Category: Press Releases

COCHRAN WANTS USDA FOOD SAFETY NOMINEE TO SUPPORT CATFISH INSPECTIONS

Congressional Documents
May 27, 2010

WASHINGTON, D.C. – U.S. Senator Thad Cochran (R-Miss.) today indicated that he wants the Obama Administration’s nominee to lead the U.S. Department of Agriculture Food Safety and Inspection Service to support implementation of a federal law to begin inspections of catfish.

Cochran serves on the Senate Agriculture, Nutrition and Forestry Committee that today conducted a confirmation hearing on the nomination of Dr. Elisabeth Hagen to be the USDA Undersecretary for Food Safety.

Cochran submitted a question to Hagen regarding the implementation of a catfish inspection program as mandated in the 2008 Farm Bill. Proposed USDA rules for such inspections were issued in February, but were subjected to a 90-day hold in February by the White House Office of Management and Budget.

“While the catfish inspection regulations are still under review within the White House, I am hopeful we can see a resolution of this issue soon. I would like a commitment from Dr. Hagen that she will take swift and decisive action to institute new policies requiring the Food Safety and Inspection Service to enforce standards for all catfish sold in the United States,” Cochran said.

“The aquaculture industry in Mississippi and around the country believes the American public deserves to know that any catfish they purchase meets food safety standards,” he said.

The Senate Agriculture Committee must favorably recommend Hagen’s nomination before it can be forwarded to the full Senate for confirmation.

In March, Cochran also pressed Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack on the lack of action in implementing the catfish inspections. In the President’s FY2011 budget request, the administration submitted a proposal to rescind $10.3 million of the $15.3 million provided by Congress for the USDA Catfish Inspection Program.

Food Safety Website SAFECATFISH.COM Launched Today

Highlights Dangers of Imported Catfish

PRESS RELEASE
For Immediate Release:
May 24, 2010

A new food safety website promoting tougher inspections and regulation of imported and domestic catfish is being launched Monday, May 24, at www.safecatfish.com.

The website exposes the health and safety dangers to American consumers created by the Food and Drug Administration’s weak inspection system for imported seafood. The site includes a graphic new investigative report, “Dirty Waters, Dangerous Fish,” which shows current evidence of unsafe catfish farming practices along the polluted and contaminated Mekong River in Vietnam.

Currently the FDA, which is responsible for the inspection of catfish and other seafood, inspects only two percent of the 5.2 billion pounds of seafood imported into the United States from foreign countries, according to the Government Accountability Office.

Among the two percent of seafood imports from Vietnam inspected by the FDA during a recent four-year period, nearly one in every five shipments was found to contain catfish and other seafood products contaminated with potentially deadly chemicals or drugs that are banned by the United States in farm-raised catfish, according to FDA records.

The U.S. Congress, responding to evidence of serious problems with the quality of imported catfish, voted two years ago to move catfish inspections and regulation from the FDA to USDA. This important food safety law has become entangled in bureaucratic red tape, and is now being threatened by yet more delays. The Office of the U.S. Trade Representative, which has no authority over food safety issues, is holding up the law over concerns that protecting U.S. consumers could harm Vietnamese fish farmers and U.S.-Vietnamese trade relations.

The new website, www.safecatfish.com, also will post on Monday a new series of letters between Congressional offices and the federal agencies involved in enforcing the law that reveal political efforts to dilute important food safety protections.

The political attempts to derail the law designed to protect American consumers comes as the amount of catfish imported to the United States from Vietnam is increasing dramatically. Vietnamese catfish imports have quadrupled in the past five years from 19 million pounds in 2004 to 85 million in 2009, according to U.S. government figures.

The website also provides links to numerous Vietnamese and other Asian news media accounts of Vietnamese government officials warning their own catfish farmers to improve farm safety practices, halt the use of drugs banned in other countries and upgrade the quality of the water used in their catfish ponds.

Contact:
1-888-486-4150
info@safecatfish.com
www.safecatfish.com