Scientists are discovering widespread “seafood fraud” at grocery stores and restaurants, with mislabeled cheap fish being sold as expensive fillets and overfished species substituting for breeds that are plentiful, according to The New York Times.
North American and European researchers consistently have found that 20 percent to 25 percent of the seafood they check is mislabeled. Critics say seafood regulators have been slow to adopt scientific techniques that would help detect mislabeling, including the procedure known as DNA bar coding, which looks at gene sequences in the fish’s flesh.
“Customers buying fish have a right to know what the heck it is and where it’s from,” said Michael Hirshfield, chief scientist of the nonprofit group Oceana.
Agencies such as the Food and Drug Administration, Hirshfield told the Times, are not taking the problem ”as seriously as they should.”
Oceana this week released a report, titled “Bait and Switch,” finding that the fraud in some species runs as high as 70 percent. The U.S. needs to “increase the frequency and scope” of its inspections, the report urges.
“The DNA bar coding technique is now routine, like processing blood or urine,” said Stefano Mariani, a marine researcher at University College Dublin, who has published research on the topic. “And we should be doing frequent, random spot checks on seafood like we do on athletes.”
Without using the latest scientific tools, however, even veterans of the commercial seafood industry find it hard to distinguish between certain species, particularly when they are packed and frozen. Older laboratory techniques were unreliable and expensive, leaving regulators to rely on legwork and paperwork to evaluate fish through the complex international supply chain.
FDA spokesman Douglas Karas said the agency worked with scientists to “validate” DNA testing for several years. It recently purchased gene sequencing equipment for five FDA field laboratories and hopes to use it “on a routine basis” by the end of this year.
“Everyone should be using this technique — there should be spot checks and fines,” said Paul Hebert, a DNA bar coding expert at the University of Guelph in Ontario, Canada. “If there were no speed traps and radar checks, there would be a lot more speeding.”
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