DivePro - Info

By Mark Collette

GALVESTON — Greg Scofelia reached into his freezer and pulled out a plastic pouch filled with succulent white meat. Strangely, the hard, frozen grouper fillet felt to him like it had just come out of a scorching oven.

“It was fun catching it, but I damn sure wish it had broke my line,” he said.

The 30 or so pounds of grouper in his freezer all came from the same fish, caught in March about 100 miles southeast of Galveston at a coral reef known as Flower Garden Banks. With its tailfin touching the boat deck, the grouper’s nose reached Scofelia’s chest.

The boat captain made sure Scofelia got all the fillets from his great catch. Had he not, there’s no telling how many more people would have fallen violently ill.

Three weeks ago, Scofelia and his wife, Glenda, seasoned a fillet, baked it and enjoyed it alongside a vegetable medley. Hours later, the vomiting and diarrhea started. Then came severe abdominal pain, muscle cramps, headaches, profound fatigue, itching and tingling skin, and that bizarre reversal of hot and cold sensations.

When Tracy Villareal, a professor and researcher at the University of Texas Marine Science Institute in Port Aransas, learned that the Scofelias still had the grouper in their freezer, the scientist in him went giddy.

“That is spectacular,” he said. “This sample is incredibly valuable scientifically.”

Though the Scofelias and their grouper have not been tested, experts say they are almost certainly victims of ciguatera toxin, which no amount of boiling, grilling, frying, baking or microwaving will remove from a fish.

While it’s the most common form of seafood poisoning worldwide, only a few cases have been reported from fish taken in the northwestern Gulf of Mexico in the past 25 years, Villareal said.

Ciguatera experts said that means the Scofelias, who will probably be sick for months, are either just exceptionally unlucky, or else they also represent one of the earliest cases in a growing trend.

Dr. Jeffrey Bernstein, medical director for the Florida Poison Information Center in Miami, said ciguatera is so rare in most places that physicians often have never heard of it or know little about it. When the Scofelias visited their doctor on Thursday for the first time since falling ill, he had to look up information about ciguatera on the Internet.

Trey Acosta is in the third generation of the family-owned Galveston Party Boats. On charter fishing boats, “you got 100 people every day and somebody always wants to tell you a story,” he said. Still, he had never heard of ciguatera.

But some researchers are now suggesting that a confluence of events, including the proliferation of oil platforms and warmer ocean temperatures, could make the western Gulf of Mexico a perfect place for ciguatera to expand and sicken more people.

Villareal wrote in a paper, recently published in the scientific journal Harmful Algae, that while rarely fatal, the illness ranges “from inconvenient to debilitating.”

That makes the Scofelias’ rare find valuable to researchers for another reason: There is no antidote.

Small But Lethal

Lora Fleming, a medical doctor and researcher at the University of Miami Marine and Freshwater Biomedical Sciences Center, has stated that ciguatoxin is among the most lethal natural substances known. Her research suggests that as little as a millionth of a gram can make a person sick.

Villareal said the amount of ciguatoxin that would fit in a packet of spices for Ramen noodle soup could sicken most of the state of Texas.

Ciguatoxin is produced by the single-celled organism Gambierdiscus toxicus.

G. toxicus grows on algae connected to hard surfaces in warm ocean waters, ideally at about 82 degrees, Villareal said. Fish and other plant-eaters consume it. The toxin then works its way up the food chain into bigger fish such as snapper, barracuda, amberjack, mackerel and the grouper Scofelia caught.

Villareal and a team of researchers examined six petrochemical platforms off Port Aransas in 2003. All six had G. toxicus.

Villareal notes that oil production platforms didn’t exist in the Gulf before 1942, but now there are about 4,000, forming what could be the largest artificial reef complex in the world.

Aircraft carriers and even cremation memorials have been converted to artificial reefs, researchers said. Plans for wind farms in the Gulf could provide additional surfaces for sea life.

When factoring this together with warmer water temperatures and expanding migration patterns of fish such as barracuda — documented to have traveled from South Florida to South Texas — ciguatera “is unlikely to diminish and could increase,” Villareal wrote.

