Top Story: EPA being pushed to counter FDA’s recommendations regarding mercury in fish

News Summary:  Inside the seafood industry, it was always known that FDA and EPA took a very different approach to mercury contamination in fish. EPA is primarily responsible for the warnings about contaminant levels in lakes and rivers, and they base their warnings on heavy users of recreationally caught fish where a family may eat a large amount of the same species from a single source. FDA on the other hand, is concerned about population wide exposures to harmful contaminants and what levels can be safely assumed to have no ill effects. They make different assumptions about fish consumption than does the EPA. 

All of this is coming to a head soon as the EPA hosts a three day conference on Mercury contamination. NOAA and the FDA are urging a holistic approach that they have already adopted that takes benefits and risks into account, while some Environmental groups are urging EPA to measure methyl mercury in isolation, or perhaps solely in combination with PCB’s. The outcome is relevant, as mercury warnings have been shown to significantly reduce seafood consumption. We have two stories on this issue. 

Norway is kind of running out of options in terms of trading with China. The leak of a document saying Norway will not apologize for recognizing Chinese dissidents likely prompted the salmon crackdown earlier this month. Norway’s salmon market share in China over the course of the controversy has fallen from 90% to around 30%. Norway is a small country, and the Chinese have a saying ‘kill the chicken to scare the monkeys.’ Some suggest this is what is going on. 

As might be expected with limits on imports and a weaker currency, fish prices have been rising at retail across Russia. Now the anti-monopoly service is on the case, threatening big fines for companies that increase their prices in ways the FAS doesn’t like. Whether they will recognize supply and demand is uncertain, as their history is one of rewarding friends and punishing enemies. 

PEI lobster processors were told to simply raise wages if they needed to attract more workers. While appealing, in reality high cost manufacturing cannot survive in a global competitive environment. Over time, lobster processing would migrate out of the Province, or the range of product forms that are produced there would shrink. One solution that no one likes is to regulate landings to flow more evenly over a longer time- in this fashion fewer more highly paid workers could handle production. But so long as the lobster industry is ruled by glut and heavy landings for just a few weeks out of the year, packers will be pressed to hire for the peak times, not for the long term. Many fisheries have peak seasons where there is little choice except to process to peak landings, but clearly this is something that can be marginally adjusted if its a matter of survival.

John Sackton, Editor And Publisher , Lexington, Massachusetts 

Seafood.com News 1-781-861-1441 

Email comments to jsackton@seafood.com

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