FDA rejects Chinese seafood imports

 

 

In a surprise policy shift, the US Food & Drug Administration's Office of Seafood announced it will continue to prohibit most Chinese seafood firms from shipping certain products like shrimp and catfish to the US.

 

The reason for the policy change was because it was ''too cumbersome'' for the FDA to comply efficiently with its own rules or to apply its own recent Chinese inspection data to assess compliance with agency requirements.

 

Benjamin England of FDAImports.com said the agency told him none of the inspections recently conducted in China will be used to exempt any new Chinese seafood processors from FDA import alert 16-131, which has been in effect since August 2007. The FDA had sent its inspectors to China in early spring of 2009 with the purpose of expanding the exemption list.

 

Expressing his shock at the matter, England said this is a disaster for the Chinese seafood industry.

 

Prior to August 2007, a Chinese seafood processor could ship seafood to the US for sale, as long as it had a good history and there was no evidence of a problem with that firm's product.

 

But under the August 2007 import alert, all shipments of Chinese shrimp and catfish were detained automatically, requiring importers to test the product for contamination. The detentions are costly and lead to extensive delays as the FDA would release the shipments one by one.

 

The import alert also requires Chinese seafood processors to submit an inspection report conducted by an appropriate third party inspection company or government agency. But no agency was apparently appropriate in the eyes of FDA's Office of Seafood, including the US Department of Commerce's Seafood Inspection Service.

This "appropriate" third party inspection requirement may not even be within FDA's authority, according to FDA Commissioner Dr. Margaret Hamburg. FDA has repeatedly testified that it needs broader authority to create third party inspection programmes for food firms, and Congress has offered that broadened authority in several bills, including the Food Safety Enhancement Act of 2009.

 

None of those bills have become law.

 

FDA has reported the inspections in China were only to advance the new third party certification pilot programme which it hopes to implement. Therefore, none of the facilities inspected by FDA in 2009 will be evaluated for exemption from import alert 16-131.

 

This shift in policy is unknown to and unexpected by the Chinese seafood industry, the US seafood importers and perhaps even the Chinese government, according to England.