Published reports indicate that barracuda are the only fish in Texas waters reported to cause ciguatera — at least until now.

Villareal said public policymakers should start thinking about the unintended consequences of artificial reefs, which have been embraced by environmentalists because they help replace habitat that has disappeared along with coral.

No Tests Available

There isn’t much toxin for scientists to work with, and it’s difficult to reproduce in a laboratory. Moreover, most laboratories and clinics — including Bernstein’s, which treats more ciguatera cases than almost any other in the United States — don’t even have the ability to perform expensive tests for ciguatera in their patients.

“It’s not like there’s millions of dollars out there for this” research, Bernstein said, adding that policymakers probably haven’t heard of ciguatera either.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has one of the few laboratories that can test fish samples for ciguatera. It doesn’t count a case unless it’s confirmed through tests, but Bernstein said the poison center considers a case such as the Scofelias’, with classic symptoms, to be ciguatera.

There is no readily available way for the fishing and food industries to test fish for the toxin, which doesn’t alter texture, taste or smell.

A Hawaii-based company sells a kit to test for ciguatera poison in fish. The kits are sold at a few retailers in Florida and Hawaii. But Villareal and Fleming said the kits are not reliable, despite assurances to the contrary on the company’s Web site. Bernstein also said there is no commercially available test.

“It would be nice to be able to test the fish, especially for the restaurant industry,” he said. “They are kind of on the hook liability-wise when they serve fish that potentially has food poisoning.”

More People Sickened

The more toxic fish that another fish eats, the more toxic it becomes. Experts say that’s why the risk of ciguatera is highest when consuming large fish — more than 5 pounds — that feed around reefs and other structures.

As ciguatoxin works its way up the food chain, fish, which aren’t harmed by the toxin, alter its chemical structure slightly as their bodies process it.

Bernstein said the result is at least 22 kinds of ciguatoxin, each producing a slightly different set of symptoms. The toxin invades cells and works its way into the human nervous system, producing a range of problems, from pain and insurmountable fatigue to more intangible symptoms, such as anxiety.

Ciguatera has long been known in South Florida and in the Caribbean, where a culinary fondness for barracuda, a notorious carrier of ciguatoxin, floods Miami’s poison center with phone calls, from which the center receives about 70 cases of ciguatera per year. But the disease is underreported, so its true extent is uncertain. Researchers estimate ciguatera sickens anywhere from 50,000 to 500,000 people a year.

“With today’s methods of shipping and transporting of food … more people are getting sick in other parts of the world,” Bernstein said.

Physicians often mistake it for a typical case of food poisoning, and that proves worrisome for the patient.

“They’re told it will go away in 24 to 48 hours, and then it doesn’t,” Bernstein said. “The more unique neurologic manifestations kick in, and that often mimics more ominous diseases — multiple sclerosis, tumors. That’s very anxiety-provoking for the patient.”

Fleming has documented at least one case of sexual transmission. A woman experienced severe pelvic pain after having sex with her husband, who had ciguatera.

People who have the illness are advised to avoid consuming fish, alcohol, nuts, chocolate and pork, which may exacerbate symptoms.

Wall Decorations

“Cigua” was once a commonly used Spanish word for a sea snail that supposedly was toxic, Bernstein said.

It’s a language lesson the Scofelias wish they never had to learn. Their symptoms fluctuate, and they are still missing days of work. The itching has kept Glenda up at night. Allergy medicine doesn’t help.

Greg, born and raised on a steady seafood diet in Galveston, said he’ll fish again someday when he feels better, but he won’t eat any large fish.

Meanwhile, researchers will be waiting to see whether his catch was just a stray fish, or the start of something bad.

Bernstein, who was planning a weekend fishing trip for his father’s birthday, said ciguatera shouldn’t spoil anybody’s fun.

“I think about it” when fishing, he said. “It runs through my mind. But I like eating the fish, and I think the risk is relatively low if you’re not eating huge, huge fish. If there was an outbreak in our area, then I might be more concerned.

“If I caught a 34-pound grouper, I would probably stay away from it,” he added. “I might stuff that one for the wall.”

Source - Daily News