Drug-Tainted Asian Fish Slip Into U.S., States Find

[donsu]

http://news.yahoo.com/s/bloomberg/20070802/pl_bloomberg/artnxigwpyoc;_ylt=Aich8jsUf73KQL6eCuUUgoOs0NUE


-snip-

Alabama officials have reported finding banned medicines missed by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration in seafood from China, Vietnam and other Asian countries.

``I'm sure that FDA would probably wish we'd go away,'' says Ron Sparks, commissioner of Alabama's Department of Agriculture and Industries, which conducts the seafood testing, in an interview. ``My wish is that they'd come to the table and work with us.''

Mississippi, Arkansas and Louisiana also have found banned drugs in imported seafood, according to statements by regulators in those states. The tests, conducted after the products cleared U.S. ports and were sent on for sale in grocery stores or restaurants, show the FDA isn't adequately protecting consumers from tainted fish, food safety advocates said.

-snip-

Yet, of 94 samples of Chinese catfish checked by Alabama since March, the state reports that 41 tested positive for fluoroquinolones, antibiotics banned in the U.S. for seafood. Of 13 more samples of species similar to catfish, including one called basa, five tested positive for the antibiotic. The exporting countries included Vietnam, Thailand and Malaysia.

Eating seafood with fluoroquinolones can increase resistance to similar antibiotics used in humans to fight infections, according to the FDA.

-snip-

Seafood from abroad accounted for 83 percent of seafood consumed in the U.S. last year,
-snip-
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clean, healthy food and water - a thing of the past?

[Gormy Cuss]

1. Farmed fish it seems, not wild caught.

Fish farmers in China and elsewhere use medications banned in the U.S. to prevent disease among animals raised in crowded and unsanitary conditions, according to a report in July by Food & Water Watch, a nonprofit consumer group in Washington.

Yet more evidence that a globalized food supply isn't in the best interests of a country that has the means to feed itself.

[MADem]

2. K/R. This is just BULLSHIT. BushCo can't check their zippers, never mind our food supply it seems.

[VP505]

3. Did they find

any loaded up with the good shit? Get your Omega 3 and a good buzz at the same time, what's not to like? Seriously we really need to pressure our Reps to get after the FDA for more through imported food inspection and get those Country of Origin Labels on everything. Consumers are getting hosed with higher prices and contaminated food while the FDA, (let me guess run by another Bu$h hack), doesn't do much of anything.

[kestrel91316]

4. I won't buy fish anymore unless it's specifically labeled Product of USA.

[Karenina]

5. And even that is a guarantee of -0-.

Catfish from the Gulf? :puke:

[kestrel91316]

6. I haven't eaten catfish in years. I think farmed catfish MIGHT be acceptable.

[Elwood P Dowd]

7. Alabama Official: "I'm sure that FDA would probably wish we'd go away,''

And I'm sure Bush and his incompetent FDA wish these pesky Alabama officials would go away.