Originally Posted By: cohoangler
This is a really strange. The clam season on Long Beach has been closed for awhile due to domoic acid. Then WDFW opens the season just in time for the clam fest weekend in Long Beach. And they up the limit to 25 clams a day. Then they mysteriously close it again immediately afterwards.

How is it that it’s safe to eat 25 clams/day on the weekend, and then close it on Monday since the clams are too toxic to eat any?


As a public health concern, the concentration of domoic acid in shellfish and shellfish parts at point of sale should not exceed the current permissible limit of 20 mg/kg tissue.

Studies have shown that there are no symptomatic effects in humans at levels of 0.5 mg/kg of body weight.

So if a person weighed 80 kg (~176#), a DA load of 40 mg would produce NO symptoms.

In order to load your body with 40 mg of DA, you would have to eat 2 kg of razor clams contaminated to 20 PPM (mg/kg).

That's 4.4 pounds of contaminated razor clams that could be consumed WITHOUT symptomatic poisoning.
_________________________
"Let every angler who loves to fish think what it would mean to him to find the fish were gone." (Zane Grey)

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The Keen Eye MD
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