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 cooked and from two natural toxins, ciguatoxin and 

 scombrotoxin, which occur in certain species of finfish. 

 Ciguatoxin can accumulate in certain warm water reef fish, and 

 illnesses tend to be geographically localized. The most 

 reliable preventive is to avoid fishing in reefs from which 

 there have been toxic fish. Scombrotoxin can form when certain 

 species are not properly cooled after capture. This 

 nishandling hazard is completely preventable. We know that 

 other seafood hazards do result in illnesses, but the available 

 data indicate that illnesses from them are not common. 



FDA conducted a risk assessment for seafood a few years ago in 

 consultation with CDC. Using risk assessment methodology, 

 including reasonable assumptions to fill in the gaps in the CDC 

 data, we compared the risk of illness from seafood to that for 

 other flesh foods. The risk assessment discerned that the 

 notion promoted by some that seafood poses an 

 orders-of-magnitude risk above that for other flesh foods is 

 simply wrong. 



It is worth pointing out that we must obtain more accurate and 

 complete data on foodborne diseases in this country than we now 

 possess if we are to avoid having to rely on questionable 

 assumptions to fill in the gaps. New mechanisms to generate 

 data will be necessary. "Sentinel surveillance" is one such 

 mechanism that we have been pilot testing on a collaborative 



