Palythoas experience (almost in hospital)

[Kevotron]

Uh Oh....... after seeing that picture I think I got a few of those in my tank.........

[daniella3d]

Pets often can feel when their owners are not feeling well..either physically or if they are not happy. At least my dog does and when I am not feeling right, hangry or not in my best mood my dog usualy look miserable and sleep most of the day on her pillow.

I had dogs all of my live and it was like that for all of them, no exception.

Lets see..how many people died from simple food poisoning? How many people actualy even wash their hands before handling food or eating?

"To better quantify the impact of foodborne diseases on health in the United States, we compiled and analyzed information from multiple surveillance systems and other sources. We estimate that foodborne diseases cause approximately 76 million illnesses, 325,000 hospitalizations, and 5,000 deaths in the United States each year. Known pathogens account for an estimated 14 million illnesses, 60,000 hospitalizations, and 1,800 deaths. Three pathogens, Salmonella, Listeria, and Toxoplasma, are responsible for 1,500 deaths each year, more than 75% of those caused by known pathogens, while unknown agents account for the remaining 62 million illnesses, 265,000 hospitalizations, and 3,200 deaths. Overall, foodborne diseases appear to cause more illnesses but fewer deaths than previously estimated."

http://www.cdc.gov/ncidod/eid/vol5no5/mead.htm


Are we going to stop eating? Because the risk of dying from eating something bad is quite a bit more than the risk of even being sick by handling zoanthids and paly.

I never seen a real credible account if someone's death caused by zoanthids or palythoas in the aquarium trade.

How many people handle zoanthids and palythoas bare hand without ever having a single issue?

I don't understand the panic about this, since we live with much more dangerous stuff and much more potent stuff everyday and we don't even care. YOu say that palytoxin is the most potent stuff...but a single tiny winy virus is a lot more potent because that's all it takes to kill you. NOw the palytoxin will not kill you if you simply touch it. People should use common sense.

hypochondria, but does not explain why my dogs and wife (which knows nothing about palytoxin) were sick as well. Dogs were weasing and slept for most of the day, they both were warmer than usual.

There is no such thing as hypochondriac dogs, but there is such thing in humans...very very often.

Googled hypochondiac dogs, resulted in nothing.

I used the resperator during the fragging of the palys, I then removed it once in another part of the house (upstairs).

[asylumdown]

Does anyone know of a testing facility in Canada that will do toxicology reports on these things? I've been trying to find a lab online that privately tests for palytoxin but all I'm coming up with is academic papers. Considering the way frags are traded, spread, and distributed in the reefer community, of an offending species of paly came in on a shipment at some point it would only take a few months for it to start showing up in lots of peoples tanks.

I'm thinking of all sorts of inappropriate STD jokes here, but maybe a more sanitized version would be that our tanks could probably all play the reefer equivalent of 6 degrees of Kevin Bacon, so if there is in fact a highly poisonous strain making it's rounds in the underground frag trade (I make it sound so dangerous), it would be nice to get it confirmed with a chemical test.

Maybe we could all chip in and send a sample of a frag from someone who thinks they've been poisoned and get it confirmed. If the worst were true, it would be a really strong motivator for everyone to start tracing back who they've gotten/given frags to.

[reef-keeper]

Originally Posted by asylumdown

Does anyone know of a testing facility in Canada that will do toxicology reports on these things?

Why not ask someone in the biology dept. at the U of A?