Seafood Poisoning Rises With Global Warming
Pastor Dale Morgan
Apr 1, 11:19 AM EDT
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Seafood Poisonings Rises With Global Warming*
By MICHAEL CASEY
AP Environmental Writer
ILOILO, Philippines (AP) -- Bowls of piping hot barracuda soup were the
much-anticipated treat when the Roa family gathered for a casual and
relaxing Sunday meal.
Within hours, all six fell deathly ill. So did two dozen others from the
same neighborhood. Some complained of body-wide numbness. Others had
weakness in their legs. Several couldn't speak or even open their mouths.
"I was scared. I really thought I was going to die," said Dabby Roa, 21,
a student who suffered numbness in his head, tingling in his hands and
had trouble breathing.
What Roa and the others suffered that night last August was ciguatera
poisoning, a rarely fatal but growing menace from eating exotic fish.
All had bought portions of the same barracuda from a local vendor.
Experts estimate that up to 50,000 people worldwide suffer ciguatera
poisoning each year, with more than 90 percent of cases unreported.
Scientists say the risks are getting worse, because of damage that
pollution and global warming are inflicting on the coral reefs where
many fish species feed.
Dozens of popular fish types, including grouper and barracuda, live near
reefs. They accumulate the toxic chemical in their bodies from eating
smaller fish that graze on the poisonous algae. When oceans are warmed
by the greenhouse effect and fouled by toxic runoff, coral reefs are
damaged and poison algae thrives, scientists say.
"Worldwide, we have a much bigger problem with toxins from algae in
seafood than we had 20 or 30 years ago," said Donald M. Anderson,
director of the Coastal Ocean Institute at the Woods Hole Oceanographic
Institution in Massachusetts.
"We have more toxins, more species of algae producing the toxins and
more areas affected around the world," he said.
Although risk of ciguatera has soared recently, the phenomenon is
ancient. Fish poisoning shows up in Homer's Odyssey. Alexander the Great
forbade his armies to eat fish for fear of being stricken, according to
University of Hawaii professor Yoshitsugi Hokama.
Capt. James Cook and his crew probably suffered ciguatera poisoning in
1774 after eating fish near Vanuatu in the South Pacific, according to
crew journals and correspondence studied by Dr. Michael Doherty of the
Swedish Epilepsy Center in Seattle, writing in the scientific review
Neurology. Cook recorded that they "were seized with an extraordinary
weakness in all our limbs attended with a numbness or sensation like ...
that ... caused by exposing one's hands or feet to a fire after having
been pinched much by frost."
Ciguatera has long been known in the South Pacific, the Caribbean and
warmer areas of the Indian Ocean. Some South Pacific islanders use dogs
to test fish before they eat.
But in the past decade, it has spread through Asia, Europe and the
United States, where more restaurants are serving reef fish, prized for
their fresh taste and exotic cachet.
In the United States, ciguatera poisonings are most frequent in Florida,
Texas and Hawaii, which has seen a fivefold increase since the 1970s to
more than 250 a year.
Hong Kong, which imports much of its seafood, went from fewer than 10
cases annually in the 1980s to a few hundred now.
Still, Hong Kong diners pay a premium for the risky fish. Rare species
like the Napoleon wrasse fetch nearly $50 a pound. The fish are
increasingly shipped live from Southeast Asia and as far away as the
South Pacific, raising concerns from the World Conservation Union that
many species, especially groupers, could be fished out of existence.
Professor Yvonne Sadovy, of the University of Hong Kong, predicted that
high demand and cash-hungry fishermen mean that "ciguatoxic fish
entering markets around the world is going to increase."
Should global warming and pollution worsen and boost ciguatera
poisonings, as most experts predict, health officials will face a
daunting challenge.
Currently, there is no reliable way to detect whether a fish has
ciguatera. The molecule is extremely complex and differs markedly from
region to region.
There also is no antidote.
Furthermore, doctors are often ill-equipped to diagnose ciguatera, which
has a range of symptoms and is sometimes misdiagnosed as chronic fatigue
syndrome or other maladies.
Those challenges faced Dr. Edgar Portigo at Doctors General Hospital in
Iloilo, about 265 miles southeast of Manila, when the Roa family and
others arrived. The emergency room was filling with patients yelping in
pain, vomiting, or, in the case of Dabby Roa, so paralyzed that he had
to be carried in by a security guard.
"Normally, you have one or two emergency cases. Here we had 30 plus all
at once," from ages 4 to 65, Portigo said.
At first, Portigo surmised the patients had heavy metal poisoning. But
when he learned of the common thread - the barracuda dinners - he sent a
sample of the fish to Manila for testing. It came back positive for
ciguatera.
Portigo gave his patients intravenous drips and a diuretic to relieve
their suffering. Most like Roa were released from the hospital in a
week, he said, and fully recovered.
"Although this is quite rare, it can happen anytime," said Portigo,
noting this was the first ciguatera outbreak in the city.
A relatively quick recovery is the norm, but some have lingering symptoms.
Dennis McGillicuddy, a 65-year-old retired cable television company
owner from Sarasota, Fla., fell sick a few hours after eating a mutton
snapper he caught off the coast of Bermuda in 2000. Within hours, his
vomiting and diarrhea were so severe that he became delirious and was
"reduced to crawling," he recalled.
The digestive symptoms lasted two weeks. After that, McGillicuddy became
so sensitive to temperature extremes that it was hard to take a shower.
Numbness in his extremities lasted for almost a year.
"I've never had anything like this," said McGillicuddy, who still
occasionally feels tingling in his left arm. "You feel terrible all over
your body."
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration and others who monitor ciguatera
say they are hampered by the lack of a reliable test. Bans on certain
fish or "hot spots" can help, but they often are impractical.
"It's very hard to manage," said professor Richard Lewis, of the
University of Queensland in Australia, who has studied ciguatera.
"Unless you don't eat the fish, you have a risk of getting ciguatera."
Poorer countries often lack even rudimentary measures to protect
consumers. Those precautions that do exist are undermined by government
corruption or lack of enforcement.
Hong Kong has refused to enact mandatory measures to prevent ciguatera
despite increased outbreaks. It argues that educating consumers and
traders is the answer, rejecting calls to crack down on traders or ban
fish from suspect areas.
"Given the fact we eat so much seafood in Hong Kong, this should be one
of the priorities in protecting the population," Sadovy said. "I just
hope we don't have to wait for someone to die before something is done."
In Iloilo, fear has done what the Philippine government has not.
Consumers stopped buying barracuda after the ciguatera outbreak. Vendors
have switched to less risky varieties.
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Associated Press writer Dikky Sinn in Hong Kong contributed to this report.