The FDA and NOAA say that Gulf seafood is fine. President Obama ate a fish taco yesterday made with Gulf fish.
So does that mean Gulf seafood is safe to eat?
I had hoped - for the sake of the Gulf fishermen and the entire Gulf economy - that the answer was yes. But after digging a bit, I'm not so sure.
For example, Local fishermen don't trust the safety of the fish:
"Fishermen here are calling it 'Voodoo seafood' because we are all cursed," said Bill Thompson of Long Beach, Mississippi. Fishermen from Texas, Louisiana, Alabama, Mississippi and Florida gathered in Biloxi last week to discuss their fears.
"We do not think it is safe but the state officials say it is. Who do you trust? The people that know these waters or the government?" Thompson added.
Neither do local shrimpers:
The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) reports that of all the samples of seafood that have been tested since the oil spill, none have shown evidence of contamination.
While some in the coastal seafood industry agree with these assessments, a majority seem to view the news with a sense of betrayal.
"The cleanup isn't even close to being done," said Karen Hopkins of Dean Blanchard Seafood, which accounts for about 11 percent of the U.S. shrimp supply, on the barrier island of Grand Isle.
"The last thing I want to do is scare anyone away from the seafood down here," said Dawn Nunez, standing at the counter of the shrimp wholesale business and deli she owns in the tiny fishing town of Hopedale. "But if I’m not eating it or feeding it to my children, I can’t advise anyone else to eat it either."
Indeed, crabs and crab larvae have been discovered filled with oil. See this and this.
As AOL news notes:
Petroleum contamination is known to cause cancer and brain damage. But how much oil and gas does it take to make seafood dangerous?
Obviously, low doses of even the strongest poison won't cause health problems, so it is all a question of how much oil - if any - is making it into Gulf seafood. But as the AOL News article notes, BP might be lobbying to raise the amount of oil in seafood which is considered safe. ...
via Is Gulf Seafood Safe? → Washington's Blog.
I think the president's food is all taken care of by the Secret Service and by the White House cooking staff. How do we know the fish in the taco really came from the gulf? What part of the gulf? It would be great if there were some good cheap contamination detection methods for sea food.
1 comment:
For people whose income depends on selling seafood to say, "The cleanup isn’t even close to being done," and "if I’m not eating it or feeding it to my children, I can’t advise anyone else to eat it either," means a whole lot.
This we've known for a long time: the U.S. State Dept as lot of people in who represent or have been officials in several industries, including petroleum. They influence U.S. foreign policy to a considerable extent and have done so since the 1950s (as in the CIA-rigged coup of a popularly elected president in Iran).
When there is a "revolving door," so it is sometimes called, between policy makers, government officials and industry officials, why shouldn't we expect that the Gulf-BP Oil Spill to made to appear less serious an issue, than it really? Why shouldn't we expect members of the executive branch of the government, including the president, to say that the Gulf seafood is fit eat? That is, despite whatever (false) impressions we made have received during his illustrious campaign to get elected?
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