What are marine toxins?
Marine toxins are naturally occurring chemicals that can contaminate certain seafood. The seafood contaminated with these chemicals frequently looks, smells, and tastes normal. When humans eat such seafood, disease can result. What sort of diseases do marine toxins cause? The most common diseases caused by marine toxins in United States in order of incidence are scombrotoxic fish poisoning, ciguatera poisoning, paralytic shellfish poisoning, neurotoxic shellfish poisoning and amnesic shellfish poisoning. Scombrotoxic fish poisoning also known as scombroid or histamine fish poisoning, is caused by bacterial spoilage of certain finfish such as tuna, mackerel, bonito, and, rarely, other fish. As bacteria break down fish proteins, byproducts such as histamine and other substances that block histamine breakdown build up in fish. Eating spoiled fish that have high levels of these histamines can cause in human disease. Symptoms begin within 2 minutes to 2 hours after eating the fish. The most
