Shellfish Warning Sought : Consumers: An advocacy group believes raw or partially cooked oysters, clams or mussels may cause “acute illness and even death” in certain high-risk individuals.

If a Washington-based consumer advocacy group has its way, supermarkets, restaurants and all other places selling molluskan shellfish will have to post signs warning that raw or partially cooked oysters, clams or mussels may cause “acute illness and even death” from microbiological contamination in certain high-risk individuals.

Those individuals considered to be at greatest danger of food poisoning include people with cancer, diabetes, liver disease, alcoholism, AIDS and kidney disease.

Public Voice for Food & Health Policy recently petitioned the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to mandate the cautionary labels in order to counter what it calls “inadequate” government regulation of certain shellfish species.

“As long as consumers are not being warned, they will continue to believe that raw or partially cooked shellfish is a safe food when there is evidence that it is not,” said Ellen Haas, Public Voice executive director and a seafood industry critic.

An FDA spokesperson said the group’s petition is under consideration and there’s no timetable for a decision. To those familiar with agency practices, the fact that the FDA did not outright reject the plea for warning labels indicates that policy makers are taking it seriously.

If adopted, however, such a step could be ruinous for shellfish interests because the language is likely to frighten away healthy consumers as well as those with the relevant illnesses.

One seafood industry representative called the Public Voice proposal “irresponsible.” “We don’t like the message that a warning label sends, namely, that government cannot assure the safety of the product,” said Tim Smith, executive director of the Pacific Coast Oyster Growers Assn., whose 120 members produce about 30% of the nation’s oysters. “We disapprove of the idea of placing the consumer in the role of (food safety) regulator.”

Currently, there is no comprehensive, mandatory seafood inspection program. Sales of oysters, clams and mussels are overseen by the Interstate Shellfish Sanitation Conference, a quasi-governmental body that includes representatives of the seafood industry as well as state and federal agencies. Critics say the conference does not do enough to force states to monitor water at shellfish harvesting sites for industrial pollutants or sewage.

At a recent meeting in Florida, the Shellfish Sanitation Conference responded to Public Voice’s call for warning labels by drafting a consumer informational message that could be used by markets and restaurants, said Karl Turner, executive director of the Louisiana Seafood Promotion and Marketing Board in New Orleans.

The conference’s proposed message reads: “These shellfish (oysters, clams or mussels) have been harvested and handled according to strict government safety and sanitation standards. However, as with some other raw foods, if you suffer from chronic liver disease, immune system deficiency or stomach disease, then you should eat your shellfish cooked.”

Haas said the industry’s voluntary plan is inadequate because “only those purveyors that choose to carry the statement will display it.”

Public Voice based its petition, sent to FDA Commissioner David A. Kessler, on several recent events, including the July discovery of infectious cholera bacteria in an oyster harvested in Mobile Bay, Ala., and the refusal of Louisiana state officials to close oyster harvesting beds in May after flooding had killed many of the shellfish.

Earlier this year, California became the first state to order all supermarkets or restaurants selling Gulf of Mexico oysters to post warnings alerting high risk groups to the potential presence of Vibrio vulnificus, a harmful bacteria. V. vulnificus, though relatively rare, has a fatality rate of more than 50% in infected individuals.

Since California’s unilateral action in March, evidence has mounted that raw molluskan shellfish pose the highest contamination risk of any food: one illness per 1,000 servings, according to federal estimates.

More than five million pounds of oysters are sold each year in California. However, according to industry estimates, sales have declined, in some cases dramatically, since the state’s warning requirement and news of other food-safety-related concerns.

California health officials said that they have no plans to expand their oyster warning to include Gulf of Mexico clams or mussels, nor to require warning signs for oysters from other regions such as the Pacific Northwest, the Northeastern Atlantic or abroad.

“The data that we had available--data that would withstand legal challenge--pointed to the product that was causing illnesses and that was the Gulf Coast oyster,” said Stuart Richardson, chief of the food and drug branch of the California Health Services Department in Sacramento. “Why not expand the warning requirement to (all molluskan shellfish)? Because the data did not show that to be necessary.”

In a general sense, Richardson said that consumers need to be careful when consuming any raw or undercooked animal product.

“There needs to be an educational effort for all consumers,” said Richardson, “that eating raw (meat, poultry or seafood) products means accepting a higher risk of illness than for a product that is thoroughly cooked or refrigerated in a way that will prevent contamination. That is a given.”

Beyond the formal warning for Gulf oysters, California health officials have also been distributing a flyer that expands the recommendation about molluskan shellfish. It states that “all (consumers) should avoid raw or improperly cooked shellfish.”

Smith, of the Pacific Coast Oyster Growers, said that West Coast shellfish should not be stigmatized for problems that are confined to the Gulf of Mexico.

“We are at the point where we need to look at regulating the industry based on the actual health risk,” he said. “Products from different growing areas need to be handled differently because the health risks are different.”

Smith’s group has diplomatically tried to distance itself from Gulf Coast oyster operations without hurting oyster sales in general. (Pacific Coast oyster operations are thought to be at an advantage in avoiding contamination because they operate in waters colder than the Gulf of Mexico, which provides a tempting environment for bacterial growth, especially in the summer months.)

“ V. vulnificus is not a health concern with shellfish other than from those out of the Gulf states,” Smith said. “There is no V. vulnificus on the West Coast. Our oysters haven’t been the source of the illnesses.”

Louisiana Seafood’s Turner has maintained that microbiological problems with shellfish are not limited to the Gulf species and that his region should not be singled out in any warning label requirements in California or elsewhere.