Ciguatoxins

On Thursday, a warning was passed to fish processors to handle fish with a lot of acre and take the necessary precautions especially with fish that potentially could cause Ciguatera food poisoning (CFP). The FDA Draft guidance that was published in the Registry contained a list of all fish types that sea food processors should take extra precautions with. The list included some species of jacks, job fish wrasse, mackerel, moray eels, tang and even parrotfish. New entries on the list included two lionfish species that had previously not been included in an earlier draft.

Ciguatoxins are harmful chemicals that are released by coral reef algae, mainly in tropical regions. The symptoms of CFP usually include vomiting, diarrhea, neurological symptoms, such as sensation reversal (when something is hot, a victim would feel that it is cold). Unfortunately, the neurological impact of CFP is long term and can affect the victim for over a year.

Statistics show that ciguatoxins are the major cause of marine-toxin illnesses in the world. The toxins are mostly prevalent in the Pacific Ocean, mainly to the south, the Caribbean Sea, in fish that thrive in the Gulf of Mexico, as well as the Indian Ocean. The guidance draft urges processors to exercise maximum caution when purchasing seafood from harvesters. According to the guidelines, all species in the draft that are from the mentioned areas should be discarded.

Presently, no cure for CFP has been discovered and the only way to avoid the deadly illness is to know the species of the harvested fish, as well as its origin. Cooking the fish does not remove the toxins, since according to scientific research the compounds are still stable even under high heat. Moreover, fish species that have been infected will not have a strange odor, since the toxins are odor-free.