An update on the Pfiesteria toxin issue. The news story doesn't
indicate whether the Baltimore meeting refers to ICES or some
other group.
U.S. experts to study Pfiesteria toxin
(Updates with Baltimore, Atlanta meetings)
WASHINGTON (Reuter) - The National Institute of Environmental
Health Sciences said Friday it had isolated two toxins from Pfiesteria,
the tiny creature that is killing fish in the Chesapeake Bay area.
The agency, part of the National Institutes of Health, said it
had set aside $400,000 to further study the poisons to see if
they are dangerous to humans.
Kenneth Olden, director of the NIEHS, said one toxin caused lesions
on fish and the other damaged the nervous system.
Daniel Baden and colleagues at the NIEHS marine and Freshwater
Biomedical Sciences Center at the University of Miami will study
the toxins.
Scientists who testified to a congressional committee Thursday
complained that they knew little about the toxins produced by
the organism, blamed for killing tens of thousands of fish in
the Chesapeake area and about 1 billion off North Carolina in
recent years.
The one-celled creature is neither plant nor animal, being a member
of the same kingdom, Protoctista, as slime molds and algae.
It has been blamed for causing health effects in people ranging
from rashes to memory loss.
Researchers say there is no evidence it is passed on in seafood,
but the Food and Drug Administration is doing a special study
in oysters exposed to Pfiesteria.
Experts will meet at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
(CDC) in Atlanta next week to try to isolate and name the toxin
so they can devise tests to see whether people and seafood have
been infected.
Currently they can only guess that Pfiesteria is responsible for
lesions on fish and health effects in people -- although they
can clearly link fish deaths with Pfiesteria blooms in the water.
Experts meeting in Baltimore Friday accused the media of whipping up hysteria over the tiny creature, but they said algal blooms including red tides and Pfiesteria were on the rise worldwide because of pollution from growing urbanization.