美国加州大学戴维斯分校一实验室将参与墨西哥湾海鲜检测

食品伙伴网导读：美国加州大学戴维斯分校的官员上周宣布：该校的动物健康与食品安全实验室被列为对墨西哥湾海产品进行有毒化学品检测的八个实验室之一。研究人员将对虾、蟹、牡蛎等海产品进行检测。当这家实验室检测来自海湾的海鲜是洁净时，海湾水域才能被重新开放。先将海鲜样本经过简单的嗅觉检测后，那些散发着恶臭的被油污浸泡的样本被筛选掉，而这些加州的科学家将对那些通过“嗅觉测试”的海鲜进行检测。该实验室的重点是那些没有浓重原油味道的样品。研究人员的工作是要弄清楚，原油对此类食品的影响是否仍可能损害消费者。


原文报道： by Laurel Curran | Jul 19, 2010
The University of California's Davis Animal Health and Food Safety Laboratory has been been chosen as one of eight labs to test gulf seafood for toxic chemicals, university officials announced last week. Researchers there will be testing crab, shrimp and oysters.

The lab was picked because it is part of the U.S. Food Emergency Response Network, an integrated network of the nation's food-testing laboratories at the local, state, and federal levels that is able to respond to emergencies involving biological, chemical, or radiological contamination of food.

Though the BP oil well was capped on Thursday, experts estimate that over 180 million gallons of crude oil has spilled into the gulf. Locals have begun referring to the gulf as the "sea of sadness" because thousands of fisherman have lost their jobs. The work of the UC Davis lab will contribute to these fishermen getting back out on the water as quickly as possible. When seafood is cleared by the lab, fishing waters will be allowed to reopen.

The California scientists will be receiving seafood that passes the "smell test", which is a simple sniff of each creature for the stench of oil. Items that are highly saturated will be tossed out. The lab is focused on the creatures that do not smell like oil. The researchers' job is to figure out if the oil has had a negative impact on the food that can harm consumers.

There is some suspicion that toxic chemicals may be present that can cause cancer in humans. These chemicals include polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons like naphthalene, cryclene, and benzoate pyrene among others.

Linda Aston, chief chemist at the lab, said Thursday that they planned to begin testing seafood this week.

The UC Davis lab has never tested for these specific chemicals before, and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration has given the lab $140,000 worth of new equipment to use. This equipment will remain after the tests, preparing UC Davis for potential future spills.