Health and safety concerns in fisheries and aquaculture

Only 10% of all foodborne illnesses in the United States are attributed to seafood, making seafood a relatively safe food commodity. The implementation of Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Points guidelines should make seafood consumption even safer. Concerns include closed-loop, indoor, water-recirculating production systems; harmful algal blooms in marine environments, which can cause paralytic, neurologic, amnesic, and diarrhetic shellfish poisonings and ciguatera fish poisoning; bacteria (such as Mycobacterium marinum and Streptococcus iniae) and nematode, cestode, trematode, and protozoan parasites found in fish that cause human infections; and the shellfish origin of Norwalk virus infection. Avoidance, control, and treatment of this wide range of maladies contracted by humans from fish are covered in this review article. Prevention of accidents in fisheries and aquaculture is receiving more attention by groups such as the FDA, OSHA, and the Working Group for Quality Assurance in Aquaculture Production, which is part of the federal Joint Subcommittee on Aquaculture in Washington, D.C.