At least 1 million pounds of suspect Chinese seafood landed on American store shelves and dinner plates despite a Food and Drug Administration order that the shipments first be screened for banned drugs or chemicals, an Associated Press investigation found.
The frozen shrimp, catfish and eel arrived at U.S. ports under an “import alert,” which meant the FDA was supposed to hold every shipment until it had passed a laboratory test.
But that did not happen, according to an AP check of shipments since last fall. One of every four shipments AP reviewed got through without being stopped and tested.
The seafood, valued at $2.5 million, was equal to the amount 66,000 Americans eat in a year.
FDA officials stuck the pond-raised seafood on their watch list because of worries it contained suspected carcinogens or antibiotics not approved for seafood.
No illnesses have been reported, but the episode raises serious questions about the FDA’s ability to police the safety of America’s food imports.
“The system is outdated, and it doesn’t work well. They pretend it does, but it doesn’t,” said Carl R. Nielsen, who oversaw import inspections at the agency until he left in 2005 to start a consulting firm. “You can’t make the assumption that these would be isolated instances.”
President Bush has asked a Cabinet-level panel to recommend better imported-food safeguards. Chinese officials have promised to inspect fish farms closely for the use of drugs and chemicals, even as they called the FDA’s testing mandate illegal under world trade rules.
FDA officials acknowledged that some shipments slip through import alerts but said overall they work.
