Wanted: Noses - No Experience Necessary

“You know that metaphor when people say something ‘doesn’t pass the smell test’?” MSNBC host Rachel Maddow asked her viewers last Friday evening. “Well now, in the BP oil disaster era, it’s no longer a metaphor. Smell tests - for real. Trained smell-testers monitoring America’s seafood supply.”

In a admittedly bizarre effort to detect oil-tainted seafood before it hits the open market, about sixty “sniffers” have been trained so far in “seafood sensory testing” by the International Food Protection Training Institute and NOAA Fishery Service at the National Seafood Inspection Lab in Pascagoula, Mississippi.

Gerald Wojtala, director of the IFPTI, acknowledged that the method may sound silly, but said it’s nonetheless a time-proven technique. “The human nose has been used on a lot of spill response. There are a lot of sophisticated tests, but when you think about it, do you want to run a test that takes seven days and costs thousands of dollars?”

Although Wojtala verified that his agency is not seeking out people with supernatural smelling abilities to put on the case, but is rather training regular folks to be able to detect contamination, he does acknowledge that they occasionally run across what Maddow called “star noses,” people with a much more natural affinity for the work. The first level of training produces only “screeners,” but some move on through the ranks to become “assessors or even experts,” says Wojtala. “It all depends on how good their God-given talents are.”

It may not be the failsafe 21st century technology Americans might expect to see at work, but as a first response, says Wojtala, “it puts more eyes and noses at different points in the system.”

Joe Jenkins, owner of the Crystal Seas Seafood Company, agrees. “Here, we don’t have inspectors on any level so we have to inspect our ownseafood products to make sure they’re safe and oil-free and good to eat.”

Others, like Mississippian Mike Triana, have their doubts. “No way. How they gonna know? I ain’t eating any of it. I don’t trust the nose.”

(Maddow’s full interview with Gerald Wojtala can be found HERE.)