Today and tomorrow, the FDA is meeting to decide whether to allow the first genetically engineered animal – a fast-growing salmon – into the U.S. food supply. And the science “proving” its safety ain’t so good.

It may not be long before you start finding genetically engineered animals on your dinner plate. But let’s at least use solid science to prove their safety before allowing them into the food supply. And, alarmingly, that is NOT what the FDA is doing right now.

The White House, the FDA and the Louisiana Seafood Promotion & Marketing Board are teaming up with a group of celebrity chefs to promote the eating of Gulf Seafood.

It isn’t “sexy news” to discuss a higher percentage of cancers for small children who eat Gulf seafood more than once a month. But pointing out to the media that the FDA has flawed testing protocols and have ignored safety concerns is news. NOAA using only 12 shrimp to prove the safety of 5,000 miles of the Gulf should be news to the media.

This Monday the media will be shoveling shrimp into their mouths and they might be concerned for their own health if they aren’t concerned for others.

It’s not my job to care about the little kids and pregnant women eating Gulf seafood. Nine years from now when questions are being asked the folks at the FDA can say, “Nobody could have anticipated…”

Where have I heard that line before?

The FDA and AAFCO cooperate to regulate the safety of animal feeds.
Animal feeds such as poultry manure and cattle manure.
Other things may be mixed in with the manure.

The FDA with other entities regulates the feed fed to food animals.
The FDA with other entities regulates some of the feed mills that produce the feed. Other ‘farmers’ who operate feed mills may be exempt from inspection. Introduction to food animal feed regulations.

The human toll of salmonella in eggs according to the CDC Centers for Disease Control). The FDA rulemaking process concerning the prevention and control of Salmonella in the egg production and processing industry.

The FDA says recently enacted regulations might have prevented the Salmonella outbreak of 2010. What parts of the regulations might have prevented the outbreak?. Are there unnecessary delays in enacting these regulations? What might have been left out?

If there is no newsy disaster regulations won’t change.
When it comes to food safety an uptick in long term cancer rates is a snoozer. But if the children of rich white people who ate seafood from the Gulf start vomiting blood and bleeding from their rectum next Thursday then people who matter will make phone calls to people who can make changes. And things will change. Unless this happens the FDA can get away with not testing seafood from the Gulf for the chemicals in Corexit.

President Obama Leads the Nation Toward Religious Intolerance — by NormanB (“Deviations from the Norm”)

But President Pinocchio, How Can the Oil be Gone and the Oily Fish Good to Eat?! — by NormanB (“Deviations from the Norm”)