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Old October 5th, 2005, 03:40 AM
Jeff
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Default 100,000 tons of Vietnamese Catfish to be destroyed..

GOOD! Just tonight I made sure the restaraunt wasnt selling that basa sh_t.
(I am in Mississippi, have to support the MS Farm raised catfish growers.
Plus it tastes better, is cleaner and the texture isnt mush like Basa.

http://www.klfy.com/Global/story.asp?S=3936605

MONTGOMERY, Ala. State Agriculture Commissioner Ron Sparks says more than
204-thousand pounds of Vietnamese fish in Alabama warehouses will have to be
destroyed because testing found mislabeling and widespread use of an illegal
antibiotic.

At a news conference surrounded by boxes used to ship frozen fish from
Vietnam, Sparks said that out of 21 samples of Vietnamese basa catfish and
striped panagasius tested, 19 contained the antibiotic fluoroquinolones
(flu-roe-KWIN-a-lones). The U-S Food and Drug Administration banned the
antibiotic from use in food-producing animals in 1997.

In addition, three samples contained malachite green. That's a synthetic dye
that is sometimes administered illegally as a fungicide in fish farming.

And some boxes labeled as "wild caught" sole from Vietnam were actually basa
catfish, which is usually farm raised.

Sparks says American fish farmers can't use fluoroquinolones and can't
mislabel their products, so imported fish ought to have to operate under the
same rules. If it doesn't, he says he will try to prevent its sale in
Alabama.

In addition to announcing the test results today, Sparks says he's
continuing a stop sale order he issued August 12th on Vietnamese fish and
seafood shipped to Alabama. He says companies will be able to sell new
shipments if they present test results showing the fish is labeled properly
and has no illegal antibiotics. But he says regular monitoring and testing
will continue.