Ehrlich, Industry Serve Up Reassurances Rockfish Is Safe to Eat
By Daniel de Vise
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, March 22, 2006
Captains of the fishing industry and a fresh 38-inch rockfish crowded into the kitchen beneath Maryland's governor's mansion yesterday to celebrate -- and eat -- the embattled state fish.
It was a united front to dispel fears of disease, rather than a hankering for seafood, that brought them together.
"We're about to partake of Maryland's finest delicacy," said Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr. (R) as he tasted the filet of a rockfish just plucked from the mouth of the Potomac River.
The message: Consumers needn't worry about the mycobacteriosis epidemic that has afflicted the Chesapeake Bay rockfish population. Any rockfish that makes its way to a dinner plate has been so thoroughly inspected, and so carefully handled, that the risk to the diner is minute.
The photo opportunity came in response to a round of news coverage unflattering to the rockfish, set off by a March 11 report in The Washington Post. No one there disputed the main point of the reports: that disease has spread to a large portion of the bay's rockfish, or striped bass.
The group's point, rather, was to reassure the public that rockfish is safe to eat and to calm marketplace jitters, which have sent the wholesale price of rockfish tumbling from $2.60 to $1.50 a pound in two weeks, industry officials say.
"Some of the bigger buyers apparently are holding back," said Bill Sieling, executive director of the Chesapeake Bay Seafood Industries Association.
Mycobacteriosis first appeared nearly a decade ago. Although the infection is nothing new, the rate of disease among bay rockfish appears to have risen. Nearly 75 percent of rockfish in the bay are turning up with the disease, according to sources at the state Department of Natural Resources.
But industry leaders yesterday cited more promising evidence: By one fisherman's estimate, only one rockfish in 200 caught showed visible lesions from the disease. Tim Sughrue, vice president of seafood distributor Congressional Seafood, said the incidence of visible lesions on rockfish is "dramatically less" than in the late 1990s.
The consumer "is getting an almost perfect fish," Sieling said.
Scientists say not all diseased fish display lesions. The fish infection has, in some cases, been tied to what's known as fish handler's disease, which can lead to skin lesions and arthritis-like joint problems if untreated.
But there is no evidence that harm can come to a diner who eats properly cooked, properly handled fish. Rockfish sushi, on sale this week a few steps from the governor's mansion, is presumed safe if prepared by properly trained chefs, said Mike Slattery, an assistant secretary at the natural resources agency.
"We would like to calm this fear," Slattery said.
The event underscored the heft of the $300 million rockfish industry in Maryland and Virginia and the havoc that a bit of bad publicity can unleash on those who catch, sell, cook or serve the fish.
State agency officials handed out fact sheets on how to safely clean and cook a rockfish, along with a color photograph of a healthy fish and a sheet of recipes.
Ehrlich posed with his plate of rockfish, took a bite, then took another at the urging of a television cameraman. A newspaper photographer leaned in for a close-up on the eyeball of the newly caught specimen.
"By the way," the governor told those assembled, "my rockfish was very tasty."
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