Wow, I had no idea this existed either!! And I like several of those fish. Grouper is a favorite of mine. Luckily, I guess, I only get to have it a couple of times a year.

Yet another reason to worry about global warming!!

Thanks for this information. Even knowing the symptoms is very useful.

I had no idea either. I guess I can stop feeling sorry for myself for being landlocked with no source of reasonably priced fresh fish.

My uncle got 'fish poisoning' many, many years ago after eating a larger predatory fish, I don't remember now if it was barracuda or something else. They lived on Guam all their adult working lives and seafood of all types and often was a large part of their diet. So I knew the possibility decades back - he was very ill but recovered fully.

2 of our FL friends ate barracuda and got this. They were really ill for about a year and couldn't eat a lot of regular foods or drink alcohol for a long time.

Isn't this just a cheery thought! I love opakapaka (snapper) on Maui -- and just about *everything* can be called mahi-mahi out there. I stopped eating swordfish years ago due to the increased mercury buildup in larger fish.

DH got this from a mahi mahi sandwich for lunch in Florida just a few years ago and was really seriously ill for a good month. After the initial wild, violent vomiting (I'm trying to say that nicely) subsided, he was weak and nauseous with killer headache for a couple of weeks. Double vision, couldn't drive for weeks. Came back to NJ after this month's "vacation" and went to our own doc who ordered MRI to see about brain damage. Happily there is none but we didn't know how serious this was until we got back home, he could have died.

DH does a lot of deep sea fishing and we eat a lot of fresh fish in our area in general.

Scombroid fish poisoning accounts for less than 0.5% of food born illnesses reported in the United States. As long as the fish is handled properly and kept on ice the danger is not that great. A lot of seafood poisoning comes from the kitchen. Scombroid toxicity is a reportable illness in California and most cases are quite mild.

I got ill from bad fish once (decades ago) from a well known San Francisco restaurant. I did have to go to the ER but there were certainly no lasting effects. I doubt it was Scombroid since I wasn't eating a dark fleshed fish at the time.

A mother and daughter vacationing in Bali a few months back died from scrombroid poisoning. For a while it was thought to have been simple food poisoning until they got the toxicology reports.

Many years ago I got extremely sick and thought I was going to die, turned out to be cholera which came from the crabs we had picked up in New Orleans. The doctor treating me back home in Memphis was not thinking about cholera of course. But my mom called me to tell me there was a terrible outbreak of cholera from the crabs in the same area I had picked up mine. Thank goodness for that phone call. I have never been so sick.

I was in the hospital for rehydration and treatment, but my gosh it was bad stuff. I would definitely not want to go through that again.

and I thought tuna was bad enough...sigh....

Canned tuna? I eat canned tuna. Aaaack!

I had no clue about scrombroid poisoning. Aaaack!

The OP's link mentions several types of seafood born illness. Scombroid toxicity is low on the list as stated in that link. Stop the over-reacting. Stop the "death" tales.

"Treatment for scombroid poisoning is generally unnecessary. Symptoms usually resolve within 12 hours and scombroid poisoning is rarely life-threatening. Treatment could include antihistamines, such as diphenhydramine and cimetidine."

Very possibly, but the deaths in Bali are no tale:

www.abc.net.au/news/2014-02-04/noelene-and...died-of.../5238474

No overreacting here for Ciguatera poisoning. Deathly ill. I admit that I don't know enough about Scrombroid, but I'll read more about. But, watchmelol, please don't trivialize this, forums like this are how people become aware of things they might not hear about otherwise, and they can do their own further research and make their own decisions.

I agree with Woodie, all the more so because cautions about disease, toxicities, and other ailments always seem to have a heavier impact on the young and the old. A case of poisoning that a young person may weather with just a little discomfort might be fatal to me. I'd just as soon know about this sort of stuff and forewarned, and be able to make better decisions for myself.

It's not trivial at all when death can be involved and in individuals with a weakened immune system it certainly can be. Education is always a good thing. Knowing these things is beneficial. I had no idea I could get cholera from eating crabs back then , did any of you know that? I didn't know about some of the other ones mentioned here, I can now spend time researching it and be better informed which is always good. Many people have to take medicine that suppresses the immune system, I do, and I try to keep informed about things that could be an issue.

In fact just recently on vacation on the menu's at the seafood restaurant was a large printed warning right on the main page warning that eating some seafood especially raw oysters could be a risk and especially for those with compromised immune systems.

Personally my rheumatologist flat out told me not to eat raw oysters and if I ate them cooked ask for well done, and the same for other things like mussels and clams and crabs. I love raw oysters but I wouldn't touch one these days.

Information and education are always welcome. I appreciate this post, I am all for expanding my knowledge base.

There is nothing wrong with information and the article was informative and well balanced. My objection is to the hysteria that develops over these things.

The Bali story even mentioned they just "thought" it might be Scrombroid related and both mother and daughter was asthmatic to begin with.

People should be made aware but escalating fear and taking things out of context is promoting another food fear based on relatively little risk in the big picture.

"I didn't know about some of the other ones mentioned here, I can now spend time researching it and be better informed which is always good."

Agree! The problem lies is that most people today don't research. They simply take a "scary" line from an article and run with it. Before you know it The message is lost and new urban legends are born regarding generally perfectly safe foods.

My posts were regarding Scombroid toxicity. They are based on factual info that is readily available. Heck the OP's article stated the same. Just Google scombroid with the word death. it's simply not an issue.