Southern Shrimp Alliance Welcomes Passage of the National Defense Authorization Act
On Thursday night, the U.S. Senate, by an 83 to 11 vote, passed the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) (HR 7776), one week after the legislation had been adopted in the U.S. House of Representatives by a vote of 350 to 80. The bill will now be sent to the President for signature and is expected to become law in the near term. […]
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GAO Report Questions FDA’s Import Alert Removal Process and Criticizes the Lack of Federal Agency Cooperation to Address Evasion
Last week, the U.S. Government Accountability Office (“GAO”) publicly released a report of its audit of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s (“FDA”) management of import alerts covering seafood – Imported Seafood Safety: Actions Needed to Improve FDA Oversight of Import Alert Removal Decisions (GAO-20-62, Nov. 2019). The GAO’s new report raises two major concerns regarding the FDA’s oversight of seafood […]
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Banned Antibiotics on Imported Shrimp Addressed on World Food Safety Day
The United Nations has declared June 7 as the first ever World Food Safety Day. Food safety is the absence — or the limitation to safe, acceptable levels — of hazards in food that may harm the health of consumers. Food-borne hazards can be microbiological, chemical, or physical in nature. They are often invisible to the plain eye, like bacteria […]
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Government Spending Bill Includes New Funds for FDA Seafood Inspections
Last night Congress passed a funding bill that provides the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) with significant additional resources to address contaminated seafood products that are introduced to the U.S. market. The new FDA funding, championed by Senator Kennedy (LA) and co-sponsored by Senator Cassidy (LA), increases by twenty-six percent the resources the FDA must spend to inspect imported seafood at the […]
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World Antibiotic Awareness Week 2018 Comes to a Close This Weekend
The Southern Shrimp Alliance reached more than a million unique individuals with messages about the use of antibiotics in aquaculture as part of World Antibiotic Awareness Week (Nov 12-18), a global campaign that coincides with U.S. Antibiotics Awareness Week to raise awareness of the importance of appropriate antibiotic use to combat the threat of antibiotic resistance. SSA observed the week […]
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Southern Shrimp Alliance Participating in World, U.S. Antibiotics Awareness Week
Antibiotic resistance is one of the biggest threats to global health, food security, and development. According to the World Health Organization, immediate changes are needed to prevent a post-antibiotic era when simple—and previously treatable—bacterial infections can kill and when routine medical procedures, such as joint replacements and chemotherapy that rely on antibiotic preventative treatment, will no longer be possible. November […]
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Ranking Member Grijalva Requests GAO to Assess Federal Government Response to Slavery in Seafood Trade; Leads Joint Letter to Cabinet Officials Requesting Action
Today, the Ranking Member of the House Natural Resources Committee, Raúl M. Grijalva (D-AZ), sent a letter to the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) requesting that the agency review U.S. Customs and Border Protection’s (CBP) enforcement of Section 307 of the Tariff Act of 1930 to combat illicit labor practices related to the seafood supply chain. Section 307, 19 U.S.C. […]
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Senate Votes 87-11 to Increase Funding for FDA Inspections of Foreign Seafood Facilities and Imported Seafood
Last night, the U.S. Senate overwhelmingly voted in favor of an amendment to the “Interior, Environment, Financial Services, and General Government Appropriations Act, 2019” (H.R. 6147) offered by Senator John Kennedy (R-La.) and co-sponsored by Senator Bill Cassidy, M.D. (R-La.) that significantly increased funding for the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) inspections of imported seafood and foreign seafood facilities. […]
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GAO Report Asks Why FDA Won’t Ask Foreign Suppliers to Do More to Stop Shipments of Contaminated Seafood
Over the last several years, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (“FDA”) has significantly increased the agency’s testing of imported shrimp for banned antibiotics. According to data released by the FDA to the Southern Shrimp Alliance in response to a Freedom of Information Act request, the number of tests conducted by the agency has increased tenfold since the beginning of […]
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New NIOSH Report: Gulf Shrimp Fleet the Safest
The National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) is the federal government agency responsible for conducting research and making recommendations for the prevention of work-related injury and illness. This includes generating data on casualties in the U.S. commercial fishing fleets. For years the U.S. Congress and the U.S. Coast Guard have relied heavily on NIOSH data in developing […]