China, Asia cited in House food safety probe

WASHINGTON (AFP) - Less than one percent of food imports to the United States are inspected, a congressional panel warned yesterday, raising alarms over Chinese and Asian fish products after a spate of health scares.

The panel also found that US authorities had known for years that seafood imports from Asia were arriving in packages treated with carbon monoxide gas to make them look fresher than they really are.

"Who needs Al-Qaeda when you have got e-coli?" asked Jay Inslee, a representative from the western US state of Washington, warning that the threat from food laced with bacteria should be treated as seriously as "the war on terror."

Investigators from the House of Representatives committee on Energy and Commerce found the Food and Drug Administration inspects only one percent of all food imports and samples only a fraction of those.

At the FDA's San Francisco office for instance, four inspectors each review 600 food imports, 300 medical devices, 25 reagents and 25 drugs entities on a computer screen per day --- about one import every 30 seconds.

"FDA's resources and activities appear to be woefully short of its food import responsibilities," said the report, calling on President George W. Bush's administration to halt an overhaul of the agency, which would close seven of 13 laboratories.

The investigators also condemned the FDA for its handling of fish imports from China, after it issued an alert on July 10, detaining all catfish, shrimp and other farm fish on suspicion they were tainted with drugs and anti-fungals.

The report termed the timing of the alert "curious" and accused the FDA of acting only when it came under congressional examination.

"The FDA has known for years about the widespread use of antibiotics and fungicides to treat farm-raised fish from China," the report said.

Specifically, the report said China had been sending fish to the United States contaminated with fluoroquinolones and other antibiotics as well as malachite, an anti-fungal treatment suspected to cause cancer.

It also warned that large stocks of seafood imports from Asia were entering the United States in airtight packages containing significant concentrations of carbon monoxide, to make the product look fresh.

It criticized the FDA for declaring such packaging safe.