From today’s Times-Picayune:
http://www.nola.com/dining/index.ssf/2009/10/louisiana_blasts_fda_plan_to_l.html
In an effort to reduce cases of a rare, but potentially fatal, bacterial illness contracted from raw oysters, the FDA announced new rules this month that will require any oyster served from April through October to undergo a sterilization process before it can be sold in restaurants or on the market.
The rule will essentially eliminate raw oysters — at least as Louisianans know them — from restaurant menus for seven months of the year. Even oysters that will eventually be cooked during those months would have to go through the same cleansing process before being added to any dish, a move some say would undermine the culinary integrity of some of New Orleans’ most famous delicacies.
“It’s not only going to include raw oysters. You can’t fry oysters for a po-boy, you can’t put oysters in a gumbo and you can’t charbroil oysters unless they’re post-harvest processed,” said Tommy Cvitanovich, owner of Drago’s restaurant, a mainstay for oysters in the metro area. “That’s ludicrous.”
No more raw oysters from April to October.
Now I don’t really like to eat raw oysters in the summer, because I don’t think they taste as good, and I’ve gotten more bad ones than good ones. But I most certainly will eat them in a po-boy or charbroiled.
The vibrio vulnificus disease, the target of the FDA initiative, affects about 30 individuals per year nationwide who eat raw oysters from Gulf Coast. About half of those who get the disease, which invades the bloodstream and can cause a severe fever and skin lesions, eventually die.
But those most at risk from vibrio are people who already have immune system disorders, such as AIDS, cancer, kidney disease, diabetes or alcohol abuse.
Fifteen already sick people die a year from raw oysters? How many die from french fries and Big Macs? What about the dreaded peanut? I bet much more than 15 peanut kids die every year in tragic lunchroom food fights. Doesn’t every menu you’ve ever seen warn you that if you have a liver disease, you may not want to eat raw oysters? Isn’t that enough?
Is there a way we can ban oysters in other states that want to protect their citizens from the oyster menace, and let Louisiana continue to live dangerously? It will be like a tourist attraction. “Oh my goodness Mildred, they let you drink in the street AND eat raw oysters here!”