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The Food and Drug Administration announced today that a broader import control would take place on all farm-raised catfish, basa, shrimp, dace, and eel from China. The FDA will start to hold these goods at the border until the shipments are confirmed to be free of residue from drugs that are not approved in the United States (unlike drugs that they allow the Americans to use) for use in farm-raised aquatic animals.
This act by FDA, will shield American customers from dangerous residues that have been detected in these products. There have been no reports of illnesses to date. But taking the FDA's word for that is like blindly walking into a fire and hoping you will be ok.
They say there taking this step because of current and continuing evidence that some Chinese aquaculture products imported into the US contain banned substances that are not acceptable in seafood sold in the United States. While no one from the FDA has said why they are allowing any of the products from china in here, it is obvious that just about everything coming in from china seems like it will kill you.
During targeted sampling from October 2006 through May 2007, The FDA continually found that farm-raised seafood imported from China was contaminated with antimicrobial agents that are not approved in the United States. Now maybe if they would have put the poisons that the FDA does allow everything would have been fine.
The contaminants were the antimicrobials nitrofuran, malachite green, gentian violet, and fluoroquinolone. Nitrofuran, malachite green, and gentian violet have been shown to be a cause of cancer with long-term exposure in lab animals. The use of fluoroquinolones in food animals may increase antibiotic resistance to this seriously important class of antibiotics.
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