Franklin County Commission is still wary that FDA could ban raw oysters

The Franklin County Seafood Workers Association turned over its petitions to the Franklin county commission on Tuesday. The petitions were created as a way to show opposition to a US Food and Drug Administration proposal to ban the sale of raw Gulf Coast oysters for up to 7 months a year. The petitions were distributed at The Florida Seafood Festival; seafood workers say they received over 4000 signatures. The petitions are not quite as useful now as they were during Seafood festival because the FDA has since backed off on its plans to ban raw oysters but the proposal is not completely off the table yet. Commissioner Smokey Parrish said that while the FDA has backed off on its plan to ban raw oysters and is going to continue studying ways to combat the Vibrio vulnificus bacteria in raw oysters the agency is also trying to gain support from other federal agencies in its plan to ban raw gulf coast oysters. Commissioner Parrish said that what the FDA retreat has done is to give the Gulf Coast oyster industry time to take additional steps to make raw oysters safer. Those steps will include shorter oyster harvesting hours during the warmest months of the year and stricter requirements for how long oysters can be held after harvest before they have to be put in coolers. Commissioner Bevin Putnal added that another big step the industry could take is to allow nighttime harvesting in the summer months, but so far that plan has met with opposition from state officials. Putnal said it doesn’t make any sense why oystermen couldn’t work overnight since shrimpers already do. The board expects to meet with state regulators at their meeting on December the 1st and plan to address the idea of night harvesting again there. County planner Alan Pierce said the petitions will still provide some good use. The names and other information collected through the petition drive will be put into a database so the next time FDA begins its plan to ban oysters, the county will be able to approach a large number of raw oyster lovers very quickly.

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