‘Our Entire Motivation is Public Health,’ Says FDA Scientist
Despite a battalion of voices from the scientific and culinary world confirming the current safety of Gulf of Mexico seafood, skeptics persist.
Lisa Jackson, EPA administrator and chair of the Gulf Coast Ecosystem Restoration Task Force, speaks at a task force meeting in New Orleans.
That’s why, at a recent gathering of the Gulf Coast Ecosystem Restoration Task Force, EPA administrator Lisa Jackson asked Food and Drug Administration (FDA) scientists whether they’d witnessed this level of rigor in seafood testing ever — anywhere.
No, replied Dr. Robert Dickey, who has conducted research in marine biology and seafood safety for 30 years.
“I think this is the most intense testing that I have ever heard of coming out of any wild catch fishery, or aquaculture fishery, for that matter,” said Dr. Dickey.
Gulf seafood on the market continues to be safe, he said, briefly reviewing the testing protocol followed after the oil spill. Effected fisheries were closed, as were additional waters as a precautionary measure. All fisheries were heavily tested before being allowed to reopen. Those same fisheries continue to be monitored by the FDA’s extended surveillance testing.
Dr. Robert Dickey of FDA's Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition speaks about the safety of Gulf seafood.
“Our entire motivation is public health and safety,” Dr. Robert Dickey, who directs the FDA’s Gulf Coast Seafood Lab in Dauphin Island, Alabama.
“It is centered around that, and everything else takes second place to our ability to ensure the safety of food products that are brought on the market in the United States. Our standard is science.”
The emphasis of the FDA presentation was on the extended surveillance testing that began in October. According to the report, as of February 23, 2011, the FDA has visited 106 seafood processors and wholesalers across the Gulf Coast, inspecting the plants for HACCP plans as well as collected seafood samples. Since October, 1,400 seafood specimens have been collected, averaging 281 specimens tested per month.
“Results from extended surveillance testing, to date, again to February 23, are identical to those from the reopening sample analysis. PAHs levels are 100 to 1,000 times below level of concern and dispersant is also either not detectable or 1,000 times below levels of concern.”
Dickey addressed questions about the consumed consumption rate used to calculate those levels of concern which has come under some scrutiny by what he called, “admitted unscientific surveys.”
According to the Dickey, he and his colleagues at the FDA use the Center of Disease Control’s national nutrition survey. “We have to go with a validated database,” he explained. They then looked at the 99th percentile of seafood eaters only — the largest consumers of those who eat seafood.
Seafood testing will be conducted by the FDA through October of 2012. Need for continued testing after the two years of extended surveillance will be determined then, after a review of the data.
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