It’s time to grab a sun hat and shovel, or rake, and head to the beach to dig for clams or gather oysters. What could be a better summer outing? But time is of the essence. This season’s last chance for minus low tides, which are the best times to dig for shellfish or gather…
Oysters and champagne. Love is in the air. It must be Valentine’s Day.
Yes, indeed, oysters have long been associated with romance — the perfect aphrodisiac.
There’s actually some science to back that up, although it’s about the way rats, not humans, responded to oysters in a 2005 study done by a team of Italian…
State and federal officials are investigating the Asian Food Center in Bellevue, WA, after a woman was diagnosed with a rare and sometimes fatal bacterial infection after handling raw fish from the grocery store.
The woman was diagnosed Nov. 10 with…
A recent study may be the first one to link a warming trend in sea surface temperatures to the spread of vibrios and the human diseases which can be caused by pathogenic strains. “In this study, for the first time to our knowledge, experimental evidence is provided on the link between multidecadal climatic variability in…
The FDA’s failure to act to protect the public from deadly bacteria in shellfish not only means the agency is in violation of the Food Safety Modernization Act, but it means at least 15 people will likely die unnecessarily every year, according to a lawsuit filed in federal court. “The U.S. Food and Drug Administration…
It can be tricky business to say that one foodborne pathogen is more dangerous than another. Are the criteria the number of illnesses, number of deaths, or percentage of victims who die? Do the severity of an illness or chronic side effects factor into the ranking? The first three pathogens on this list are fairly…
The Florida Department of Health has reported eight confirmed Vibrio vulnificus infections, including two deaths, so far this year. Vibrio is a naturally occurring bacterium found in warm, brackish seawater. 
Vibrio infections are rare, and the bacterium does not pose a risk to a normally healthy person (without any open cuts or wounds) who swims…
The latest estimates from the Department of Agriculture suggest that foodborne illnesses cost the U.S. $15.5 billion each year. “Economic burden of a disease is not the same thing as the impact of a disease on economic indicators like gross domestic product or even the out-of-pocket cost of treating illness,” states USDA’s Economic Research Service…
(This article by Liz Bradshaw, a postdoctoral research scholar in NoroCORE, the Norovirus Collaborative for Outreach, Research, and Education based at NC State, is the fifth in a series leading up to April 7, when the World Health Organization celebrated World Health Day, focusing this year on food safety. The first article in the…
The warmer coastal water temperature produced by summer weather creates ideal conditions for bacteria that can contaminate oysters, the Washington State Department of Health reminded the public over the Fourth of July weekend. Vibrio vulnificus and Vibrio parahaemolyticus, two types of bacteria that grow in warm waters and can cause human illness, are known to…
There’s red tide in Texas, salinity levels in state waters are way off in Mississippi, and Louisiana has fallen behind Washington state in oyster production. To say Gulf oystermen have not had much cause for optimism since the 2010 BP oil spill is to put it lightly.
Gulf oyster production — at about 15 million …
