FDA fails to apply strict standards to Asian seafood imports
By Stephen J. Hedges
CHICAGO TRIBUNE
Sunday, Sep. 16 2007
WASHINGTON - The Food and Drug Administration responded to jitters over
Chinese
imports recently by banning some of that country's seafood because of
contaminants. But the agency has failed to apply the same standard to
seafood
supplied from other large exporters that use the same chemicals and
fish-farming techniques.
Imports from Vietnam, Thailand and Indonesia, for instance, have continued
apace, despite the fact that fish-farming techniques in those Asian
countries
are similar to those cited by the FDA when it issued an import alert in June
targeting Chinese fish.
"This is not just a China problem," said Bradford Ward, an attorney in
Washington who represents the Southern Shrimp Alliance, a group of U.S.
shrimp
producers. "Why are other countries trading a lot, going ahead with shrimp
imports and not attracting FDA attention?"
While FDA regulators focus on China, Vietnam, in particular, has been cited
by
other countries for the use of antibiotics and other chemicals in its
fish-farming ponds - the same substances that were cited by the FDA in its
"import alert" regarding certain Chinese seafood, such as shrimp and
catfish.
Japan and the European Union have recently raised concerns about the use of
banned antibiotics in Vietnamese fish farms. The FDA recently issued special
import alerts for Asian seafood companies - but not countries - similar to
the
one issued for all of China. The alerts require the companies to prove,
through
lab tests, that their products are safe.
Eighty-five percent of the seafood consumed in the United States is
imported.
The FDA focuses on countries and companies that are known to provide
contaminated fish, according to Donald Kraemer, deputy director of the
agency's
Office of Food Safety. That targeted approach, he said, led to the Chinese
import alert and consideration of a similar ban against Vietnam several
years
ago.
"Over time we have seen problems come and go in different countries,"
Kraemer
said. "For example, a major producer of imported products is Thailand. We
continue to collect samples from Thailand, but we almost never find
violations."
Chet Trirat, assistant to the minister of commercial at the Thai embassy in
Washington, said the use of antibiotics in fish farming in Thailand was
strictly controlled.
"The use of foreign substances is illegal in Thailand," he said.
Yet FDA records show that inspectors denied entry to 203 Thai seafood
products
through August of this year. Typical causes included not antibiotics, but
salmonella and products that inspectors found were "filthy."
The popularity of seafood in the United States and Europe has led Asian
countries to promote the production of fish.
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