Government Fails Seafood Inspections

Import Alert: Government Fails Consumers, Falls Short on Seafood Inspections

One out of four Americans, or 76 million people, experiences a foodborne illness each year. Of those, 325,000 are hospitalized and 5,000 die. Seafood products cause approximately 18 percent to 20 percent of the known outbreaks of foodborne illnesses each year.¹

Today, Americans eat more than 16 pounds of seafood per person per year – almost 30 percent more than 25 years ago.^2,8 Meanwhile, the U.S. population has grown steadily. More people eating more seafood has yielded a 70 percent – or two billion pound – increase in overall seafood consumption.^2,9 That equals the weight of about 270,000 Hummer H2 sport utility vehicles.¹⁰

More Seafood from Overseas Industrial Fish Farms

The United States increasingly relies on imports to satisfy consumers’ appetites for cheap seafood.² Between 1995 and 2005, the share of imported seafood rose from 54 percent to 81 percent.^12,13,14,2 As demand for seafood rises, the populations of wild fish are waning. According to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, about 75 percent of world fisheries are overfished. In response, companies, governments, and many policymakers see industrial seafood farming – aquaculture – as the profitable way to satisfy consumer demand. Indeed, aquaculture now produces half of the world’s seafood.³

Americans are largely unaware of the health concerns associated with imported aquaculture products. The crowded, unsanitary conditions in these industrial fish farms breed bacteria, viruses, and parasites, forcing producers to use antibiotics and chemicals to prevent disease outbreaks. Residues of these chemicals then end up in the fish where they can harm the consumers who eat it. Furthermore, transport of seafood over long distances presents opportunities for contamination and decomposition due to improper handling and refrigeration.

Under-Funded Food Safety Inspectors

shrimp with limes The U.S. government’s Food and Drug Administration has a mandate to oversee the safety of seafood imports by inspect-ing shipments at the border. In reality, lack of money meant that FDA physically inspected less than two percent of all import shipments in 2006, and inspected only 0.59 percent of imports in a laboratory.

FDA oversees the safety of 80 percent of all food products, yet it receives only about 35 percent of the total food safety budget each year. The agency’s 1,962 inspectors are responsible for oversight at 298,236 plants in the United States and overseas.^17,18 In recent years, global trade has changed the nature of food inspection as more and more of the oversight has shifted to imported food. FDA predicts that imported food shipments in 2007 will be 50 percent higher than in 1999.¹⁹

Troubling Trends in Seafood Imports

Analysis of FDA refusals of imported seafood shipments from 2003 to 2006 revealed some troubling trends:

Of the imports refused, more than 70 percent were processed seafood products, which are exempt from country of origin labeling requirements that the U.S. Department of Agriculture oversees. In addition to the country of origin, the labels must say whether the product was farmed or wild caught.
More than 20 percent of all import refusals were due to Salmonella. Of those, more than 40 percent were shrimp, Americans’ favorite seafood. Shrimp imports increased by 95 percent between 1995 and 2005, contributing to the overall growth in seafood imports.
The government is refusing more seafood because of veterinary drug residues – including new drug varieties detected on Chinese products in 2005 and 2006. More than 60 percent of the refused imports in 2006 were from China.
The percentage of imported seafood shipments with samples taken for laboratory inspection has decreased over the past four years.

Trends in the global production of seafood make now a critical time for FDA to increase physical inspection of imported seafood. Congress should appropriate the money to make this happen, and USDA should expand country of origin labeling to include processed seafood products so consumers know where their seafood originates. Together, these measures would better ensure the safety of America’s seafood.

What can you do?

Choose wild-caught, sustainably produced, domestic seafood over imported, industrially produced fish. Consumers should ask grocery stores and restaurants where their seafood comes from and how it was produced.
Tell FDA to increase inspection of imported seafood, particularly products from industrial seafood farms.
Ask Congress to increase funding and oversight for FDA’s seafood import inspection program.
Tell USDA to expand country of origin labeling so that it includes processed seafood and expands to every store and restaurant.

See our report, Import Alert, for the footnotes.