live bivalve mollusks; and proposed revisions to food-additive standards for fish and fishery products. See Federal…
The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s (USDA’s) Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) has issued a proposed rule that would address a 2008 Farm Bill mandate making catfish an amenable species under the Federal Meat Inspection Act and therefore requiring all domestic and imported catfish to undergo FSIS inspection. According to a February 18, 2011, press release, FSIS has offered two definitions for “catfish,” one limited to all species in the family Ictaluridae and a broader one that covers all species in the order Siluriformes, which includes Ictaluridae, Pangasiidae and Clariidae, the three families “typically found in human food channels.” The proposed rule would also require, among other provisions, that all catfish “produced in or imported to the United States” bear an FSIS inspection mark or “a mark of inspection from the country from which it was exported.” In addition, the agency has suggested plans for (i) inspecting catfish farms, (ii)…
California State Assemblymen Paul Fong (D-Cupertino) and Jared Huffman (D- San Rafael) have introduced a bill (A.B. 376) that would prohibit the possession, sale, trade, and distribution of shark fins. Apparently in demand for shark fin soup, “the ingredient is very high in mercury and the FDA warns that it could be dangerous to consumers’ health,” according to a joint press release issued by the lawmakers. Calling shark finning “a senseless act” in which fins and tails are cut from living sharks with the remainder of the fish thrown back in the ocean, Huffman noted that the practice “can seriously destabilized the food chain” because of sharks’ predatory status “in ocean ecosystems around the world.” Although shark finning is illegal under federal and California statutes, Fong called those laws “insufficient when we have species of sharks depleted up to 90 percent. The demand for shark fin is growing and the…
