U.S. seafood imports from as many as 140 countries reached 6 billion pounds by 2015, with 50 percent coming from foreign fish farms.
“As imports of farmed seafood increase, so too do the concerns over the presence of drug residues,” says a new U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) report prepared for Sen. Thad Cochran, R-TN,…
Representative Blake Farenthold, R-TX, has reintroduced a bill intended to cut down on seafood fraud and protect American fishermen. He says his Protecting Honest Fishermen Act would level the playing field for Americans who play by the rules and have to compete with foreign fishing operations that mislabel products.
Farenthold was joined in the introduction…
Editor’s note on update: A list of specific retail locations that received the recalled product is now available on the USDA’s Food Safety and Inspection Service website. Click here for the list which may be updated as additional information becomes available. The U.S. border has suddenly become meaningful to importers of Siluriformes, including foreign catfish.…
In the 1990s, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) used proteins to identify seafood, but the profiling method could only match to a standard sample. They had to have frozen tissues from all of the species they wanted to compare and the agency did have a collection to work with, but no matter how…
Members of the U.S. shrimp industry are voicing concerns that elements of a major trade deal, the Trans-Pacific Partnership, could weaken the ability of regulators to reject unsafe seafood imports. The concern arises as more shrimp imports from Southeast Asia are testing positive for banned antibiotics and foodborne pathogens. 
More than 90 percent of the…
Last week, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) issued warning letters to a veterinarian, a juice producer, and two seafood facilities – one processor and an importer. FDA wrote to Dr. Rebecca W. Allen, DVM, of Vergennes, VT, about extralabel use of approved veterinary or human drugs in animals that didn’t comply with…
U.S. Sen. David Vitter (R-LA) introduced a bill this past week that would amend the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act to ensure the safety of imported seafood. According to the American Shrimp Processors Association (ASPA), which supports the bill, S. 190 increases inspection standards on foreign imported seafood, requires foreign exporters to meet U.S.…
There may be as many opinions about the safety of imported seafood as there are types of imported seafood. The American palate is currently limited to about 10 favored species, yet in other countries, edible kinds of seafood number in the dozens or perhaps hundreds. Compared with our taste for meat and poultry, American consumers…
