Protecting public health and ensuring the safety of seafood is a shared priority for NOAA, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), the Gulf states, and Gulf fishermen in the wake of the BP Deepwater Horizon oil spill. One of the first actions taken was to close oiled waters to fishing, so fishermen would not catch tainted seafood and bring them back to shore. Opening those waters after oil receded required extensive testing. Here are some of the most frequently asked questions about Gulf seafood safety.
Gulf Seafood Safety: A Primer
Sandra O’Neill, a fish biologist from NOAA’s Northwest Fisheries Science Center, prepares a tissue sample for sensory and chemical analysis.Protecting public health and ensuring the safety of seafood is a shared priority for NOAA, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), the Gulf states, and Gulf fishermen in the wake of the BP Deepwater Horizon oil spill. One of the first actions taken was to close oiled waters to fishing, so fishermen would not catch tainted seafood and bring them back to shore. Opening those waters after oil receded required extensive testing. Here are some of the most frequently asked questions about Gulf seafood safety.
How is Gulf seafood tested?
NOAA, the FDA and the Gulf states agreed to follow the same plan: first, oiled waters had to be closed to fishing. Once oil was no longer observed in the area, seafood samples were taken, following a sampling plan approved by the FDA. The closer an area was to the site of the spill, the more samples were taken. Once back at the lab, all the samples from that area had to pass both a sensory (smell and taste) and a chemical test. If even one sample failed, the area could not be opened to fishing.
What do the results show?
Gulf seafood is passing tests with flying colors. For each of the 12 hydrocarbons of concern picked up in the chemical test, the seafood is routinely testing 100 to 1000 times lower than FDA’s pass-fail threshold known as the level of concern. Seafood experts are confident that contaminants from the…