William Mahan of the University of Florida demonstrates the smell testSeafood from some of the gulf Gulf of Mexico has been declared safe to eat by the government.
How do they know?
It's the smell smell tests of course, where inspectors sniff seafood for chemical odors, and that's all there is to it.
Once again we are being told, "don't worry, it's is safe to eat", but even some Gulf fishermen are not so sure if the fish and shrimp are really safe.
Something stinks with these smell tests and demands for more thorough testing is needed before the consumers feel at ease about the effects of the oil and the dispersants used.
"If I put fish in a barrel of water and poured oil and Dove detergent over that, and mixed it up, would you eat that fish?" asked an oyster fisherman and shrimp and crab fisherman from Louisiana's St. Bernard Parish. "I wouldn't feed it to you or my family. I'm afraid someone's going to get sick."
Smell tests revealed barely detectable traces of toxic substances, the Food and Drug Administration said.
This was determined with the smell test.
The state of Louisiana is also testing fish tissue for oil, and they have been doing that since May, and they have not found oil in amounts considered unsafe.
In Mississippi on Monday, FDA Commissioner Dr. Margaret Hamburg said the government is "confident all appropriate steps have been taken to ensure that seafood harvested from the waters being opened today is safe and that seafood lovers everywhere can be confident eating and enjoying the fish and shrimp that will be coming out of this area.
BP chief operating officer Doug Suttles said that authorities "wouldn't open these waters ... if it wasn't safe to eat the fish." He said he would eat Gulf seafood and "serve it to my family."
It reminds us of the mayor in the movie Jaws.
There they were, sitting on the beach and the mayor encourages everyone (including his own family) to get in the water, because it was safe.
Experts say the smell test may sound silly but it's proven technique that saves time and money.
(not lives necessarily)
As far as checking for chemical dispersants, the FDA said government scientists are developing a tissue test, but it's not clear when it will be ready.
Ralph Portier, an aquatic toxicologist at Louisiana State University, said that everything he has reviewed so far show that seafood caught in the recently reopened areas of the Gulf is safe, and he would feel comfortable eating it.
"The major theme here should be that we have no indication that there's a problem. We have not seen dispersant or the telltale signs of oil in finfish and shrimp," Portier said.
But his colleague Kevin Kleinow, a professor of aquatic toxicology isn't as confident.
He said he is won't be eating Gulf seafood until the government releases more specifics about the testing it conducted, including exactly what species are being monitored and what levels of toxic substances are being found.
He said he is also concerned that a smell test won't sniff out dispersants. "Some of them — we've done work on a number of surfactants that are used in dispersants — have very little odor," he said.
Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal wants BP to fund a 20-year testing and certification program to restore confidence in seafood from the Gulf,
"This will be the most monitored, safest seafood you will get anywhere in the world," Jindal said. The initial cost of his plan would be $173 million over five years, and it would require that three criteria for seafood be met in that time, including that tissue samples from fish show no signs of oil from the spill. "If these conditions are not met by the end of the fifth year, BP should fund an additional three years of the project."
BP did not respond with a comment.
Dawn Nunez, who operates a shrimp wholesale business in Louisiana, said he finds it absurd that the government is reopening the fishing grounds when so many doubts linger. "It's nothing but a PR move," she said. "It's going to take years to know what damage they've done. It's just killed us all."
