1 Million Pounds of Chinese Seafood Missed Inspections by FDA
Updated August 2007: At least 1 million pounds of Chinese seafood were sent to American grocery stores without being screened for banned drugs and chemicals. The frozen shrimp, catfish, and eel had an “import alert” which means that the FDA was supposed to hold all the shipments until every one passed laboratory tests.
But according to the Associated Press, one in every four shipments they reviewed were sent to stores without being tested. The amount of seafood that missed testing is equal to the amount that 66,000 Americans consume each year. The seafood had an import alert because a number of Chinese seafood imports were found to have dangerous carcinogens.
This finding raises concerns about the FDA’s ability to keep Americans safe from toxic products. A former manager of import inspections, Carl R. Nielsen, stated, “The system is outdated and it doesn’t work well. They pretend it does, but it doesn’t.”
The FDA only inspects about 1% of all the products imported into the U.S., but goods with import alerts are supposed to be held until they are found to be safe. Many of the shipments that missed inspection were not tested because a company used a different name than what was on the import alert or workers who review shipments missed some products that were tagged for testing.
On the other hand Chinese officials have promised that food inspection and safety would be made a higher priority. The country’s food and drug watchdog plans on spending $1 billion on a five year plan to improve their food and drug safety. So far, some products from China are still found to be deficient and have been recalled.
From the look of AP’s findings, the United States, not just China, need to improve standards for food and drug safety inspections.