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solonavi 2 April 2007 Climate, General, Habitat 115 views No Comment Print This Post  Email This Post

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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

Filipino fish vendors wait for customers at the Villa Arevalo public market, the same wet market that sold a Barracuda fish that sickened 32 people last August in Iloilo city in central Philippines in this Feb. 26, 2007 file photo. The victims were diagnosed of Ciguatera poisoning, one of the most dangerous but least known forms of seafood poisoning. Ciguatera has sickened people for centuries but is starting to gain a foothold in the developed nations as restaurants scramble to meet the growing demand for reef fishes. (AP Photo/Bullit Marquez)