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Ministry of Health halts seafood extraction in Atacama due to presence of amnesic shellfish poison

The Ministerial Secretary of Health for the region, Pilar Merino, has said that the toxin cannot be eliminated in the cooking process.

26 de Diciembre de 2008 | 13:00 | El Mercurio Online

SANTIAGO.- After confirming the presence of amnesic shellfish poison, and in hopes of preventing intoxication, the Regional Ministerial Secretary (SEREMI) of Health for the Region of Atacama, Pilar Merino, has announced that the extraction of shellfish from the Pan de Azúcar area has been halted.


"There haven't been any human intoxications and our goal is to prevent any kind of event that could affect people's health", Merino told Radio Cooperativa.


The authority insisted that there have been no known cases of people who have consumed the type of poison. Nevertheless, Merino also indicated that a mere 20 micrograms of the toxin per gram of marine product has been known to cause death in mice. At the moment extraction operations were closed down, samples had been taken with a proportion of 198.5 micrograms per gram of the toxin.


Depending upon the quantity of shellfish consumed, the symptoms in humans start with an "onset of diarrhea and vomiting. Later there can be neurological symptoms and then short-term memory loss, and possibly death if the amount of the toxin ingested is very high", warned Merino.


The regional health official stressed that the toxin, which is produced by micro-algae that burst and release the venom under certain oceanic conditions, cannot be eliminated by the cooking process.

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