Importation of chinese clams causes problems in local markets

In early 2001, there was an importation of frozen molluscan shellfish (clams & mussels) into New Jersey originating from the Republic of China. The state embargoed almost 6,000 cases of clams both whole and half shell which were falsely labeled as cooked or pre-cooked and were found to be raw. Once the State of New Jersey and the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) investigation revealed that these were not, in fact, cooked clams, the destruction of the products and a national voluntary recall was initiated. The FDA labs later isolated Hepatitis A virus in samples from the shipment implicated in an outbreak. There is a concern that raw or partially cooked molluscan shellfish is entering the United States under false pretenses as a cooked product. This appears to be a circumvention of the Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) process for a foreign country to be evaluated under the criteria of the National Shellfish Sanitation Program (NSSP) prior to shipping products into the U.S. At the heart of the NSSP is the knowledge that states and countries with FDA MOU's have a program which complies with certain critical water quality criteria including bacteriological, chemical, and marine biotoxin hazards relative to the shellfish and the growing waters. Hazards such as chemicals and marine biotoxins obviously can not be destroyed via cooking. With the increase of world trade and shellfish aquaculture, it is imperative that the domestic shellfish industry be aware of imported molluscan shellfish and advise the FDA and state departments of health to force foreign countries to adhere completely to the NSSP Memorandum.