FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. _ Gulf Coast lawmakers derailed efforts to curtail a deadly disease with a public relations campaign built on exaggerated claims.
Congressmen stood firmly with the Gulf oyster industry in 2009 to defeat federal regulation that would require treatment of raw oysters to eliminate Vibrio vulnificus, vicious bacteria that thrive in warm coastal waters.
They offered dire predictions for the impact on oyster harvesters, dealers and restaurants in their states and misrepresented the U.S. Food and Drug Administration's plan.
The industry stopped the FDA, and then went further _ it successfully pushed legislation barring future regulation without notifying Congress or getting approval from the oyster industry.
Gulf lawmakers cheered it as a "tremendous victory."
For Virginia Barineau, it was a death sentence. The North Florida woman was one of at least 150 people who died, lost limbs or became seriously ill after the oyster industry and its supporters in Congress blocked the FDA.
"If these regulations were kept ... my mother would still be here," said Barineau's daughter, Kimberly Bliss. "As far as I'm concerned, they have blood on their hands."
