August 9, 2007

 

Suspect Chinese seafood enter US without testing

 

 

At least 1 million pounds of seafood from China have allegedly entered US shores without proper screening from the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA), according to an investigation by the Associated Press.

 

The frozen shrimp, catfish and eel arrived at US ports under an "import alert," which meant the FDA was supposed to hold every shipment until it had passed a laboratory test.

 

But it did not happen, according to an AP check of shipments since last fall. One of every four shipments the AP reviewed got through without being stopped and tested. The seafood, valued at US$2.5 million (euro1.8 million), was equal to the amount 66,000 Americans eat in a year.

 

FDA is closely monitoring seafood imports due to suspected carcinogens or antibiotics containing them.

 

Though no illnesses have been reported, concerns have been raised about the FDA's ability to police the safety of America's food imports.

 

According to Carl R. Nielsen, a former FDA official, the agency's systems are outdated and cannot fully assure full detection of hidden dangers such as the toothpaste from China which are potentially poisonous.

 

China is America's biggest foreign source of seafood, the 1.06 billion pounds it supplied in 2006 accounting for 16 percent of all seafood Americans buy.

 

President George W. Bush has asked a Cabinet-level panel to recommend better imported food safety safeguards while Chinese officials have promised to inspect their fish farms for drugs and chemicals, even as they called the FDA's testing mandate illegal under world trade rules.

 

FDA officials acknowledged that some shipments slip through import alerts, but said overall they work.

 

According to Michael Chappell, the official responsible for field inspections and laboratories, the FDA normally inspects just 1 percent of the cargo it oversees. When goods land under an import alert, however, they are considered guilty until proved innocent: All shipments are supposed to be held until private tests that cost importers thousands of dollars show the seafood is clean. Sometimes, the FDA double-checks those tests in its own labs. Products can be detained for months, irking importers.

 

A shipment can escape inspection if, for example, a company uses a name or address not on an import alert, Chappell said. That appears to be what happened in one case which AP found.

 

The AP reviewed 4,300 manifests of seafood shipments from China compiled by Piers Reports, a company that tracks import-export data, and found 211 shipments that arrived under import alert since last fall.

 

FDA officials refused to identify exactly which shipments were tested, saying they were too busy to do so.

 

The AP contacted importers directly, talking to 15 companies responsible for 112 of the 211 shipments. Eleven said their products were tested; four said the FDA did not bother to stop a total of 28 shipments weighing 1.1 million pounds. Virtually all the shipments entered through ports in the southeastern US, including Tampa, Florida, Miami and Savannah, Georgia.

 

The importer with the most cases was Florida-based Tampa Bay Fisheries.

 

Chief executive Robbie Paterson said 23 shipments of breaded or dusted frozen shrimp delivered between October and May were not inspected. In rare cases, the FDA removes from its watch list companies that have passed five straight tests. Paterson said he assumed that was why Tampa Bay's shipments went through.

 

However, Tampa Bay's shrimp supplier -- the Fuqing City Dongyi Trading Co. -- was on the watch list.

 

Three other companies said a total of five shipments of catfish, eel or shrimp were not stopped and tested.

 

Paterson still insists import alerts were completely effective and that Chinese seafood poses no health risk.

 

FDA officials "are diligently doing the inspections as they see fit," Paterson said.

US importers said they are being told that the government is holding back Chinese seafood shipments until tests show they will pass US muster. The disruption has yet to result in any substantial price increases in the United States.