There's a discussion here of the reasons the FDA in America is banning the sale of raw Gulf oysters in summer: there is a nasty disease that can be caught from them, but nearly always only by people with underlying ill health. The disease does sound unpleasant:
On the unpleasant-experience scale, going septic from Vibrio vulnificus has got to rank right up there with acute radiation poisoning. Fever burns you up; big, ugly blisters bust out on your skin; and you wander into the hospital forgetting your name. These bloodstream infections, though rare, are so fast and furious that only 50 percent survive them. Others lose their limbs.The FDA's answer is something I've never heard of before:
pasteurised oysters!:
A lot of oyster aficionados say the processed oysters lack the flavor of the fresh raw product. Too rubbery, too cooked-tasting, they say. The FDA says the processes "retain the sensory qualities of raw product," and double-blind consumer surveys don't show much of a difference in perception.And then, there is the question of priorities here:
...coming down on the oyster is kind of an odd move for FDA to be making in the context of much larger food-safety issues that haven't been addressed. Nasty as Vibrio vulnificus is, it's a perfectly natural bacterium that's always been present in oysters. In the meantime, other bacteria have evolved in our factory-farming system to new levels of virulence and spread with little FDA control. (Legislation is pending in Congress.) Strains of salmonella, E. coli, listeria, campylobacter, and other microbes together kill an estimated 5,700 people a year in the United States. Yet few are calling for all chicken to be irradiated or all eggs to be pasteurized.I guess you would have to compare rates of infection per quantity consumed, but it does sound like an over-reaction.
I don't eat a huge amount of oysters (my annual consumption of mussels would be much higher.) But neither has struck me down yet.
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