Battling Fish Fraud With DNA Testing 63
itwbennett writes "High demand, high prices, and nearly identical cheaper alternatives is a recipe for fraud. Eel fraud, that is. This has led Japanese researchers to develop a method to cheaply and quickly batch-test DNA by taking small tissue samples from thousands of eels. 'If a non-local eel is found in a batch, more tests will be performed to find the guilty foreigner.'"
Dumb Consumers? (Score:5, Interesting)
This sounds a lot like fraud in the wine business, where a relatively cheap wine is relabeled as an expensive wine.
Both in the fish market, and in the wine market, taste tests show that consumers generally can't tell the difference. If consumers were smart, they would have chosen the cheaper product in the first place. However, consumers are often more concerned about the image of the product than the product itself, so they buy the effectively identical more expensive product.
Yes, the fraud is wrong, but I can't say I feel that horrible about it, as the consumer is still effectively getting what they pay for--something expensive that tastes just like something cheap. Perhaps the resources would be better spent worrying about crimes with real victims.