Memorandum submitted by Scottish Shellfish
Marketing Group Ltd (M3)
BACKGROUND
The Food Standards Agency has a statutory responsibility
to carry out a toxin monitoring programme to satisfy the requirements
of EC Shellfish Hygiene Directive 91/492/EEC. The level of monitoring
is based by the Agency on a risk assessment of the various inshore
and offshore sea areas.
In Scotland some 70 inshore shellfish sampling
sites, primarily aquaculture sites, have been identified by FSAS
for monitoring for the programme. The testing of shellfish from
these sites is carried out on behalf of FSAS by Fisheries Research
Services (FRS) Marine Laboratory, Aberdeen and the method used
for this testing is the mouse bio-assay.
In England and Wales similar testing is carried
out by CEFAS, Weymouth and in Northern Ireland by DARD.
LIMITATIONS OF
EXISTING TOXIN
TESTING REGIME
Despite the fact that the FSA was set up by
the Government to inform and protect the consumer FSAS have made
it very clear that it is the shellfish industry's responsibility
to carry out end product testing to ensure the safety of shellfish
placed on the market. FSAS therefore are only prepared to carry
out sufficient toxin testing of shellfish to meet their statutory
obligations to satisfy the requirements of EC Directive 492. As
a tool to protect the consumer the programme is totally inadequate
for three principal reasons:
1. FSAS will only guarantee to have test
results available within seven working days of receiving the samples.
As the bulk of live shellfish are harvested and placed upon the
market in as little as two working days and therefore normally
in the hands of the consumer within three working days the above
timescale is totally inadequate.
2. The Standard Operating Procedure (SOP)
for carrying out the mouse bio-assay has recently been changed
at the insistence of FSA. The new procedure is fundamentally flawed
and the results of the new bio-assay inaccurate and unreliable.
3. FSA accept no responsibility for ensuring
that all pre-arranged samples under the programme are in fact
taken and tested. If FSA have a statutory responsibility to carry
out a toxin monitoring programme then surely they also have a
statutory responsibility to ensure that it is carried out correctly.
Examples of current shortfalls in the toxin
testing regime are as follows:
(a) Late reporting
On Tuesday, 6 May 2003 a sample of mussels was
taken from Selivoe Shellfish Mussel Farm in Seli Voe, Shetland
Islands and sent to the Marine Laboratory, Aberdeen on behalf
of Food Standards Agency Scotland to be tested for shellfish toxins.
On Friday, 9 May it was confirmed at the Marine Laboratory that
the sample had tested positive for Diarrhetic Shellfish Poisoning
(DSP).
At 15.45 hrs on Friday, 9 May Marine Laboratory,
Aberdeen informed Food Standards Agency Scotland of the positive
DSP test.
At 16.45 hrs on Friday May Food Standards Agency
Scotland sent a fax to Environmental Services, Shetland Islands
Council informing them of the test result and issuing a Voluntary
Closure Order for the harvesting of mussels in Gruting/Seli Voe.
This fax was sent at 16.45 hrs despite the fact that the office
of Environmental Services, Shetland Islands Council closes at
16.00 hrs on a Friday.
The fax from Food Standards Agency Scotland
lay unnoticed in Shetland Islands Council offices until Tuesday,
13 May and no action was taken by Environmental Services, Shetland
Islands Council until Wednesday, 14 May when the mussel farms
in Gruting/Seli Voe were informed of the Voluntary Closure Order.
On Wednesday, 14 May, five days after the positive
result of the DSP test was known, A & C Tait Mussel Farm in
Gruting Voe was informed of the Voluntary Closure Order by Environmental
Services, Shetland Islands Council. Scottish Shellfish Marketing
Group Ltd, for whom the farm was harvesting mussels, were also
informed of the Voluntary Closure Order by both Environmental
Services, Shetland Islands Council and the Environmental Services
Department of North Lanarkshire Council on Wednesday, 14 May.
Scottish Shellfish Marketing Group Ltd were
ordered by Environmental Services Department of North Lanarkshire
Council to withdraw from sale and destroy any product containing
mussels harvested at A & C Tait Mussel Farm from Tuesday 6th
May to Wednesday, 14 May.
Under the toxin monitoring programme prior to
the involvement of the Food Standards Agency the Marine Laboratory,
Aberdeen informed directly Environmental Health Officers, affected
farmers and the Scottish Executive in Pentland House, Edinburgh
immediately a positive toxin test was found.
Food Standards Agency Scotland however insisted
that they would notify the Environmental Health Department responsible
for the area in which the farm was located and the EHO would in
turn advise the farm.
Scottish Shellfish Marketing Group Ltd (SSMG)
had made representations to both Marine Laboratory, Aberdeen and
Food Standards Agency Scotland for the Marine Laboratory to contact
direct both the farm and SSMG immediately a positive shellfish
toxin test was known. That request was refused by Food Standards
Agency Scotland. SSMG advised Food Standards Agency Scotland that
their complicated method of notification could lead to delays
and increase the possibility of contaminated product reaching
the consumer. SSMG's advice was ignored by Food Standards Agency
Scotland.
