Oil Spill in the Gulf

Feds Underestimated Gulf Coast Residents’ Love for Seafood

December 9, 2010

The Lookout - In their numerous proclamations that Gulf seafood is safe for human consumption, U.S. government officials -- who based their declaration on the amount of seafood the average American regularly consumes -- greatly underestimated how much seafood the average Gulf Coast resident actually eats on a regular basis. In doing so, federal officials also underestimated the potential health risks that untrammeled consumption of seafood from the Gulf's oil-tainted waters poses.

That's the finding of the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), which polled 547 Gulf Coast residents and found that they consume far more seafood than government regulators assumed in assessing the potential health risks of eating Gulf seafood.

"It's common knowledge that people in the Gulf love their seafood. When we think of food from the region we think of po-boys and gumbo, oyster bakes and jambalaya," said Dr. Gina Solomon, a senior scientist with NRDC, in a statement.

"Yet despite this, FDA has been setting safety standards for cancer-causing chemicals based on nationwide seafood consumption rates -- failing to take the uniqueness of the regional diet into consideration. And this is a problem, because it means that current FDA standards may also be failing to adequately protect many people in the Gulf."

The NRDC found that national data from the Food and Drug Administration's (FDA) indicated that the average American only eats two meals containing fish each week and only one meal containing shrimp. What's more, the FDA figures showed that Americans consumed no more than three ounces of seafood in those meals -- the equivalent of roughly four large shrimp. This disclosure led Times-Picayune food writer Brett Anderson to quip,

"Does the FDA know how many shrimp are in a po-boy?"