Agriculture & Forestry Today with Commissioner Bob Odom

The Louisiana Department of Agriculture and Forestry is adding China to the list of countries that must test seafood for a banned substance before it can be sold in Louisiana, Agriculture and Forestry Commissioner Bob Odom said Friday

“We’ve stopped the sale of Chinese seafood in Louisiana until we get test results proving it is free of the antibiotic fluoroquinolone,” Odom said. “I’m disgusted by other countries trying to harm our people and animals with tainted food products. This has got to stop. Our farmers, fishermen and ranchers are held to a high standard of safety in this country and we should expect seafood coming in from other countries to be held to the same standard.

Odom’s department is enforcing the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s established zero-tolerance policy for this class of antibiotics.

Fluoroquinolones were previously found in Vietnamese seafood in 2005. Currently, any seafood from that country must be tested by an approved lab and proven to be free of the substance before it can be sold in the state. China is now being added to the list.

Odom said he was notified by Alabama’s agriculture commissioner about the possible presence of fluoroqinolones in Chinese catfish at the end of last week.
“Our inspectors pulled seafood samples from the U.S., China, Vietnam and Thailand. Of the 14 samples, one from China and one from Vietnam came back positive for fluoroquinolones. The product from the U.S. came back clean,” Odom explained. “We’re still waiting on results from four of the samples.”

The positive Vietnamese product was already being held on stop sale orders because it did not have test results from an approved lab.
“This proves our testing requirements work. We stopped the Vietnamese product because the papers showed it was tested in Vietnam and free of fluoriquinolones. Our rules say it must be tested outside of Vietnam. Once we got the test results back from our lab, it was positive,” Odom said. “This shows zero-tolerance policies must be enforced to protect our consumers.”

Odom said recent problems with foreign food products point out the need to have strong agriculture in the United States.

“This renews my determination to continue fighting for American farmers at the national level. Consumers deserve to feel confident in the food they serve to their families and keeping domestic farmers in production delivers that confidence,” Odom said. “We cannot and should not depend on foreign countries to feed our people.”

May 4, 2007
Contact: Ashley Rodrigue