Fish Fraud? US Government Study Finds Seafood Scamming

According to a report published in February 2009 by the United States Government Accountability Office (GAO), fraudulent mislabeling of fish is a serious problem for US consumers. Investigators found there are three ways that consumers are commonly cheated: the product portions are smaller than labeled, the product is labeled as a different kind of seafood, or the product is shipped through an intermediary country to avoid “country specific taxes.”

Fish fraud not only shortchanges consumers, it can have health consequences as well. The GAO report cites a case in 2007 in which two consumers fell ill after eating a product labeled as monkfish. “They had actually eaten puffer fish, which contains a potentially deadly toxin called tetrodotoxin.”

The Scripps News article and the GAO report cite poor oversight by the FDA, partly resulting from a lack of funding and resources. The GAO report indicates that the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) examines only two percent of seafood imports. When the FDA does inspect seafood imports, the FDA only searches for “food safety issues” and neglects to determine if seafood is correctly labeled in terms of species and origin.

Excerpt is from “’Fish fraud’ rampant in U.S., government auditors say” by Isaac Wolf of Scripps Howard News Service.

Read the wholeUnited States Government Accountability Office Report .

Thank you to William Mitchell College of Law student, David Gibson, for preparing this report.