Writing on the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) blog last week, Taylor said that seafood safety was likely to come into the spotlight again, as the Fish and Wildlife Service is due to hold public meetings on how to restore damage to natural resources resulting from the April 2010 Gulf of Mexico oil spill. Taylor outlined the testing that has been carried out since the spill, and safe levels of consumption.
“The best way to understand how safe Gulf seafood is, is to visualize how much seafood you could eat and still not reach the levels of concern,” he wrote.
“Given the low levels of PAHs we found, when we found them at all, someone could eat 63 lbs of peeled shrimp (that’s 1,575 jumbo shrimp); or 5 lbs. of oyster meat (that’s 130 individual oysters); or 9 lbs. of fish (that’s 18 8-ounce fish filets) every day for five years and still not reach the levels of concern. We feel confident that the levels that were set are safe and protect the health of anyone who eats seafood, including children and pregnant women.”
The FDA, in conjunction with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association (NOAA), tested for polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), which stay in seafood longer than other oil hydrocarbons. Both agencies have repeatedly said that seafood from the region is safe to eat. They have claimed that 99% of samples tested have had no detectable residue at all, and samples have passed tests at 100 to 1,000 times less that the levels of concern set for contaminants.
The most recent concern over the safety of seafood from the Gulf was raised by a study published in the journal Environmental Health Perspectives by researchers from the National Defense Resources Council (NDRC). They claimed that the FDA may have overestimated safe levels of carcinogenic PAHs for vulnerable populations, such as pregnant women and children.
However, the FDA continues to claim that seafood from the region is safe, even for these vulnerable populations.
“A great deal of effort was invested after the Gulf spill so that we could provide an answer to one question: Is Gulf seafood safe to eat? Yes, Gulf seafood is safe to eat, and it is safe to eat for everyone,” he wrote.