GAO Seeks Better Shellfish Safety Rules

Government inspections and food safety rules for oysters and other shellfish have failed to protect consumers from food poisoning illness and death, according to a report released Thursday by congressional investigators who are recommending more aggressive measures.

Although the Food and Drug Administration has imposed new safety requirements to stem the 100,000 annual cases of food poisoning linked to shellfish, these requirements don’t address some of the biggest health risks, such as deadly Vibrio vulnificus bacteria, the General Accounting Office report said.

The FDA doesn’t allocate enough staff to oversee state shellfish inspectors in high-production and high-risk areas such as Louisiana’s Gulf Coast to make sure producers are following the rules.

“This report proves that we just aren’t doing a good enough job inspecting shellfish,” said Sen. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa), who, along with Sen. Richard G. Lugar (R-Ind.), requested the report. “[The FDA does] the same number of inspections in the very largest shellfish-producing states as the very smallest.”

The GAO report is the second this year detailing weaknesses in oversight of the seafood business, which was largely unregulated until recent years. The first report, issued in February, focused mainly on the FDA’s oversight of fish processors and distributors.

The report recommends that the FDA require processors to put in place new bacterium control techniques, such as cold pasteurization, and require handlers to refrigerate oysters after they are harvested. Harmful bacteria such as Vibrio vulnificus thrive in warm conditions, such as the waters of the Gulf of Mexico in summer.

There are no such requirements currently. The shellfish industry instead has run awareness campaigns aimed at getting people with compromised immune systems--such as those with cancer, HIV and diabetes--to stay away from raw shellfish.

Critics say that’s not enough.

“It would be like the USDA telling the beef industry to go solve the problem with E. coli and, by the way, take all the time you need,” said Caroline Smith DeWaal of the Center for Science in the Public Interest.

Until the shellfish industry adopts new safety practices, the center is urging customers not to eat Gulf oysters in the warm months, and it has begun distributing stickers, signs and other information with the “Serving Safer Shellfish” logo to restaurants and retailers so customers know that raw Gulf shellfish isn’t served there.

Food industry executives say that’s usually not necessary in California. Most restaurants in the state don’t serve Gulf oysters because of the warnings they must post. These warnings of illness or death tend to turn off customers and reduce sales, said Matt Stein, chief seafood officer of King’s Seafood Co. in Long Beach. His company’s restaurants, including Water Grill and King’s Fish House, serve only oysters from the Pacific Northwest and colder waters off Maine and Rhode Island.

But he also believes the risk of getting sick from Gulf oysters is small, just as the risk of someone getting sick from eating sushi is small.

Because the FDA does not require regular testing for microbes in oysters, clams, mussels and scallops after harvest, the report says, the agency has no idea if food safety requirements are effective at reducing dangerous bacteria.

FDA officials say they leave testing and inspections up to the states. But there is no central database or other easy way for agency officials to access state information, the report says.

The FDA says it is working on developing lower-cost tests to detect bacteria and common viruses, such as the Norwalk virus, which cause the vast majority of illnesses and result in only stomach aches and diarrhea.

However, one of the biggest gaps in oversight of the shellfish industry is that regulations don’t address some of the biggest risks, such as Vibrio vulnificus, a bacteria naturally occurring primarily in oysters that kills an average of 16 people a year.

Since 1989, Vibrio has been responsible for 275 illnesses. Of these, 143 people died, according to FDA statistics.

Although the FDA required the seafood industry to adopt “hazard analysis and critical control point” guidelines in 1997, these guidelines don’t consider Vibrio a hazard because it harms only people with weakened immune systems, the report said.

FDA officials acknowledge that Vibrio is a problem that needs to be addressed, but they say they are working with the International Shellfish Sanitation Conference, a group of shellfish industry leaders and state officials, to come up with solutions.

Because most of the initial concerns about shellfish dealt with sewage contamination, most responsibility for shellfish inspection has been delegated to the states. State health officials conduct plant inspections, which FDA officials review. However, ISSC, the shellfish industry group, is responsible for crafting much of the industry’s safety policies, with the FDA simply concurring or rejecting the proposals.