Last December I read an article about this bill, I thought about the fish we eat and where it comes from....I assumed the catfish our IGA serves on Friday was American Catfish. It is not. I get an email news letter from the Center for Food Safety and yesterday they sent one concerning the passage of this bill by Congress. It really is FOOD FOR THOUGHT! I thought it would make a good read but not before bed as they say at Thought's from Frank and Fern!
Trans-Pacific Partnership Trade Agreement
Update: The bill to Fast Track the TPP and other secret trade deals was officially introduced in Congress on April 16, 2015
The
Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) is a trade deal currently under
negotiation among 12 nations—Australia, Brunei Darussalam, Canada,
Chile, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore, United
States, and Vietnam. If ratified by these governments, TPP would be the
largest trade deal in history -- representing 792 million people and
accounting for 40 percent of the world economy1 -- yet it's being written and negotiated in secret.
That’s right—none of the details of this sweeping trade agreement are available to the public.
The only text that has been made public so far has been through leaked
documents. Members of Congress have extremely limited access to the
negotiation texts. But Corporate representatives have access to, and in
some instances have written the negotiation documents through USTR
advisory committees, where they “significantly outnumber representatives
of organized labor, environmental advocates and academic experts”.2
What's been leaked about it so far reveals that the TPP would
offshore millions of American jobs, expose the U.S. to imports of unsafe
food, and empower corporations to attack hard-fought U.S. environmental
and health safeguards.
For example, the TPP would require the U.S to allow food imports if
the exporting country claims that their safety regime is "equivalent" to
our own, even if it violates the key principles of our food safety laws.
So, fish from Vietnam and other TPP countries using antibiotics and
other drugs banned in the U.S. would be allowed under equivalency rules
in the agreement. These rules would effectively outsource domestic food
inspection to other countries. Further, any U.S. food safety rules on
pesticides, labeling or additives that is higher than international
standards could be subject to challenge as "illegal trade barriers."
Instead of using trade agreements to elevate economic, health, and environmental standards across borders, the TPP creates a race to the bottom.
What’s worse, Congress is currently considering granting “fast track” approval of the TPP.
“Fast track” enables trade agreements to become law by removing a
democratic step of lawmaking by stripping Congress of its authority to
debate or amend the content of a trade deal. Congress gets a vote, but
only after the negotiations have been completed.
Tell Congress to Vote “No” on Fast Track for the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) and demand the text of the TPP be made public!
Here is a brief breakdown of this bill and some information about the state of fish and seafood imported to the USA.
Seafood Safety and the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP)
December 05, 2014
The Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) is a trade deal currently under
negotiation among 12 nations—Australia, Brunei Darussalam, Canada,
Chile,
Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore, United States,
and Vietnam. The TPP includes some of the leading fish
and seafood
exporting countries in the world—Vietnam, Chile, Japan, and Malaysia are
among the top 20 aquaculture centers worldwide.
Already about one
in five shrimp, three in five crabs, and three in five catfish consumed
by Americans come from TPP countries (2012 data).
In many TPP
countries, farm fish are raised with chemicals and antibiotics that are
not allowed in the U.S. The TPP aims to reduce or eliminate trade
barriers on fish imports, further increase U.S. seafood imports, and put
additional pressures on already inadequate federal inspection of
seafood imports. Currently, just over 1 percent of imported fish and
seafood shipments is inspected or tested. More than half of these are
only sight inspected “for obvious defects that would be apparent without
laboratory analysis.”
In sum, TPP could negatively impact food
safety of U.S. citizens and also contribute to the continuing decline of
jobs in the U.S. seafood sector. Additional food safety hazards could
reach the U.S. if China is included in the TPP (see Seafood Imports from
China).
SEAFOOD
IMPORTS AND FOOD SAFETY
➢ U.S.
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found that
imported
fish were the most common source of foodborne illness
from
imported food from 2005-2010.
➢ Fish/shellfish
alone make up 20 percent of food imports refused
by
FDA, largely due to the high percentage of aquaculture products,
which
are associated with veterinary drug residues and unsafe
additives
.
➢ Around
25 percent of fish purchased from supermarkets by
researchers
in North Carolina contained formaldehyde. All
contaminated
samples were imported from Asian countries.
➢ In
2013, 100 percent of Vietnamese catfish farms used
antibiotics
not approved in the U.S.
➢ U.S.
scientists found that 44 percent of catfish and related species
from
China, Vietnam, Thailand, Indonesia, and Cambodia from
2002-2010
tested positive for an antibiotic banned in the U.S.
➢ Pathogens
have also been a frequent problem in seafood imports,
including
Salmonella and Listeria
.
➢ Residues
of nitrofurans continue to be found in imported shrimp, but have been
banned by FDA in animals produced for food since 2002 because their
residues are carcinogenic and have not been shown to be safe.
➢ Malachite
green is banned in aquaculture in the U.S., EU, and Canada due to its
suspected mutagenicity, but has been detected by FDA in imported eel
and several species of imported fish.
A
class of synthetic antibiotics called fluoroquinolones is
regularly
found in several species of imported fish. According the
World
Health Organization (WHO), the use of fluoroquinolones
in
food animals has led to the emergence of resistant bacteria that
are
generally cross-resistant to other antibiotics used in humans.
