No Risk in Seafood Consumption So Far, Says Brazilian Health Minister

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – Health Minister Luiz Henrique Mandetta said yesterday, October 31st, that he has no evidence to warrant an “abrupt interruption” of seafood consumption, despite the oil slicks that have surfaced on Brazil’s northeastern beaches.

According to him, the monitoring is being constantly carried out so that, upon the first sign of risk, the population may be warned.

“So far we don’t have any evidence to suggest [to the population] that consumption should be halted. We are, at all times, analyzing and retrieving oysters, shellfish, mussels, lobsters, fish, hake, barracudas and we haven’t found anything that poses a risk so far. When it occurs, the Ministry of Health will immediately issue a warning,” the minister told Agência Brasil, upon arriving for an event at the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) in Brasília.

The monitoring of the effects that the oil has had on marine life has been conducted through a partnership with the Ministry of Agriculture, Livestock, and Supply (MAPA). “What we know so far is that we haven’t found anything that, according to the precautionary rule, would require us to abruptly interrupt the food chain,” he added.

Health Centres

According to Mandetta, assistance to people with health issues as a result of having come into contact with the oil found on beaches, is decreasing after warnings to wear boots and gloves, thus avoiding direct skin contact.

“The occasional intoxications that we notice, of skin irritation and headaches, are essentially due to the fact that people have used benzine as a solvent on the skin to remove the substance. I believe that this occurred because, at the beginning, people didn’t know how to deal with the situation”, he said. According to the minister, in these cases, soap and water or even cooking oil are the most recommended to use.

Oil slick

Mandetta commented on statements by researchers from the federal universities of Rio de Janeiro (UFRJ) and Alagoas (UFAL) who, based on imagery detected by the European satellite Sentinel 1A, said they had spotted an oil slick off the southern coast of Bahia State, measuring between 200 and 300 square km (km²).

According to the minister, the issue has already been clarified by IBAMA and the Navy, which said that the image would not be oil, but most likely a meteorological phenomenon in intense activity: “We are guided by the Brazilian Navy, which possesses the best equipment and the best marine expertise”.

When contacted by Agência Brasil, the Ministry of Defense said that “inspections have already been carried out by a Brazilian Air Force (FAB) aircraft and Navy ships in the region, confirming the absence of oil in the area”.

After attending a ceremony to sign a sectoral agreement with organizations in the electrical and electronics sector, Environment Minister Ricardo Salles also commented on the case. “It was not an oil slick, but we proceeded with monitoring and with the work of collecting, monitoring and disposing of oil in the Northeast”.

Source: Agência Brasil