F.D.A. Issues Alert on Chinese Seafood

[kurth]

June 29, 2007
F.D.A. Issues Alert on Chinese Seafood
By ANDREW MARTIN

The Food and Drug Administration today issued an alert challenging imports of five major types of farm-raised seafood from China, including shrimp and catfish, because testing found recurrent contamination from carcinogens and antibiotics. The alert means that the fish will be allowed for sale in the United States only if testing proves that it is free of those substances.

While the federal agency stopped short of an outright ban, the alert is nonetheless hugely significant because China is a major source of imported seafood in the United States, accounting for 21 percent of total imports. The United States imports 81 percent of the seafood that is consumed here.

“There’s been a continued pattern of violation with no signs of abatement,” said David Acheson, the F.D.A.’s assistant commissioner for food safety. He insisted that there was no imminent danger to human health, but that prolonged consumption could cause health problems. The other varieties affected by the ban are eel, basa, which is related to catfish, and dace, which is related to carp.

The seafood alert is the latest and perhaps broadest indictment yet against Chinese products, which have come under increasing scrutiny in recent months after pet food, toothpaste, toy trains and tires have been found to be contaminated or defective in some way. China is the world’s leading producer of farm-raised fish. Its shipments to the United States were valued at $1.9 billion in 2006, a 193 percent increase from 2001, according to the Department of Agriculture. The biggest American imports from China are shrimp, tilapia, scallops, cod and pollock, federal statistics show...

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/29/business/29fish-web.html?ref=health

[Horse with no Name]

1. I have started buying my produce STRICTLY from local farmers

I don't have the variety that I am accustomed to, but that is okay.
I have also started buying my meat from a local meat locker. They buy their beef locally and slaughter it themselves.
I threw out all of our toothpaste and now use Tom's of Maine.
The ONLY way this shit will stop is when consumers decide that it isn't acceptable.

[emilyg]

2. Our $$$$ power

Stop buying everything made in China.

[Horse with no Name]

3. WE are a powerful lobby

if we would just use our power wisely.
Giving up variety is a small price to pay.