Saving Seafood

Health, fisheries officials track and test for norovirus, toxic blooms

October 24th, 2016 — It was the night of Oct. 12 — Yom Kippur — and town health inspector Hillary Greenberg-Lemos was stirring a pot of matzo ball soup. The Department of Public Health was on the line telling her they were going to close Wellfleet Harbor to all shellfishing and recall all shellfish harvested in the town back to Sept. 26.

Her heart sank. There were only two days until OysterFest, a weekendlong festival when tens of thousands of shellfish lovers descend on the town, craving Wellfleet oysters. But it was those oysters, the town’s most prized and well-known commodity, that had sickened at least 81 people who ate them at weddings and restaurants the previous weekend.

“I felt sick,” Greenberg said of a different phone call she had received the previous day, from the mother of the bride at an Oct. 8 wedding, informing her that guests and members of the wedding had experienced days of diarrhea, nausea, vomiting. Greenberg took information from her and from other callers, initially believing it might be a food-handling problem, a classic food poisoning case.

Read the full story at the Cape Cod Times 

MASSACHUSETTS: Norovirus confirmed in oysters

October 17th, 2016 — No oysters at OysterFest? It’s not just painful for those coming to indulge in the region’s favorite bivalve. Everyone, from those who grow the oysters and shellfish religiously consumed by the hundreds of thousands over the two-day event, to the shuckers who unshackle oyster from shell, to the cashiers, all lose out on valuable income.

At least they now have confirmation that it was indeed a norovirus that sickened more than 75 people who ate Wellfleet oysters last weekend.

“It’s beyond speculation,” said Mike Hickey, the chief shellfish biologist for the state Division of Marine Fisheries. On Friday the norovirus was confirmed in the laboratory by analysis of stool samples, he said.

Unfortunately, it could be a long wait until Wellfleet shellfish can again be sold to be eaten raw.

“If there’s a chance that shellfish are not safe in any way, then they did the right thing,” said longtime shellfisherman Barbara Austin of the state decision this week to shut down Wellfleet shellfish beds and the OysterFest board of directors’ ban on selling any raw shellfish at the festival this weekend.

“This maintains the idea that Wellfleet oysters are safe. We want a clean, healthy, organic food for everybody,” Austin added.

Still, it’s a bummer, she said. She’s already put in the days to cull the shellfish and pack them in bags ahead of time and move them to the Wellfleet Shellfish Company to have them chilled and certified as being in compliance with state and local health regulations. Plus, she’s purchased everything from wood to build the booth to cutlery and napkins to furnish what is essentially a small restaurant for the weekend.

Read the full story at the Cape Cod Times