➢
Chloramphenicol
is not is
not approved for use in any food-producing
animals
in the U.S., but has been detected in imported shrimp,
crayfish,
and crabs. Its use in humans is restricted to life-
threatening
situations when less toxic drugs are ineffective because
it
causes a type of bone marrow depression, which is usually
irreversible
and fatal.
CURRENT
STATE OF IMPORTED
SEAFOOD
OVERSIGHT
➢ In
2009, 80 percent of total seafood in U.S. food supply was
imported.
Roughly 9 out of 10 fish eaten in U.S. is imported, and
50
percent of fish imports are farm-raised.
➢ In
2011, only 90 federal seafood inspectors examined 5.2 billion
pounds
of imports. As a result of inadequate resources, just over
1
percent of imported fish and seafood shipments is inspected or
tested,
more than half of which are only sight inspected “for obvious
defects
that would be apparent without laboratory analysis.”
➢ The
U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), tasked with
regulating
imported seafood safety, requires seafood processors
to
meet Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Point (HACCP)
standards.
In 2012, the Government Accountability Office (GAO)
stated
that 33 percent of foreign seafood processors did not
adequately
identify hazards in their HACCP plans.
➢ GAO
chastised FDA in 2011 for using an outdated approach
to
assessing the safety of seafood imports, despite significant
increases
in imported seafood and the emergence of aquaculture
as
a major source of seafood imports; GAO stated that
imported
seafood
has been subjected to “limited U.S. oversight by FDA.
➢ In
contrast to low inspection rates in the U.S., the European
Union,
in contrast, inspects 20-50 percent of imports and found
four
times more veterinary drug violations on imported seafood
than
the U.S.
POTENTIAL
IMPACTS OF TTP ON U.S.
SEAFOOD
INDUSTRY
➢ The
number of midsized
fishing businesses in the U.S. fell
by
22.7 percent between
2002 and 2011 as the volume of fish
and
seafood imports grew by 23.7 percent. TPP
would further
increase
seafood imports, impacting U.S. jobs.
➢ Catfish
imports from Vietnam increased from 7 million pounds
in
2000 to 228 million pounds in 2012. At
less than half of the
price
of American catfish, the federal government acknowledged
in
2013 that Vietnamese catfish harmed U.S. catfish farmers,
and an
estimated 22,000
domestic catfish industry jobs have been lost
over
the past decade.
➢ Shrimp
imports rose from 125 million pounds in 2000 to 224
million
pounds in 2012. Corresponding
to the high volume
of
imports, the U.S. commercial shrimp industry dropped by
30 million
pounds and $200 million about a third of the value of the
shrimp
catch a decade earlier.
FURTHER
POTENTIAL IMPACTS OF TPP
➢ TPP
aims to reduce or eliminate trade barriers, including U.S.
tariffs
and non-tariff barriers, on fish imports, increasing the flow
of
fish products into the U.S. in conjunction with less regulatory
oversight.
➢ Food
labels could be challenged as non-tariff trade barriers under
TPP,
which would impose limits
on labels providing
information
on
where a food product comes from.
➢ Under
TPP, seafood imports could be allowed in the U.S. even
though
other TPP countries may use additives drugs that
do
not follow U.S. food safety guidelines
SEAFOOD
IMPORTS FROM CHINA
➢ In
2006, FDA issued an import alert for eels produced in China,
and
in 2007 issued an alert for all farm-raised catfish, shrimp,
carp,
and eel from China.
➢ FDA
issued an import alert in 2013 on five species of
aquaculture
fish imported from China because of illegal
drugs
and
additives
➢ According
to U.S. Department of Agriculture: “Most fish
and
shrimp imported from China are cultured in ponds that
frequently
have poor water quality. Farmers
commonly use
drugs
to control disease and fungal infections in
these ponds”.
➢ Shipments
of eels from China have been contaminated
with
pesticides
It is pretty scary and it is all for the sake of cheap food...but it is not so cheap when you look at the cost to our economy in jobs and industry and even worse when you think of what we are feeding ourselves!
PS: Please forgive the odd spacing...Blogger and I had some serious battles and it won!
Think hard about what times you have been the happiest, seriously happy, laughing out loud happy, tearfully happy! I suspect these times were spent with family. Times that did not cost a fortune. If we surround ourselves with simple things and spend time with family and loved ones we are rich beyond anything money can truly buy.I am not saying we do not need money and it has no place but I do believe in our consumer driven world the pursuit of money has become out of balance with a happy life. Money earned with our own hands and received with thanks and appreciation has so much more meaning. We need to be able to use this money to live well but not be obsessed with the pursuit of it.Looking hard at what you really need to be spending money on and compare that to time spent with your family, time laughing at simple things, time spent well without money being the source of your happiness.
We have so much more than our parents had, children have so much more than their parents have, but are today's children any happier? Do you hear your children laugh with delight over simple things or whine because they do not have the latest shoes or electronic toys? Do you wear ALL the clothes that fill your closet....do you use all the gadgets and gizmo's you have in your home. Do you have a storage unit for the overflow?
