US bans some Chinese fish
June 29th, 2007 by ashish
China is suddenly getting hit with a bad rap over the quality of its products. First it was pet feed, toothpaste, and now it is fish supplied from China. Based on the fact that US inspectors found an unsatisfactory level of quality in Chinese fish farms, and found drugs in the seafood that were not approved in the USA for seafood. China must be feeling a backlash over the quality levels, with the Government actually giving a ‘guarantee’ over the quality of Chinese exports.
Even though US officials are trying to not sound alarmist, it is a fact that they found stuff in the seafood that should not have been there as per US policies. The ban is a blanket ban, with individual importers having to prove that their seafood meets the quality levels. The problem that Chinese exporters face is that there is a sudden upsurge of such stories, with the media ready to splash them all over. This makes people suspicious of Chinese goods that they are using or consuming.
Federal health officials said Thursday they were detaining three types of Chinese fish catfish, basa and dace as well as shrimp and eel after repeated testing turned up contamination with drugs unapproved in the United States for use in farmed seafood. The officials said there have been no reports of illnesses nor do the products pose any immediate health risk. They stopped short of ordering a ban on the fresh and frozen seafood.
The FDA said sampling of Chinese imported fish between October and May repeatedly found traces of the antibiotics nitrofuran and fluoroquinolone, as well as the antifungals malachite green and gentian violet. Of particular concern are the fluoroquinolones, a family of widely used human antibiotics that the FDA forbids in seafood in part to prevent bacteria from developing resistance to these important drugs. The best known example is ciprofloxacin, sold as Cipro, which made headlines as a treatment during the 2001 anthrax attacks.
What was so far minmised the danger so far as well as the impact is that no one in the US has so far been proved to have died or suffered a major illness due to these quality problems. If such an eventuality happens, there will be a far greater reaction, with maybe calls in Congress to have better regulations. The Chinese Government needs to have much better control over their quality checks.
