A dozen carpet-bombed, irradiated Gulf oysters on the half-shell please?
Government Accountability Office (GAO) staff are likely to politely say, "No thanks" to raw oysters and even to that Southern favorite turkey oyster dressing this Thanksgiving on Thursday. GAO’s new report says government must safe guard people from illness and death by Gulf oysters, but an oyster industry expert says GAO's report excluded the ongoing Gulf oil “spill” catastrophic human rights violation causing a Gulf bacteria explosion due to oil and Corexit carpet-bombing so the oysters need to be irradiated before sold. CNN's Anderson Cooper has finally reported on the Gulf catastrophe Monday night, although excluded showing how seafood is being "tested" as exposed in "The Big Fix."
"One issue that the folks including those in FDA should consider is the explosion of Vibrio vulnificus populations in coastal waters of the Gulf in response to BP's dispersed and sunken oil, especially in Louisiana," said Mississippi-based marine expert consultant with the oyster industry Dr. Ed Cake says.
"If those deposits of sunken oil persist for decades, as they have in the case of the 1979 Ixtoc-1 oil spill in Mexico's Bay of Campeche, then the incidence of oyster-related vibriosis may increase through no fault of the oyster industry."
Instead of reporting Gulf illnesses and deaths by eating oysters since the 2010 "oil spill," GOA reported that "since 2000, about 32 individuals a year in the United States have become ill from eating raw or undercooked oysters containing V. vulnificus, and about half have died."
Cake’s solution is to radiate oysters for human consumption. He’s pushing for the federal government to fund an in-shell (cobalt-60) irradiation facility for post-harvest treatment of live oysters.
"If officials in that agency (FDA) are really committed to further reduction of the already low-incidence of vibriosis in consumers of raw oysters from the Gulf, then they should welcome an opportunity to fund an irradiation facility in Louisiana," Cake says.
“To say Gulf oystermen have not had much cause for optimism since the 2010 BP oil spill is to put it lightly,” says Dan Flynn of Food Safety News Tuesday, citing Texas Red Tide, Louisiana's dying oyster production and Mississippi water salinity since onset of the Gulf ecocide in April 2010.
The GAO’s recently issued new report, "Food Safety: FDA Needs to Reassess Its Approach to Reducing an Illness Caused by Eating Raw Oysters," says FDA should work with the oyster industry to develop a common safety agenda.
The GAO apparently thinks the government "sniff test" used to determine seafood safety is not good enough.
(See: "For sale: Untested Gulf shrimp" and "Parents, Do you know where your shrimp were? video")
Referring to Anderson Cooper's CNN report Monday night, showing it is finally beginning to re-look at the BP Gulf catastrophe, EPA Senior advisor and Gulf whistleblower Hugh Kaughman told Dupré in an internet message on Tuesday, "Too bad they didn't show how the Gulf seafood is actually 'tested' for safety."
Kaughman referred to "The Big Fix" documentary segment.
(Watch on this page: Clip from "The Big Fix" with Gulf locals showing and speaking about the Gulf seafood 'test')
"If FDA and ISSC are not in agreement on the illness reduction goal and strategies to achieve it, it will be difficult for the Gulf Coastal states to move forward to significantly reduce the number of consumption-related V. vulnificus illnesses," the new GAO report says.
Marion Nestle, public health nutrition professor and book author at "Food Politics" said, "This is yet another example of political pressures blocking the FDA from carrying out its mandated food safety responsibilities.”
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