Consumers could have been put at risk by consuming
contaminated shellfish. Fortunately extensive chemical end product
standard testing carried out by SSMG proved conclusively that
all live mussels and processed product containing mussels harvested
at A & C Tait Mussel Farm were completely free of DSP. This
is not surprising as the farm sampled was in excess of three miles
distant and in a separate voe from the A & C Tait Mussel Farm.
The chemical end product standard testing carried out by SSMG
was done at Integrin Advanced Biosystems.
(b) Flawed Mouse Bio-assay
For several years the FRS Marine Laboratory,
Aberdeen has carried out the statutory monitoring programme for
toxins in shellfish using the Mouse Bioassay. The laboratory has
refined and improved the methodology for this test over several
years and the results from this test have provided safe and reliable
information to the seafood industry. Industry has come to rely
on this testing in conjunction with its own chemical end product
standard testing to ensure that only safe and wholesome product
is offered to the consumer.
Recently two other Government Laboratories,
CEFAS in Weymouth and DARD in Northern Ireland, changed the methodology
they used for the Mouse Bioassay. The result of that change was
that atypical positive results (false positives) were produced
principally from cockles with excessive numbers of live mice being
used and shellfish grounds closed for no good reason.
The Food Standards Agency insisted that FRS,
Aberdeen used the new method. FRS found, as in Weymouth and Northern
Ireland, that false positive results were obtained and, on advice
from the Home Office, they stopped using the new methodology and
reverted to the tried and tested method.
FSA cannot explain the reason for the false
positive results and all the experienced staff in FRS, Aberdeen
are convinced that the new methodology is fundamentally flawed.
Despite this Food Standards Agency were determined for some perverse
reason to make the new method mandatory in all UK laboratories
which they did with effect from Thursday, 13 November 2003.
This could have serious consequences for the
United Kingdom in general and Scotland in particular as shellfish
grounds throughout Scotland and the rest of the United Kingdom
would be closed for no good reason. This would threaten the viability
of a growing and vital industry to Scotland's rural communities
and put an established and prosperous industry at risk in coastal
areas of England and Wales.
Since the new SOP was introduced at FRS, Aberdeen
we have had three false positive results as follows:
| Test date | Farm
| Site | FRS Mouse Bioassay
| Integrin Chemical |
| 14/11/03 | M16 | Busta Voe
| Positive | Negative |
| 14/11/03 | M15 | Loch Leurbost
| Positive | Negative |
| 28/11/03 | O7 | Seil Sound
| Positive | Negative |
| |
| | |
We understand that FRS also carried out chemical tests on
these shellfish but the fact that they are not prepared to release
the results of those tests is yet another example of FSA's refusal
to work in harmony with industry.
(c) Responsibility for samples
In August/September 2001 one of our farms based in Sutherland
despatched mussels to the factory in Bellshill which we in turn
sent out to wholesale customers throughout the UK. A number of
food poisoning incidents occurred in various parts of the UK affecting
consumers who had eaten the mussels. We discovered that a sample
of mussels from the farm in question was lying in The Marine Laboratory
in Aberdeen having been sent there for testing for E coli
for water classification purposes. This sample was tested at our
request for toxins and tested positive for DSP.
The previous DSP test on mussels sent by the farm to the
Marine Laboratory had been carried out a month earlier and had
tested negative. Under the official shellfish toxin monitoring
programme, which is the responsibility of Food Standards Agency
Scotland, a sample should have been sent to the Marine laboratory
for testing two weeks later but no sample had been sent. Despite
the fact that the FSAS is responsible for the monitoring programme
they claimed that it was the responsibility of the farm, not the
Agency, to send in the sample.
In light of this incident SSMG decided that it was necessary
to set up our own testing regime, in addition to the official
monitoring programme, to make the overall testing regime more
robust and effective.
THE WAY
FORWARD
It is critical for all concerned, the shellfish industry,
the Government (FSA) and the consumer to have in place a robust,
comprehensive, accurate and fast reporting toxin monitoring regime
that quickly identifies problems and prevents contaminated product
being placed on the market. It is in no-one's interest, particularly
the industry, to make people ill and lose the confidence of the
consumer in healthy products that are daily growing in popularity
with today's knowledgeable Public.
It is frankly unacceptable for the FSA to shun cooperation
with industry, to promote outdated and inaccurate testing methods
and to accept that seven days is a reasonable timescale in which
to report results thereby potentially putting the consumer at
risk.
It is time that FSA worked with and not against industry
to protect the consumer and pool its resources together with those
of industry to set up a testing regime based on modern mutually
agreed chemical methods that reports results quickly and accurately.
Philip A Marshall
Vice Chairman
6 January 2004
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