Raw Fish Warning & Eating Sushi

If you haven't seen this post it is very good showing an Ascaris in the biliary tract.

http://curezone.com/forums/fm.asp?i=959248#i

Below is an article on raw fish with a warning of parasites.

http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=950DE3DB163FF931A35756C0A96F94...

SCIENCE WATCH; Raw Fish Warning

The New York Times

Published: May 2, 1989

Surgeons operating on a young man for what they thought was appendicitis found a rude surprise instead: a two-inch-long red worm.

The doctors believe the worm came from homemade sushi the patient had eaten the night before, prompting them to issue a warning about the food.

''There is a clear danger involved in eating raw fish,'' said Dr. Murray Wittner, a parasitologist at Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York who was sent the worm by the astonished surgeons. ''This underscores that danger.''

The patient, a 24-year-old man, had been admitted to Booth Memorial Hospital in Flushing, Queens, complaining of severe stomach pain. Doctors assumed he had appendicitis, but while operating they found a normal appendix. Just as they were about to close the incision, the worm wriggled into view.

After the patient awoke and was told of the worm, he remembered that he had eaten sushi the previous night at a friend's home.

The case was described in the current issue of The New England Journal of Medicine. The worm was identified as a larval nematode known as eustrongylides.

Although worms have been a long-recognized hazard of eating raw fish, experts say most cases of infection occur when people prepare it at home. At restaurants, most sushi chefs are adept at keeping wormy fish from reaching customers.

In an editorial in the journal, Dr. Peter M. Schantz of the Federal Centers for Disease Control noted that only four previous cases of human infection with this particular nematode had been reported. All were fishermen who swallowed bait minnows whole, ''a practice not likely to be widely imitated.''

The worms most commonly acquired from raw seafood are larva of the family Anisakidae. In the United States, 25 to 50 cases have been documented, but experts believe most are not recognized or reported.

Often the worms pass harmlessly through the digestive system or are coughed up a few hours after the meal. But sometimes the worms burrow into the wall of the stomach or the intestines. They must be removed with a tube pushed down the throat.

Dr. Schantz noted that many commercial fish are commonly infected with worms. These include mackerel, herring, salmon and cod. But cooking or freezing kills the worms, rendering them harmless.

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