According to a senior FDA official the decision to ease the restriction put on Chinese seafood has been taken after the recent inspections of some firms in that country. Last year the FDA has restricted imports of five types of Chinese-raised fish saying many contained chemicals the U.S. doesn’t allow for health reasons, such as long-term cancer risks.
After that restrictions the Chinese government and seafood producers have stepped up testing and safety controls, and the percentage of shipments testing positive for the drugs has dropped from about 25 percent to less than 6 percent, opined Don Kraemer, deputy director of the FDA’s Office of Food Safety.
FDA inspectors in China this month audited 13 seafood processors, including some of China’s biggest. Good food-safety controls and the quality of inspections done by the Chinese government have been checked by the officials. It is said that within weeks, the FDA expects to decide whether to free any of the plants from the import restrictions.
According to FDA they test free of certain antibiotics and anti-fungals that Chinese farmers use to battle fish diseases. Only one Chinese firm has been exempted from the testing because it proved to the FDA that it shipped clean fish. Kraemer unfolds that if the FDA accepts the quality of Chinese inspection of the plants, it’ll rely more on Chinese inspections in granting future exemptions. The seafood restrictions affected 500 Chinese companies, far more than the FDA can inspect, says Kraemer.
