FDA Small Turtle Ban in Jeopardy

The government must reconsider its ban on selling small turtles, a federal district judge has ruled.

"This is a firefight this time," said Eddie Jolly, president of the Independent Turtle Farmers of Louisiana. "This has got teeth. We're going to win this one."

Judge Dee D. Drell ruled March 30 that the Food and Drug Administration failed to adequately consider arguments made in 2006 to end the ban on selling turtles with shells less than 4 inches long.

Such sales have been banned since 1975, because turtles can transmit salmonella.

Drell found that the FDA failed to pay enough attention to several arguments. One is that larger turtles and other pets that carry salmonella can legally be sold in the United States. Another is that new products, such as antibacterial soap, can reduce the risk.

Lawsuit: Independent Turtle Farmers of Louisiana Inc v. U S A et al

Farmers also contend that the FDA has set them an impossible scientific demand: proof that they can produce completely salmonella-free turtles and that those turtles will never be reinfected.

About 80 farmers in Louisiana sell 4 million turtles a year, mostly to China and Europe because of the U.S. ban.

"When it was first put into place, turtles were being caught out of streams, lakes, roadways and being sold in pet stores," Jolly said. "There were problems with salmonella in children and elderly people. Since then, with the evolution of science of farm-raised turtles, it's not even the same world."

But the FDA, he said, "has never recognized our science. They've kept a black mark on our names for 35 years."
His group contends that treating turtle eggs with chlorine significantly cuts the chanace that the hatchlings will carry salmonella.

A sampling of more than 67 million turtles raised in Louisiana from 1996-2005 by Southern Diagnostic Laboratory in Gilbert found 98.9 percent to be salmonella-free, he said.

The FDA and other advocates of the ban say small turtles still pose a health risk.

A salmonella outbreak in 2007-08 sickened 107 people, most of them children, in 34 states; one-third of the patients had to be hospitalized. Patients included girls who swam with pet turtles in a backyard pool and younger children who kissed turtles or put small turtles into their mouths.

Turtle farmers contend that turtles carrying salmonella were caught in the wild or obtained illegally from non-treated populations, and comparing them with turtles raised by farmers who treat their stock is unfair.
Turtle farmers, many of whom are in Catahoula and Concordia parishes, have been producing less and less stock since China began domestic turtle farms a few years ago.

Louisiana produced 15 million turtles a year at the business's peak, Jolly said. But a turtle that once sold for $2 or more in China now sells for 30 cents or less, he said.

"If you sell to China, it's like you worked all year for almost nothing," said Jolly. He said he thinks farmers could sell turtles at home for $2 to $3, the price they get in Europe.

George "Sonny" White, who farms turtles near Jonesville, said, "You're looking at economic growth in an area as poverty stricken as it can be."