GAO CRITICIZES FDA SEAFOOD IMPORT SAFETY PROGRAM AS “LIMITED”

The Government Accountability Office (GAO) has criticized the Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) program to oversee the safety of imported fish and seafood as ‘limited’, in a new report issued this week.

In its report, released under the title “Seafood Safety: FDA Needs to Improve Oversight of Imported Seafood and Better Leverage Limited Resources”, the GAO says that the (FDA) needs to strengthen its testing for unapproved drugs that may be used in some overseas fish farms for prevention of bacterial infections.

“FDA's oversight program to ensure the safety of imported seafood from residues of unapproved drugs is limited, especially as compared with the European Union,” the report said. “…The inspectors generally do not visit the farms to evaluate drug use or the capabilities, competence, and quality control of laboratories that analyze the seafood.”

Referring to assessments carried out by the FDA to gather information about five foreign countries’ aquaculture safety programs, the GAO said: “These assessments have been limited by FDA's lack of procedures, criteria, and standards.”

The GAO said that about half of seafood imported into the United States each year comes from fish farms. According to data from the US Department of Agriculture, about $14.7bn worth of fish and seafood was imported into the US last year, up from $13.1bn worth in 2009.

The full GAO report is available here http://www.gao.gov/new.items/d11286.pdf