The U.S. Food and Drug Administration reported on Friday, 4 December, that it refused 88 seafood entry lines for the month of November. However, only one of those rejections was for shrimp products that contained banned antibiotics.
Still, according to a news release from the Southern Shrimp Alliance, government inspectors made great strides in preventing diseased imports from entering the U.S. market.
The majority of the refused entries came from one company, Bhimavaram, Andhra Pradesh, India-based shrimp processor Kader Exports Private Limited. According to the Southern Shrimp Alliance, 43 of those entries were denied because of the presence of salmonella.
The others were rejected because of sanitary reasons.
The Kader refusals came over a two-day period starting on 18 November, with the FDA Division of West Coast Imports initiating the action, and with Southeast and Northeast divisions also refusing entries from the company.
"This is, to the Southern Shrimp Alliance’s knowledge, the first reporting by FDA indicating a joint, cooperative effort by multiple regional divisions of the agency to prevent the importation of contaminated, potentially dangerous foreign shrimp from entering the U.S. market through different ports of entry," the SSA said in a statement. "If a coordinated action indeed took place, this would represent a substantial improvement in the FDA’s oversight of imported seafood."
As for the shrimp lines rejected for antibiotics, the FDA reported that two more entries from October were rejected due to antibiotics. That, combined with November's one rejection, means a total of 29 entry lines have been refused so far this year. That's less than half of the 61 refusals from last year and on pace for the lowest year since 26 lines were rejected in 2006.
The SSA noted the FDA's report was just through 20 November, meaning additional entries for the month may be reported at a later date.
Photo courtesy of U.S. Food and Drug Administration
