PCSGA Tidings

Gulf Oys­ter Pro­tec­tion Act of 2009

Gulf Oys­ter Indus­try Jobs Pro­tec­tion Act

It might have taken a brave man to “first et oys­ter,” but with apolo­gies to Dr. John­son, it takes a much braver man to come between me and a dozen of the glis­ten­ing bivalves on a bed of shaved ice washed down with per­haps a dram of Stoli.

Michael Tay­lor of the Food and Drug Admin­is­tra­tion (FDA) did exactly that late last month when he announced plans to require that between April and Octo­ber all Gulf of Mex­ico oys­ters (and that means two-thirds of the oys­ters that are eaten in this coun­try) must be ster­il­ized before being sold to the pub­lic. Only oys­ters that are ster­il­ized by being zapped by gamma rays, sub­jected to high water pres­sure, heated, or quick frozen will be allowed to be processed and shipped from the gulf.

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By Sara Phillips, ABC Science

Ocean acid­i­fi­ca­tion is dra­mat­i­cally chang­ing the chem­istry of our oceans and affect­ing sea crea­tures like the hump­back whale. Is it too late to turn the prob­lem around?

At first there may just be a wisp of spray amongst the waves.

Then sud­denly a hump­back whale launches itself bod­ily from the water. With a splash that gives a hint to its size, it once more sinks beneath the waves.

In June, hump­backs migrate from their feed­ing grounds in the South­ern Ocean to the warmer trop­ics to breed. All along the east and west coasts of Aus­tralia peo­ple gather on cliff tops and beaches hop­ing to catch a glimpse of the esti­mated 17,000 whales that make the jour­ney each year.

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The Oys­ter Guide, by Rowan Jacobsen

Nov 11, 2009

No one has ever accused the FDA of being par­tic­u­larly per­cep­tive or grounded, but on Octo­ber 17 it sal­lied forth into cer­ti­fi­able nut land with an announce­ment that, begin­ning in 2011, it would BAN the sale of raw oys­ters from the Gulf of Mex­ico dur­ing sum­mer months. That’s right; you won’t be able to get a raw oys­ter in New Orleans, Apalachicola, or any­where else, no mat­ter much you want it. What you will get, instead, is an oys­ter that has been pas­teur­ized or killed in a pres­sure cham­ber. Accord­ing to the FDA, this is to pre­vent infec­tion with Vib­rio vul­nifi­cus, which is active in warm waters, but many in the indus­try sus­pect that this is the first salvo in the FDA’s attempt to BAN ALL RAW OYSTERS.

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Wash­ing­ton State Gov­er­nor Chris­tine Gre­goire has pro­claimed Nov 20, 2009 as Thank you Farm­ers and Ranch­ers Day!

The procla­ma­tion states:

Whereas, the hol­i­day sea­son is a time to be thank­ful for America’s abun­dant sup­ply of safe, whole­some and afford­able food; and

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Wash­ing­ton State is the World’s Oys­ter and Manila Clam Mus­sel and Geo­duck too

By Robin Downey, Exec­u­tive Direc­tor, PCSGA

The oys­ter com­mu­nity and raw oys­ter lovers were pleased when the FDA backed off on their pro­posal to ban the sale of raw Gulf oys­ters dur­ing warm months start­ing May 2011.  How­ever, the FDA press release sug­gests this is only a post­pone­ment to their pro­posed action.  As their press release announc­ing the deci­sion to delay the man­date stated:

“There is a need to fur­ther exam­ine both the process and tim­ing for large and small oys­ter har­vesters to gain access to pro­cess­ing facil­i­ties or equiv­a­lent con­trols in order to address this impor­tant pub­lic health goal. Con­tinue Reading »

DeLauro Requests GAO Audit on Reduc­ing Ill­nesses and Death Due to Con­t­a­m­i­nated Raw Oys­ters (pdf)

By Robin Downey, Exec­u­tive Direc­tor, PCSGA

On Sat­ur­day, Oct. 17 the FDA announced their intent to ban the sale of live, in-the-shell Gulf Coast oys­ters for as much as eight months every year. Offi­cials orig­i­nally con­sid­ered a nation-wide ban, but decided to delay any new require­ments for the West and East Coasts at this time.

FDA admits they have not looked at the cost of imple­ment­ing expen­sive new pro­cess­ing tech­nolo­gies or the infra­struc­ture that would be needed to process all oys­ters cur­rently des­tined for the raw oys­ter mar­ket, Con­tinue Reading »

Novem­ber 13, 2009, Apalachicola, FL

The Gulf Coast oys­ter com­mu­nity applauds the U.S. Food and Drug Admin­is­tra­tion for aban­don­ing a uni­lat­eral plan to ban the sale of tra­di­tional, raw oysters.

Oys­ter deal­ers, work­ers, food lovers and com­mu­nity lead­ers through­out the Gulf Coast region and the nation joined forces in a mas­sive Con­tinue Reading »

By Karen Kidd & Wendy Hessler

Envi­ron­men­tal Health News

For the first time, research shows that nanopar­ti­cles called fullerenes are fil­tered out of water by oys­ters and taken up by their liver cells. The par­ti­cles accu­mu­lated in spe­cial cell com­part­ments and affected the cells’ abil­ity to regen­er­ate and process nutri­ents. Adult oys­ters, embryos and liver cells that were exposed to mod­er­ate lev­els of the carbon-based nanopar­ti­cles were all sen­si­tive to the fullerenes, pos­si­bly more than other aquatic ani­mals tested to date.

To view the entire arti­cle, click on:

http://​www​.envi​ron​men​tal​health​news​.org/​e​h​s​/​n​e​w​s​c​i​e​n​c​e​/​o​y​s​t​e​r​s​-​s​e​n​s​i​t​i​v​e​-​t​o​-​f​u​l​l​e​r​e​n​e​-​n​a​n​o​p​a​r​t​i​c​l​es/