French Experts Arrive To Test Oysters For Safety, Forced To Flee By Threats, Violence From Community

[hatrack]

EDIT

Last week marine biologists from the French Research Institute for Exploitation of the Sea, IFREMER, banned the Arcachon oysters for the seventh time this year and for the fifth year running. Local government said eating the oysters could cause "gastric problems" and worse in "weakened" people. Cooking the shellfish would "not destroy the toxin". Angry producers responded with a volley of abuse and seashells aimed at the local laboratory last Friday. Until the scientists conduct further tests - and are supported by other IFREMER experts around France – the oyster ban cannot be lifted.

"Some employees have been verbally abused, received nocturnal telephone threats and sometimes been the target of projectiles," said Pascal Gauci, the regional government sub-prefect. The row has Gallic echoes of similar dispute in Britain when sewage-infested oysters were blamed for 500 diners falling ill at Heston Blumenthal's Michelin three-starred restaurant, The Fat Duck.

The crux of the French dispute has been the reliability of a test using laboratory mice. The European Commission sanctioned procedure has been condemned by farmers who claim it is unable to determine if oysters contain toxins potentially harmful to man.

The industry has staged tasting events during the ban to prove the products safety. The farmers argue mice are forced to ingest the equivalent of a human eating 1,000 oysters in one sitting. "(It) is a sham and a fraud which is going to lead to the disappearance of oyster production in the Arcachon Bay," said Olivier Laban, chairman of the regional oyster producers' committee.

EDIT

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/france/6183593/Oyster-experts-flee-French-town-after-threats.html

[no_hypocrisy]

1. Hepatitis is a real fear with respect to contaminated oysters.

Once you destroy your liver, it's down hill.

[MisterP]

2. Ibsen festival proceeds without hitch n/t

[damntexdem]

3. Well, community members demonstrated how unsafe things are for oyster testers.

I guess the ban will have to remain in place so long as it's unsafe to test the oysters.