Poorly informed seafood poachers are risking their lives and those of others by skirting official harvesting closures.
At least 15 people have been partially paralyzed by contaminated seafood in the past three years and one victim was totally paralyzed and lost the ability to breathe, said Tom Kosatsky, medical director of the B.C. Centre for Disease Control.
“This person was aware of what was happening and was able to get himself to medical help and draw the attention of the medical personnel to what was wrong,” he said. “He might have died otherwise from a lack of air moving into his lungs.”
Once paralysis sets in you might not be able to talk or explain how you became ill.
The most severe cases of paralytic shellfish poisoning were traced to seafood from closed beaches, in particular clams, oysters, mussels and crabs.
A public warning has been issued to dispel the widely held misconception that you can’t get paralytic poisoning in the fall and winter — the months with an “r” myth.
“That has always been what people said about oysters, but in fact that’s a myth,” said Kosatsky. “Algae blooms are more likely in the summer, but shellfish can retain toxins for a long time. We’ve seen people sickened by shellfish harvested in November and March, which are not warm months.”
Butter clams can retain the toxin for the rest of their lives. The regulatory limit for paralytic toxins in seafood is 80 micrograms per 100 grams of seafood. Tests on seafood implicated in illnesses reported in B.C. found levels up to 250 times the limit.
The seafood was often found to be harvested from a closed area.
Nearly every beach between the northern tip of Vancouver Island and the U.S. border is either closed or partially closed to harvesting, according to a biotoxin status map maintained by the B.C. Centre for Disease Control.
Because the paralysis is caused by a toxin and not a virus or bacterium, contaminated seafood cannot be made safe by freezing or cooking, which might even concentrate the poison.
The first symptoms include tingling around the mouth and the hands. Painful muscle paralysis comes soon after.
“People sometimes eat a little bit of shellfish or rub it on their lips and wait to see what happens — which is not so smart,” he said. “You are much better off to make sure your seafood comes from an area that is clear of toxins.”
The launch of the map and the public warning is meant to reach out to casual harvesters such as campers or anyone who thinks it would be fun to pick up a few clams or mussels off the beach, and to self-harvesters who supplement their food by collecting shellfish.
“People do it and there’s no effective enforcement to deter harvesters,” he said, “Basically, if you aren’t sure, don’t harvest it and don’t eat it.”
If you experience tingling in your mouth or hands soon after eating shellfish, stop eating, call 911 or Poison Control (1-800-657-6911) and freeze a sample of the shellfish you have been eating for testing.
