'CSI' for seafood

WASHINGTON - Fish, shrimp and other catches from the Gulf of Mexico are being ground up to hunt for minute traces of oil in what's considered unprecedented safety testing - sort of a "CSI" for seafood that's far more reassuring than the sniff test that made all the headlines.

And while the dispersant that was dumped into the massive oil spill has consumers nervous, health regulators contend there's no evidence it builds up in seafood - although they're working to create a test for it, just in case.

"We're taking extraordinary steps to assure a high level of confidence in the seafood," said Jane Lubchenco, administrator of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

Don't expect the monitoring to end soon: "We're not going anywhere," Lubchenco said, renewing a pledge to keep testing even in waters declared oil-free to detect any lingering seafood concern.

More Gulf waters are reopening to commercial hauls as tests show little hazard from oil. Yet it's too soon to know what safety testing will satisfy a public so skeptical of government reassurances that even local fishermen voice concern.

Basic biology is key: Some species clear oil contamination from their bodies far more rapidly than others. Fish are the fastest, oysters and crabs the slowest, and shrimp somewhere in between.

"I probably would put oysters at the top of the concern list, and I don't think there's a close second," said marine scientist George Crozier, who directs the Dauphin Island Sea Lab in Alabama.

The oil contaminants of most health concern - potential cancer-causing substances called polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, or PAHs - show up in other everyday foods, too, such as grilled meat. Low levels also are in seafood sold from other waters.

Where Gulf seafood harvesting has been reopened, "the levels that we see are pretty typical of what we see in other areas, Puget Sound or Alaska," said Walton Dickhoff, who oversees testing at NOAA's Northwest Fisheries Science Center in Seattle.

Here are some questions and answers about Gulf seafood safety:

What are PAHs?

They're common pollutants from oil, vehicle exhaust, wood-burning fires and tobacco smoke. They can be in food grown in polluted soil and form in meat cooked at high temperatures. NOAA research found that Alaskan villagers' smoked salmon, a staple food, contained far more PAHs than shellfish tainted by the Exxon Valdez spill.

How does the government decide it's safe to reopen fishing waters?

Seafood testing begins when there's no longer visible oil in a particular area. First, inspectors smell samples for the slightest whiff of oil. Step 2 is chemical testing at the Food and Drug Administration, NOAA, or state laboratories.

To reopen seafood harvesting, the samples must test below FDA-set "levels of concern" for 12 PAHs, based on how much someone would have to eat for a potential health risk, and how much of each food fairly heavy seafood co

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