Report Released on Consumer Health Risks of Imported Catfish

A new risk assessment study of imported catfish released today provides new evidence of the long-term consumer health risks of eating imported catfish raised in contaminated water and treated with drugs banned for use in U.S. fish-farming.

Eating contaminated imported fish could have serious long-term human health consequences, including longer-lasting illnesses that leave people less responsive to antibiotic medications and increases in drug-resistant pathogens that can be transmitted to humans via the food chain, according to the report researched and written by experts at Exponent Inc.'s Health Sciences Center for Chemical Regulation and Food Safety

Exponent expert Dr. Barbara Petersen also cited dangerous short-term health impacts, finding that imported catfish are twice as likely to be contaminated with salmonella as domestic fish.

The report stressed the importance of identifying risks and imposing appropriate controls before consumers contract illnesses that could frighten them from eating fish.

"Congress acted to address this critical public health issue when we passed the 2008 Farm bill over two years ago," Sen. Blanche Lincoln (D-Ark.), chair of the Senate Agriculture Committee said at a media briefing today where the report was released. "This bill clearly stated that the inspection of catfish should be shifted from the FDA to USDA because USDA has stricter and more comprehensive inspection requirements."

"Even more alarming is that FDA has only been inspecting about 2 percent of the 5.2 billion pounds of seafood we import into the U.S. each year," said Lincoln.

Lincoln noted that the consumer safety provision still has not been enacted and remains tied up in the federal bureaucracy.

"Now it is up to USDA to release the catfish inspection rule so that these regulations can finally be implemented and families across this country can be protected from contaminated catfish," said Lincoln.

The new study can be found at www.safecatfish.com.

For more information contact Molly Moore at molly@sandersonstrategies.com