Dar seafood ppp standard

Other seafood commodities

FSANZ ranked other seafood commodities as presenting a low or medium relative public health risk.

The vast majority of whole and filleted finfish was ranked in the low relative risk category. A few groups of fish species were ranked in the medium relative risk category:

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  larger specimens of particular species of tropical and sub-tropical finfish from certain fishing areas, due to the potential for illness as a result of accumulation of ciguatoxins
  
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  large, long living or predatory fish, such as swordfish, shark/flake and some tuna, which tend to accumulate higher levels of methylmercury than other fish species. The ranking applies to the at-risk sub-population (the foetus) when the mother consumes mainly those species.
  
  
  

A medium ranking was also assigned to the following commodity groups (due to the listed hazards):

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  univalve molluscs (for example, abalone) and roe-off scallops (from algal biotoxins causing amnesic shellfish poisoning and paralytic shellfish poisoning)
  
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  prawns (V. cholerae O1, Salmonella Typhi, arsenic)
  
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  canned seafood (Clostridium botulinum)
  
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  hot-smoked fish products (C. botulinum)
  
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  some whole and filleted finfish (arsenic).
  
  
  

In most cases, hazards linked to these medium risk commodities are already regulated in the Food Standards Code (for example, Salmonella in prawns, arsenic in finfish) or through longstanding and effective industry codes of practice (for example, C. botulinum in low-acid canned foods).

Of the seafood commodities ranked in the medium risk category, prawns and some finfish (whole or as fillets) have been linked to several outbreaks of food-borne illness in Australia in recent years. For prawns, the associated food safety hazards have been primarily microbiological hazards, while for finfish, ciguatoxin, histamine fish poisoning and escolar wax esters account for the great majority of the outbreaks.

The majority of seafood commodities presented a lower risk to the general population. For some of these commodities, limited consumption of the products was the main factor in leading to the conclusion that the likelihood of adverse health effects from associated hazards was very low. For others, the probable effects of downstream processing and consumer handling in reducing hazard levels were factors leading to a low likelihood of illness.