Every year, 56 Floridians become ill due to ciguatera poisoning for every 1 million people in the state, according to the new estimate from researchers at University of Florida and the state’s Department of Health. Previous calculations suggested there were only two cases per 1 million people yearly.
Most infections in the state are caused by eating fish that were caught in either the Bahamas or the Florida Keys, though nearly 5 percent of the toxic fish came from Palm Beach County waters, and 4 percent came from Miami-Dade County. A certain type of algae that grows on coral reefs makes the toxin that causes the illness, and this toxin can accumulate in the bodies of tropical fish. Along with barracuda, contaminated grouper, amberjack and hogfish have also made people sick, the researchers found.
“Hispanics have a cultural preference for eating barracuda, and we believe this is the reason for higher numbers of them getting ciguatera poisoning,” said Elizabeth Radke, lead author of the study and an epidemiologist at University of Florida’s Emerging Pathogens Institute. No cooking or smoking method will destroy the poison. The resulting illness causes severe nausea and vomiting. Ciguatera’s characteristic symptom is an odd feeling of having hot and cold sensations reversed; people report feeling that something is hot when in fact it is cold, and vice versa, said Mikel Lopez, a poison specialist at Jackson Memorial Hospital’s Poison Control Center, who was not involved in the new research.
Worldwide, an estimated 50,000 to 500,000 cases occur each year. Ciguatera is endemic in the South Pacific and the Caribbean, where waters are warm enough for the algae that produce the toxin to thrive. In the United States, the states with the most cases are Hawaii and Florida…..
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