Oyster Ban Signals New Focus on Prevention
An FDA measure aims to protect consumers but irks oyster harvesters.
Nov. 2, 2009— -- More than a billion oysters are harvested each year from the Gulf of Mexico. They're fried, broiled, barbecued, served Rockefeller and sucked down raw throughout the country.
Nearly all the oysters consumed in the U.S. are farmed from cultures. And refrigeration makes them safe to eat year-round.
But there is something to the old saying that oysters should only be consumed in months where the name includes an "R" (i.e. not in the summer): It is a bacteria called vibrio vulnificus.
Of the very many people who eat those oysters, it is a pretty small subset -- 15 per year in the United States, on average -- who die from the bacteria vibrio vulnificus, which can become concentrated in oysters harvested in the summer and eaten raw. Another 15 suffer permanent health problems, from kidney failure to amputations.
Those 15 deaths are enough for the Food and Drug Administration to announce this month that starting in 2011, it will ban the sale of oysters harvested between April and October from the Gulf of Mexico that have not been treated -- essentially pasteurized -- to rid them of the vibrio bacteria.
The ban goes too far, according to Mike Voison, whose family has been in the oyster business in Louisiana since the 1700s.
Voison's forbears pried oysters out of the Gulf muck with 15-foot-long tongs. Today, he employs 200 people harvesting oysters and treating them in one of the few plants that pasteurize Gulf oysters.
Voison said there are not enough plants to pasteurize all the oysters harvested during the summer and the ban will drive up costs.
"Just overnight, they decided they were going to require post-harvest process," said Voison.
He argued that the numbers of people affected by vibrio and the fact that most people at risk already have a compromised immune system make it an issue of educating people about their own health risks.
"We shouldn't be saying it's the oysters' fault, we should be educating that at-risk consumer," said Voison.
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