Food poisoning clinical presentation

In general, the clinical presentation of the human diseases associated with the ingestion of marine seafood toxins is similar to that of any other food poisoning disease. However, a number of clinical issues make these diseases particularly difficult to diagnose and treat. For example, the neurotoxic syndromes associated with CFP, PSP, and NSP represent points along a continuum of disease severity rather than clinically exclusive diseases. Even if fish or other seafood is the suspected source of a disease outbreak, diarrhea associated with the outbreak could be misdiagnosed as originating from bacterial rather than from phycotoxin contamination. 

The first scientific report of an orally transmitted outbreak of Chagas disease in Brazil was made in 1968 (Nery-Guimaraes et ah, 1968). This occurred in the district of Teutonia, municipality of Estrela (Rio Grande do Sul state) in the year 1965, between March 13 and March 22. Seventeen people from an Agricultural School (workers, students, and lecturers that usually had meals there) fell sick. The initial unconfirmed diagnosis was typhoid fever. Other possible diagnoses like infectious hepatitis, toxoplasmosis, infectious mononucleosis, and food poisoning were also discarded. Then, some of the infected people presented with clinical symptoms of acute myocarditis, and, based on clinical observations,... 

The pesticides most frequently responsible for equine poisonings are the organophosphate, carbamate, and chlorinated hydrocarbon insecticides. Both the organo-phosphates and the carbamates are acetylcholinesterase inhibitors and present clinical pictures similar to those seen in food-producing animals. Affected horses salivate and sweat profusely and have muscle incoordination and ataxia. The chlorinated hydrocarbons are strong CNS stimulants affected horses become hyperalert, then excited, and, in severe cases, develop convulsions. In almost all instances, the mode of horses being exposed to pesticides is topical. 

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