Altered crops must be closely monitored even after they achieve wide commercial acceptance, with special attention paid to the geographic regions where they are planted, they said. Mail p. A10 Management Board chairman David Johnson said yesterday the Ontario government will seek to have meat inspectors declared essential workers during the provincial strike because the public might be exposed to tainted meat. Johnson said he has anectodal evidence of some abattoirs operating in defiance of the law requiring meat inspection. He added though that he has no evidence that contaminated meat is being offered for sale. A wire story based on yesterday's press release says that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration has ruled that oysters treated with AmeriPure's process don't need a label warning eaters of raw oysters about the vibrio vulnificus bacteria-a label that can scare off consumers.
Cooking kills the bacteria, which thrive in the warm waters of the Gulf.
Healthy people don't have to worry, but people with liver disease, immune disorders or other health problems can be made fatally ill by the bacteria. The process also kills other types of bacteria, but they are not harmful enough to require a warning label. In 1994, the FDA wanted to impose a ban on all oyster harvesting in the Gulf during the warmer months, April through October, but eventually agreed to let an industry group set safeguards. Last year, the Interstate Seafood Sanitation Conference decided that Gulf oysters would have to be refrigerated within six to 14 hours after harvest, depending on the temperature of the water from which they were taken. Meanwhile, demand for Gulf oysters has plummeted in recent years, along with the price, partly because of publicity about the bacteria.