via Say It Ain't So Already
Seriously?
Here’s a report from the Kingsport Times News:
Despite splotches of chocolate-colored crude that wash up almost daily on protective boom and in marshes east of the Mississippi River, Louisiana has reopened those waters to fishing for such finfish varieties as redfish, mullet and speckled trout, and will allow shrimping when the season begins in two weeks. Oysters and blue crabs, which retain contaminants longer, are still off-limits.Smell tests on dozens of specimens from the area revealed barely detectable traces of toxic substances, the Food and Drug Administration said. The state of Louisiana has also been testing fish tissue for oil since May and has not found it in amounts considered unsafe.
In Mississippi on Monday, FDA Commissioner Dr. Margaret Hamburg said the government is “confident all appropriate steps have been taken to ensure that seafood harvested from the waters being opened today is safe and that Gulf seafood lovers everywhere can be confident eating and enjoying the fish and shrimp that will be coming out of this area.”
Similarly, BP chief operating officer Doug Suttles said Sunday that authorities “wouldn’t open these waters … if it wasn’t safe to eat the fish.” He said he would eat Gulf seafood and “serve it to my family.”
Experts say smell tests may sound silly but are a proven technique that saves time and money. Moreover, they are the only way to check fish for chemical dispersants, though FDA spokeswoman Meghan Scott said government scientists are developing a tissue test. It is not clear when it will be ready.
Federal scientists say that unlike mercury, which accumulates in some fish, the most common cancer-causing compounds in oil are quickly metabolized and eliminated in the bodies of finfish and some crustaceans.
On the one hand, I understand the need to re-open the waters as soon as possible to ensure that people can make a living, but using human smellers, and spot checks of tissue seems like a whole lot of assumption. Color me skeptical.
The FDA has declined repeated requests to provide information about the toxic substances that were found, but the agency is mostly looking for polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, or PAHs, which have been linked to cancer. The compound is found in many foods, such as corn oil, kale and smoked meats. Scientists studying the 1989 Exxon Valdez spill in Alaska found that the villagers’ own smoked fish contained levels of the contaminant hundreds of times higher than those found in the shellfish tainted by the oil spill.As for the dispersants, the Environmental Protection Agency said the ones used in the Gulf have low toxicity in humans, meaning the public health risk is low.
Ralph Portier, an aquatic toxicologist at Louisiana State University, said that all the data and testing he has reviewed so far show that seafood caught in the recently reopened areas of the Gulf is safe, and he would feel comfortable eating it. President Barack Obama ate Gulf seafood when he visited Mississippi a few weeks ago.
“The major theme here should be that we have no indication that there’s a problem. We have not seen dispersant or the telltale signs of oil in finfish and shrimp,” Portier said.
But his colleague Kevin Kleinow, a professor of aquatic toxicology, said he is laying off Gulf seafood until the government releases more specifics about the testing it conducted, including exactly what species are being monitored and what levels of toxic substances are being found.
He said he is also concerned that a smell test won’t sniff out dispersants. “Some of them — we’ve done work on a number of surfactants that are used in dispersants — have very little odor,” he said.
Ok, this doesn’t make me feel any better at all. Our first line of defense is smellers and some of the dispersants don’t smell. Great.
It seems like caution would take the day in this case, but apparently not. As much as I want the fishermen in the Gulf to be able to make a living and sustain their families, I don’t want it at the expense of the health of consumers, and that seems to be what’s happening here.
All the parties involved in this disaster should be compensating these folks for their loss of income, and the Government should be more concerned about food safety than getting these folks back in the water. Further, the FDA’s reluctance to release data should call the whole thing into question.
Finally, if the fishermen won’t eat their own catch that tells me all I need to know. They’re jumping the gun on this one, and the people who lose are all of us, fishermen included.