The Mississippi Department of Marine Resources and the Mississippi State Department of Health are expressing serious concerns over the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s policy change pertaining to oysters harvested from the Gulf of Mexico during the months of April through October. The FDA recently announced that it plans to ban the sale of raw Gulf Coast oysters from April through October each year in an effort to protect consumers from the Vibrio vulnificus bacteria. Any oysters harvested during that time would have to receive some form of post harvest treatment which could include quick freezing, high hydrostatic pressure, low-heat pasteurization or irradiation. Currently about 15 percent of Gulf Coast oysters receive post harvest treatment. Mississippi regulators say the proposal will be harmful to that state’s oyster industry, which is still recovering from the devastation of Hurricane Katrina. Mississippi’s oyster industry currently employees between 800 and 1,000 commercial fishermen, truck drivers and factory workers and has an estimated economic impact of $70 million dollars annually. On top of that they believe the FDA ruling will result in increased costs to consumers- they argue that the price of a raw oyster will basically double due to the costs associated with the Post Harvest treatment. And that depends on whether oyster lovers will even eat treated oysters. Raw oysters are generally eaten alive while most Post Harvest treated oysters are killed by the process and then preserved in a state which may change the taste, texture, color and possibly shelf life of the oyster.
http://www.oysterradio.com
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