Food Sentry is continuing its analysis of international food safety violations.
Analyzing data from nearly 1,000 reported food safety violations from 73
countries over the past 15 months, our
initial report
showed that the top five countries that were found during laboratory
testing to have the most food safety violations were China, the United
States, India, Japan and Vietnam.
This report focuses on India. Our reports on
China and the
United States uncovered some surprising data, as does our analysis here of reported Indian food safety violations.
As background, we collected data from multiple food testing
laboratories around the world. Most countries test a percentage of the
foods that are being imported. A violation occurs when some kind of
contaminant is detected in a food in excess of the levels allowed by the
inspecting country.
Testing regimes vary from country to country. Some countries test as
much as 30 percent of the food they import. If there is a particular
problem that comes to light, that number can increase to 50 percent for
certain categories of foods, or foods from countries for which there is
particular concern. In comparison, the United States inspects less than
2 percent of food being imported and actually does laboratory testing
on less than 1 percent.
When we looked at contaminants discovered in Indian food exports, we found
pesticides
to be the number one problem, accounting for 47 percent of all reported
food safety violations for that country (a more detailed version of the
above infographic is
here).
Twenty-five different pesticides turned up in excess in laboratory
testing. Vegetables, nuts and seeds, and herbs and spices were most
likely to be contaminated with excessive residues. We found several
cases where a single product was contaminated with multiple pesticide
residues, including one instance in which a single batch of curry leaves
had residues from eight different pesticides (acephate, carbendazim,
diafenthiuron, ethion, hexaconazole, methamidophos, monocrotophos and
profenofos).
The next most common type of contaminants reported in Indian food exports were chemicals
of various sorts. Lab testing discovered calcium carbide, sulfur
dioxide, Sudan IV dye, anthraquinone and ethoxyquin. In our analysis,
this data set is somewhat skewed by the fact that certain countries have
issued a no-notice directive to India that they will no longer accept
shrimp with levels of ethoxyquin in excess of 0.01 parts per million
(ppm). This resulted in a plethora of violations for Indian shrimp,
which was previously held to a standard of 1 ppm for ethoxyquin. The
countries involved are currently in negotiation to resolve this issue.
Ethoxyquin is an anti-oxidant used in fish feed to keep it from going
rancid. There is little scientific evidence one way or the other at this
point about the risks of ethoxyquin to human health.
The third food safety violation of concern in Indian exports was mycotoxins, primarily in nuts, seeds, herbs and spices. These are toxins produced by fungi, most often by species of Aspergillus mold. Testing found instances of excessive aflatoxins B1 and B2
as well as ochratoxin. Mycotoxins can be quite toxic to humans; they
are carcinogenic and have a good potential for causing both acute and
chronic disease.
In the remaining categories we investigated (toxic metals,
antibiotics, and pathogens) we found relatively few violations. The
toxic metal cadmium was found in excess in octopus and mud crabs;
pathogens were limited to Salmonella in some vegetables, nuts,
seeds and herbs and spices; residues from the antibiotics malachite
green (a dye sometimes used for its anti-fungal properties) and AOZ
(3-amino-2-oxazolidinone, a metabolite of furazolidone, a broad-spectrum
antibacterial), were found in a very small sample of seafood and in
rapeseed meal.
In the groups of foods we encountered in this analysis, those most
likely to come to the United States are herbs and spices, nuts and
seeds, and shellfish. India is a primary supplier of herbs and spices
(worth $209 million in 2012), nuts and seeds ($549 million) and
shellfish ($583 million). As you can see, you are quite likely to
encounter these products in your shopping routine.
The question to be asked is, what is the likelihood of an uninspected
shipment being in violation of U.S. food safety regulations? Note that
this includes not only contaminated food, but also food for which the
paperwork is incorrect and food which is not labeled correctly or
misbranded. The data to answer this question with any precision are hard
to come by, but we can estimate based on some statements by FDA.
To add a little bit more perspective, the United States imported
about 54.5 million tons of food in 2012, according to U.S. Department of
Agriculture’s Economic Research Service. That translated to about 25
million individual shipments of food from foreign importers. The Office
of Regulatory Affairs at the FDA estimated that they inspected less
than 1.5 percent of those shipments.
In 2011, Denise Williams, a supervisor in FDA’s import operations in
southern California, indicated that out of 10 million food-related
shipments, 16,000 were rejected by the FDA. If the FDA is inspecting
only 1.5 percent of shipments (150,000 in this case) and it rejected
16,000, then we can figure a violation rate of about 11 percent. Eleven
percent of the remaining uninspected shipments would be around 1.1
million shipments that could be expected to have some sort of food
safety violation.
A “shipment” can be anything from a box to a crate to a shipboard
container, so volume is difficult to assess. Nonetheless, more than a
million violative shipments making their way into U.S. markets are
surely cause for concern. With India making up such a large percentage
of the imports in the categories identified above, you can see that your
likelihood of encountering them is higher than you might like.
In addition to formal shipments, there are foods that come to the
United States that are beyond the reach of the FDA. They arrive in the
mail in smaller amounts, or are brought in illegally (“cheese mules” are
an interesting example). As we mentioned in a previous article,
Spices – More Than a Matter of Taste,
spices are very likely to be in this category. Be wary of internet
purchases and exercise caution when buying spices that have been
repackaged in unbranded, unlabeled containers.
