Chemical tests conducted by the federal government have helped confirm that Gulf Coast seafood has not been contaminated by chemicals used to disperse the BP oil spill, the Los Angeles Times reports.
Less than 1 percent of the more than 1,700 samples of seafood tissue tested had any trace chemicals from the dispersants, and those that did had very low levels, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration reported.
“This new test should help strengthen consumer confidence in Gulf seafood,” FDA Commissioner Margaret A. Hamburg said in a statement. “The overwhelming majority of the seafood tested shows no detectable residue, and not one of the samples shows a residue level that would be harmful for humans.”
The government tested samples of both fish and shellfish for dioctyl sodium sulfosuccinate, known as DOSS, a main compound used in the dispersant.
The chemical tests followed “sensory tests,” where experts smelled seafood samples. According to officials, every seafood sample pulled from the gulf passed the sensory tests, showing no signs of contamination with either oil or dispersant.
The federal government will continue to monitor the safety of gulf seafood, the FDA said.
Nearly 9,444 square miles of federal waters in the gulf remain closed to fishing, after the April 20 explosion of the Deepwater Horizon killed 11 workers and spilled 185 million gallons of crude oil into the Gulf of Mexico.
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Whoa, let’s do some fact-checking. The dispersant contains many compounds, and the infusion of dispersant and crude make entirely new compounds – but only ONE compound was tested for (DOSS) – it was most assuredly not the main ingredient nor the most toxic component of Corexit dispersant (2 butoxyethonol). According to independent scientist Susan Shaw, a marine toxicologist and director of the Marine Environmental Research Institute in Blue Hill, Maine: DOSS is only one of hundreds of compounds formed by the mixture of seawater, oil and the two flavors of Correxit dispersant used on the spill, according to Shaw. Perhaps most troubling to Shaw is the inability of independent scientists to verify the efficacy of the methods used by NOAA and the FDA. For example, Shaw said, it’s not known in what parts of the gulf or where in the water column fish were collected for sampling. “We don’t have transparency in the data. We don’t have their sampling plan,” Shaw said. ~ Federal agencies have been caught in so many lies in regards to the BP oil disaster this far, it is important that any article quotes not only DC, but independent scientists as well. After all, it is OUR health that is at stake here, and toxic, carcinogenic compounds are nothing to mess with.