Recent Reports from Gulf Indicate Genetic Defects in Seafood; Gov’t Monitoring, Analysis of Safety May be Inadequate
 
WASHINGTON (April 20, 2012) – Two years after the worst offshore oil spill in U.S. history began, the effects are still being felt today. Marshes are still oiled. Businesses are still recovering. And in particular, the safety of Gulf seafood is still a concerning issue and in need of constant monitoring and analysis.
 
Responding to the concern about Gulf seafood and the need to help the industry flourish as it has before the BP spill, Rep. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) today asked the Food and Drug Administration and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration what steps they were taking to conduct the current and long-term impacts of the BP spill on Gulf seafood.
 
“The waves of oil may have stopped coming ashore, but the ripple effects of the spill can still be felt throughout the Gulf. Perhaps no single long-term issue regarding the spill is more important than the safety of Gulf seafood, and the need to help the region’s shrimpers and fishermen regain their strong economic footing,” said Rep. Markey, who is the top Democrat on the Natural Resources Committee, a senior Member of the House Energy and Commerce Committee and was the leading Congressional investigative force into the spill.
 
The letters from Rep. Markey to the FDA and NOAA can be found below.
 
As the letter notes, while the FDA and NOAA continue to assert seafood from the Gulf of Mexico is adequately tested and safe for human consumption, recent analyses have called into question the methods the federal government used to analyze safety. One of these studies claims that the assumptions and criteria that the FDA and NOAA used to determine safety and to open Gulf waters for commercial fishing significantly underestimated the risk to certain populations, including women and children. Other reports contend that the government seafood testing program only focused on ensuring the seafood was free of crude oil components and overlooked other harmful chemicals, such as those that were used in dispersants.
 
During the BP Deepwater Horizon spill, Rep. Markey pressed federal regulators to take action to ensure the safety of seafood harvested from the Gulf of Mexico. A full list of those efforts can be found HERE.
 
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