Ad-free. Influence-free. Powered by consumers.
Skip to Main ContentThe payment for your account couldn't be processed or you've canceled your account with us.
Re-activateWe would have given a new report from the U.S. Government Accountability Office a pass, but it was hard to ignore a title like "Seafood Fraud."
At first the idea of fake hake seemed more of a pocketbook issue than a safety concern; a closer read shows it's both. According to the GAO, Americans ate more than five billion pounds of seafood in 2007, and it wasn't all it should have been. Somewhere along the stream of commerce, a seller—perhaps an importer, a wholesaler, a restaurant—made an extra buck by mislabeling the seafood.
That's bad on so many levels. Of course consumers should get what they pay for, but they should also be able to trust that what they're eating is safe. In 2007, the Food and Drug Administration banned imports of five seafood products coming from China, including shrimp, unless it could be proven that the shellfish didn't contain certain unapproved drugs. So how was it that some of the forbidden shrimp slipped into this country? It was shipped through Malaysia—so appeared to come from a Malaysian manufacturer—in an effort to avoid the testing required for Chinese shrimp.
In fact, Consumer Reports' own tests of salmon a few years ago found that more than half the samples labeled as "wild" were farm-raised.
Much of the problem, the GAO report says, is that the three federal agencies responsible for detecting seafood fraud don't have a common goal, don't work together on strategies, and haven't agreed on roles and responsibilities.
The fix, says the GAO, is—you guessed it—the agencies need to coordinate.
Our take: Consumers Union also thinks that the FDA should be given the resources and mandate to regularly inspect the foreign facilities that supply seafood to the U.S. to insure the safety and quality of their output.
WASHING MACHINE REVIEWS
GENERATOR REVIEWS
Build & Buy Car Buying Service
Save thousands off MSRP with upfront dealer pricing information and a transparent car buying experience.
Get Ratings on the go and compare
while you shop
