A plate of half a dozen raw oysters on ice served with lemon in the middle
Food, Rivers & Oceans

Advisory Against Eating Raw Oysters From Comox, Parksville, Denman and Hornby

More than 70 people reported feeling ill after eating raw oysters at the glitzy LA Times 101 Best Restaurants event earlier this month. Since then there have been similar reports from a number of restaurants in California. S&M Shellfish has issued an urgent recall for product sold as Fanny Bay, Buckley Bay and Royal Miyagi Oysters because of ‘multiple confirmed illnesses due to Norovirus contamination.’ 

The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) issued an advisory against ‘certain oysters’ from BC Tidal Area 14, which is Comox, Denman Island, Hornby Island, and Parksville.  There have been no cases reported north of there, or in the Discovery Islands.

The corresponding advisory from Fisheries and Oceans Canada has the headline ‘BC tidal area 14 – Comox, Denman Island, Hornby Island, Parksville: Bivalve shellfish contamination information.’

“It’s a virus which is destroyed by cooking. So if you eat cooked oysters, you have no worries,” explained Phil Allen, President of Bee Islets Growers Corporation on Cortes Island. 

He also explained the FDA designation ‘certain oysters’: “It’s only the raw oyster market, the smalls and extra smalls, that they’re having problems with.”  

“ The FDA ban is obviously a huge problem. You can’t sell oysters to the US. I’m guessing that the FDA will keep that ban in place as long as they’re finding the virus in oysters in BC.”

Allen did not know what causes the norovirus contamination, but compared it to a 24 hour flu bug. 

“The scary thing about it is it survives in cold water.  So even in the winter months and even a very small amount of it in an oyster will create a sickness.”

There is quite a bit of angst in the oyster market right now.

There have been no reports of problems with oysters from our area. 

As far as Allen knows, only one of the Bee Islets growers sells oysters meant for the raw market or to the US market.*

Phil Allen: “Even if you sell in just BC, if they find any of the virus in any of the oysters, they will reject the order. So you pay to ship the order down to Vancouver, and then you pay them to ship it back to you.”   

Links of interest:

*correction: this article originally contained a reference to said grower’s product being gold standard. This was incorrect.

Top image credit: Raw Oysters – Photo by Quinn Dombrowski via Flickr (CC BY 2.0)

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