Jennie Bourgeois

November 14, 2009

Gulf Coast Area Oysters

November 14th 2009 Posted to Raw Oysters

Gannett

WASHINGTON — Alfred Sunseri says not once in the 133-year-old history of his family’s oyster business in Louisiana has anyone died from eating an oyster contaminated with a potentially fatal bacteria.

“That’s a pretty good track record,” said Sunseri, president of P&J Oyster Company Inc. in New Orleans. “That puts things into perspective as to the risk.”

Sunseri and other oystermen in the Gulf Coast are pressing congressional lawmakers to stop federal food safety officials from banning oysters that aren’t treated for the bacteria vibrio vulnificus. They say the ban could cripple their businesses and even force some of them to close.

But Jennie Bourgeois of Baton Rogue, whose father died after eating a contaminated oyster two years ago, said the ban is needed to protect consumers.

“I’m not anti-oyster. I just want them to be safe,” Bourgeois said. “I’m shouting from the rooftops because I don’t want anyone else to experience the same thing.”

The Food and Drug Administration is proposing a requirement that oysters harvested from April through October off the Gulf Coast undergo a process that kills vibrio vulnificus. The requirement would take effect in 2011 and might be phased in gradually.

“We want to do it in a feasible way and give industry time to adapt,” said Michael Taylor, senior adviser to FDA Commissioner Margaret Hamburg. “These changes are never easy.”

The FDA said Friday that it would put its plan on hold until it conducts a feasibility study.

Sunseri said the proposed ban would be “absolutely devastating” for his small company of 25 workers.

“All we do is sell oysters. Half of what we do is for raw consumption,” Sunseri said.

Teddy Busick of Biloxi, Miss., said the FDA’s plan could force him to close his oyster reef restoration company, which employs between 30 and 40 people throughout the year.

“My company will go away,” Busick said.

He said the treatment process can cost $500,000 and changes the taste of the oyster.

“You can’t even get people to eat that product,” he said.

Sunseri and Busick joined other Gulf Coast oystermen in Washington last week to meet with lawmakers about their concerns. Lawmakers from the region said they plan to write to the White House, urging the administration to drop the proposed ban. Several support legislation that would deny the FDA the money it needs to implement the plan and would expand an education program for at-risk consumers.

Sens. Mary Landrieu, D-La., David Vitter, R-La., and Jeff Sessions, R-Ala., as well as Reps. Joe Bonner, R-Mobile, and Charlie Melancon, D-Napoleonville, oppose the proposed ban. They applauded the FDA’s decision Friday to further study the impact of a ban.

While raw oysters don’t make most people sick, people with diabetes, liver disease or other conditions can become seriously ill – and even require amputations – from eating oysters carrying the bacteria. The disease is fatal in 50 percent of cases and affects about 30 people a year, according to the FDA.

Bourgeois said her father, James Sartwell, had been diagnosed with high liver enzymes but didn’t know he shouldn’t eat raw oysters. Sartwell, retired from the army after more than 30 years, died two weeks after eating a contaminated bivalve at his 60th birthday dinner in 2007.

Bourgeois said her family had no idea eating a raw oyster could be fatal.

“And we’ve been in Louisiana for generations,” she said. “We were shocked.”

She criticized the oyster industry and Louisiana lawmakers for being “more concerned about an economic consideration than human life.”

Lawmakers and oystermen say the number of deaths caused by contaminated oysters is much smaller than the number caused by other contaminated food. While every death is a tragedy, Melancon said, 15 a year from contaminated oysters is “minuscule.”

“We don’t like to see anyone die,” Sunseri said. “But the fact of the matter is, every one of those people is highly immune-compromised and shouldn’t be eating raw shellfish, period.”

Treating tainted oysters significantly reduces illness and deaths, said William Schaffner, chairman of the Department of Preventive Medicine at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tenn.

“We have an economically feasible process that could virtually eliminate this risk,” Schaffner said.

He said oystermen arguing against the proposed FDA requirement “are looking backward rather than forward” and are showing too little concern for food safety.

Vibrio vulnificus can be killed using any of several methods, including pasteurization, quick-freezing oysters, and using high hydrostatic pressure.

At AmeriPure Processing Co. Inc. in Franklin, La., company founder John Tesvich dips oysters in warm water and then in cold water, a process he has patented.

“This regulatory change is more or less inevitable,” Tesvich said. “As a business, we decided it was important for us to be prepared and to move to the next step.”

FDA officials say their proposed ban would affect only about 25 percent of the Gulf Coast oyster industry because many oysters are harvested in colder months or already undergo treatment for bacteria.

“The real issue, I think, is how logistically the many small harvesters can gain access to the technology,” Taylor said.

Oystermen say they’ve worked with state and federal officials for nearly a decade to address the problem and have agreed to treat raw oysters more frequently for vibrio vulnificus and do more refrigeration. They also have launched campaigns to warn consumers about the risks.

But Taylor said those efforts haven’t worked.

“It’s time to move on this,” he said.

Contact Deborah Barfield Berry at dberry(AT)gannett.com