Copyright 1998 Stuart News Company
The Stuart News/Port St. Lucie News (Stuart,FL)
March 27, 1998, Friday
SECTION: A Section; Pg. A1
LENGTH: 835 words
HEADLINE: LESION ON LIP ISN'T HERPES, TESTING SHOWS
BYLINE: Debi Pelletier of the News staff
BODY:
John Lund plans to have more blood tests to see whether the
wound is related to diseased-looking mullet he caught. STUART
- John Lund still doesn't know what caused a swollen red wound
to form on his lower lip after he caught lesion-riddled mullet
four weeks ago, but he knows it isn't a cold sore.
Tests done by the Martin County Health Department turned out
negative for herpes, a common viral disease that can cause blisters
on the skin or mucus membranes. Those results were confirmed Thursday
by Virginia Gryniuk, the public health administrator.
"The report came back negative," Gryniuk said. "At
this point, we have nothing to link it to the fish thing."
Although that might normally be good news, Lund says he's worried
the sore might have something to do with the sick fish that have
been turning up in the St. Lucie River and Indian River Lagoon.
So he's going to a private doctor for more blood tests.
Lund developed the sore early this month after he used a cast
net - which is typically held in the teeth - to catch a bucket
full of diseased-looking mullet in the Indian River Lagoon near
Jensen Beach.
Health investigators say they don't know whether Lund's lesion
has anything to do with the fish, which have been turning up in
area waters covered with red sores or white tumors.
To coordinate studies of the outbreak, the state Health Department,
the Department of Environmental Protection, and Poison Control
and health officials from Palm Beach, Martin, St. Lucie and Indian
River counties took part in a midafternoon conference call Thursday
afternoon.
The health departments agreed to ask questions of anyone complaining
of ill effects from exposure to the sick fish or water. Health
workers will ask whether they were swimming or using personal
watercraft on or near the river.
And, as they did with their investigation into childhood cancer
cases in St. Lucie County, state epidemiologists will mark maps
to see whether they can identify an outbreak pattern, said Jim
Moses, environmental health manager for St. Lucie County. "That's
one thing I saw from the cancer investigation. When you start
putting dots on a map, you get a better idea of what you're looking
at."
The suspected cause of the fish lesions, a tiny algae called
Cryptoperidniopis, remains a rather large mystery. So little is
known about the toxins it produces that researchers don't know
how to test for them in tissues or blood.
Scientists are close to isolating a toxin from its close counterpart,
Pfiesteria piscicida, and have begun tests on rats. They hope
that will eventually give them a way to detect it in fish or mammals
- including humans. But they are nowhere close to doing the same
with Cryptoperidiniopsis.
Florida, along with six other states, is gearing up to investigate
the potential health effects of these Pfiesteria -complex organisms,
which includes Cryptoperidiniopsis. The Centers for Disease Control
and Prevention on March 14 announced it would give $ 3.2 million
this year to "address this potential public health threat"
in Florida, Delaware, Maryland, North Carolina, South Carolina
and Virginia.
Florida will get $ 198,000 a year for five years, according
to Sharon Heber of the state's Bureau of Environmental Epidemiology,
to investigate whether people could become sick from contact with
river water or lesion-riddled fish.
So far, epidemiologists have little to go on. They don't have
a definition of what constitutes a case of human exposure, and
even if they did, they haven't identified the toxin that's affecting
the fish. In addition, they don't have a geographic area of risk
mapped out because fish move around.
Maryland has the most experience in this area so far. Dirk
Haselow, an epidemiologist at the University of Maryland Medical
School, said 13 men who worked on the water there during a recent
Pfiesteria outbreak suffered from very distinct short-term memory
loss for about eight weeks.
He said other symptoms were reported as well. "They had
stomach cramps, diarrhea, muscle aches. Some people had rashes
or had burning of their skin on contact with water."
None of those effects have been reported in Florida, health
officials point out.
Even so, local fishers have been warned not to touch or eat
fish with sores or lesions.
Gryniuk said the DEP did find Cryptoperidiniopsis in the kidneys
of afflicted fish taken from the St. Lucie River and Indian River
Lagoon, but there was nothing in healthy-looking mullet.
DEP officials are waiting to test a dead pelican for signs
of the microorganisms. Several of the birds have died over the
past few days, and investigators don't know whether they are starving
from a paucity of baitfish, or if diseased fish are to blame.
Meanwhile, Lund said the sore on his lip still hasn't healed
after four weeks. "It's no different," Lund said Thursday.
"If anything, it might be a little bit worse."
Only now, his neighbors teasingly refer to him as "mullet-mouth,"
he said.
LOAD-DATE: March 31, 1998