Loophole allows sale of tainted fish without warning
Posted on June 10th, 2009
GreenWire: Restaurant and fish market patrons are buying Great Lakes whitefish that are potentially contaminated with dioxin without warning because of a loophole in federal regulations.
The Food and Drug Administration does not screen for dioxin — a potentially cancer-causing chemical — and has no guideline for safe contamination levels, and so the commercial stocks can be sold nationally without warning.
The Michigan Department of Community Health has warned that children and pre-menopausal women should avoid lake trout and large whitefish from Lake Huron after high levels of dioxin and PCBs appeared in samples by the state Department of Environmental Quality.
Lake Huron — from which 60 percent of commercial Great Lakes whitefish are taken, according to the Michigan Sea Grant extension — is a federally recognized “Area of Concern” because of contaminated sediments and fish. Dioxin levels there are more than 30 times the level allowed under state law.
U.S. EPA in May said it would use Superfund law to pressure Dow Chemical to clean up the contamination in Saginaw Bay (Eartha Jane Melzer, Michigan Messenger, June 8). – PR