It’s A Matter Of Trust

The Miami Herald reports on a Study: Gulf oil spill still a threat to seafood safety

The Gulf of Mexico oil spill still poses threats to human health and seafood safety, according to a study published Monday by the peer-reviewed Journal of the American Medical Association.

The report comes two days after President Obama and members of his family swam in the Gulf at Panama City Beach and ate fish caught there, and hours after this year’s commercial shrimping season officially kicked off along the Louisiana coast.

Federal officials disputed the new report and said ongoing testing is aggressive and sufficient to protect public health.

In the short term, study co-author Gina Solomon voiced greatest concern for shrimp, oysters, crabs and other invertebrates she says are have difficulty clearing their systems of dangerous polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) similar to those found in cigarette smoke and soot. Solomon is an MD and public health expert in the department of medicine at the University of California at San Francisco.
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FDA officials disagreed with Solomon’s fears about PAHs.

“We don’t agree that’s currently a problem,” said Vicki Seyfert-Margolis, from the office of the chief scientist of the FDA. She said federal officials have a “mussel watch” program to test for such contamination in all shellfish, and so far it has not found any problems.

As each Gulf area is reopened for fin fish harvest, she said, officials are testing shellfish separately, approving various species only as studies are completed, she said.

The FDA didn’t find the melamine in pet food until after hundreds of pets died, and it doesn’t consider Corexit a threat despite warnings on the labels, so why would people believe them more than a peer-reviewed article in a medical journal?

Too many of the real scientists left government service during the Hedgemony and were replaced with people of unknown competence. Federal regulators are going to be of questionable competence for a very long time.