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M.Luisa Fernández, Aurea Míguez, Emiliano Cacho & Ana Martinez European Community Reference Laboratory on Marine Biotoxins. Mº de Administraciones Públicas. Aptdo. 90 . 36271 Vigo, Spain
A large number of EU coastal countries are affected by toxic events related to Harmful Algal Blooms. Toxic episodes due to Paralytic Shellfish Poisoning and Diarrhetic Shellfish Poisoning toxins have been registered from the 1950´s and Amnesic Shellfish Poisoning toxins have been the cause of prolonged closures of shellfish production areas in the last few years. Recently, a new toxic syndrome caused by Azaspiracid and analogues has been identified in Irish mussels and might affect a number of EU countries. Monitoring programmes based on EU Directives have been implemented for marine toxin control in seafood. However, methods, performance criteria, and action levels have not been clearly established for toxin control, resulting in inconsistencies between EU countries, which are especially severe in the case of DSP toxin control. A network of European laboratories coordinated by a Community Reference Laboratory has been set up to create a forum of methodological and toxicological agreements and harmonize European seafood trade. Difficulties arise from the lack of pure toxins to perform toxicological studies and to develop and validate suitable analytical methods. European approaches to marine toxin control, agreements and activities on the field of harmonization of methods and limits are presented and discussed.
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