During a House Oversight Committee hearing prior to the congressional recess, Rep. Clay Higgins (R-LA) questioned Richard Williams, senior affiliated scholar at the Mercatus Center, about controlling seafood imports.
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00:00Mr. Williams, I'm going to be talking to you mostly, sir, some questions and observations regarding FDA and food safety.
00:09Let's just talk about seafood for a second, please.
00:12About a year ago, we had a hearing where members interacted, mostly were not overspoken by other members.
00:23The members interacted with our witnesses, and it was confirmed broadly that only about one-tenth of one percent of seafood imported into our country was inspected for chemical and biological poisons.
00:46And we're talking about billions and billions of pounds of seafood coming into our country.
00:52It's consumed by Americans, or else why is it coming here?
00:56And the only reason you don't get immediately sick, in many cases, is because we cook it, and it kills some of the potential biological hazards and things.
01:09But the chemicals and the long-term impact on cancer and neurological disorders and serious problems can arise, you know, one might say.
01:21A reasonable observer may say that if you're consuming billions of pounds of poisonous seafood imported into our country, somebody might get sick.
01:32Speaking to health.
01:33Speaking to health, we believe there's been progress made in this arena of protecting Americans from harmful biological and chemical elements that have been found broadly in imported seafood.
01:50Can you speak to how we're doing with that, Dr. Williams, in the past, since this year, 2025?
01:57Yeah. I guess I could start briefly by just saying originally we had a rule on seafood called hazard analysis critical control points where we hoped that was going to make a big difference.
02:10Unfortunately, the problem is with seafood. Most of it is seafood consumed raw. And I'm thinking raw oysters from the Gulf of wherever.
02:20And that's a problem because there's not much in the way you can do about that. They're taken right from the Gulf.
02:25They're already contaminated by the Gulf. They're already contaminated by the warm waters of the Gulf.
02:27And when they go straight to people and eat them, they are eating, in many cases, dangerous pathogens.
02:34There are, I think, one of the problems that we have with imported seafood, again, it's the problem that we have with everything, is the resources that we devote to so many things at FDA that are not useful could be better used
02:47if we got rid of, if we got rid of ineffective programs, if we got rid of regulations that don't work so we could really focus, target our inspections, have more resources to target our inspections on those products.
02:59Would you agree that there's a high level of responsibility for the nations of origin to do proper inspections and their procedures for farming and harvesting and packaging and shipping?
03:19In no way do they meet American standards that American producers are required to comply with. And yet they're in violation of agreements that they will perform as standards equivalent to American standards. Don't you believe we should enforce that?
03:42Yeah, I think one of the problems is where are they actually coming from? So, for example, I mean, I can give an example in furniture.
03:49We've identified many, many nations and they bounce their product around.
03:53Exactly, yes, sir.
03:54So the question is, and I'm running out of time here, are we making progress regarding controlling poisoned seafood coming into our country?
04:03I really can't speak to whether or not we're actually making progress, but I want to agree with you. For example, if seafood says it's coming from Vietnam,
04:11for example, where I was, it may actually be coming from China. That's one of the things they do. They send their products through Vietnam to us.
04:20So I think it does make it difficult for our inspectors.
04:22Well, we're going to aggressively pursue that. And this administration, the Trump administration, has been quite aggressive,
04:28and I'm thankful to that, to protect Americans from harmful seafood coming into our country.
04:34The FDA's control over other poisons that find their way into our food supply, the colored foods, etc.
04:46Can you just speak to that? And I'll allow you to answer if the chairwoman will allow.
04:51I don't quite understand your question. Can you repeat it?
04:55The way the FDA will address poisons in our food to add, like, say, brightness of color to children's cereal, etc.?
05:06Yeah. The color additives, these are tested, particularly for carcinogens, every single one of them before they come on the market.
05:14There still may be things that they didn't test for that might cause a problem, but they are some of the most tested substances on earth.
05:22So I think there are other issues we should be concerned about.