May 14, 2007

US amends laws to give FDA greater power to inspect seafood imports

FDA will now have greater power to inspect seafood imports for antibiotics and other banned chemicals, thanks to a new amendment passed last week.

The amendment was introduced by Alabama senator and co-sponsored by southern states such as Louisiana, Arkansas and Mississippi, all catfish-producing states.

Since the US seafood industry adheres to the world's strictest food safety standards, imported seafood should be subjected to the same level of scrutiny, Mary Landrieu, a Louisiana senator said.

The amendment would give the FDA full authority to inspect imports and the facilities where they are produced.

Recently, Louisiana, Alabama and Mississippi all subjected stricter checks on seafood from China or banned its seafood due to the presence of banned antibiotics.

The Secretary of Health and Human Services would also have to develop a system to trace seafood imports, which would allow federal inspectors to better find the source of tainted food.

US shrimpers catch primarily from the wild, while imports from Asia and South America are usually farm-raised, thus increasing the risk that shrimps from these regions would contain antibiotics.

Shrimp imports from China, Indonesia and other countries contained trace amounts of antibiotics. However, up to 90 percent of shrimp consumed in the US is imported from these regions. 

Whereas the catfish industry has been shrinking in some southern states such as Louisiana, which lost three quarters of its industry revenue in the past decade, seafood imports from China to the US has quadrupled in the past year alone, according to The Catfish Institute.