Two likely cases of paralytic shellfish poisoning were reported on Friday, the Department of Health and Social Services announced. After eating clams from Starrigavan Beach in Sitka, a man reported tingling in his left hand and lips, and a woman reported tingling along with a headache -- the most benign effects of the poisoning, which can kill a person just a few hours after ingesting contaminated shellfish.
Paralytic shellfish poisoning (PSP) occurs when people eat shellfish contaminated with toxic dinoflagellate algae blooms. The toxins cause paralysis. Eating a single contaminated shellfish can be fatal, due to toxicity levels 1,000 times more potent than cyanide.
Symptoms begin with tingling of the lips and tongue. After that, tingling spreads to the fingers and toes, followed by a loss of muscle control in the arms and legs. Some people experience nausea or a sense of floating. Difficulty breathing may follow. If the chest and abdomen become paralyzed, a person will suffocate. Death can occur just hours after eating the shellfish.
"There is no cure," DHS spokesperson Greg Wilkinson said.
Shellfish are gathered for recreational and subsistence use year-round on hundreds of beaches across Alaska. The state writes that "shellfish are an important traditional subsistence food source and a favorite in kitchens from small coastal villages to large cities in Alaska."
But the state does not test individual beaches for the presence of PSP.
"People are taking a chance" when they harvest shellfish, Wilkinson said. In 2013, there have been five reported cases of shellfish poisoning with Friday's cases included. Wilkinson suspects there are more cases that go unreported.
While some harvesters rely on cool weather to avoid PSP and may harvest only during certain parts of the year, the state warns that algae can bloom at any time.
The Department of Environmental Conservation only regulates and tests commercial shellfish harvests for PSP, per state law, spokesperson Ty Keltner said. With "so many beaches" along Alaska's winding coastline, testing shellfish for PSP across each one would be "impossible," he said.
The DEC also doesn't keep track of how many people harvest and eat shellfish for personal use. The state's only recreational PSP testing is run through a pilot program, set up in 2012, in which one or two species of Alaska's shellfish are tested for PSP on 11 beaches.
Some beaches are known hotspots for recreational shellfish gathering. But Keltner said that just because some shellfish from those beaches test negative for PSP doesn't preclude the chance that another shellfish could be pulled from the same beach that tests positive for the toxin, Keltner said.
If a "hot" shellfish -- one with high toxicity levels -- is found, the state will put up posters warning people not to harvest there, Keltner said.
Even then, some may not see the poster, said Kimberly Stryker, program manager for food safety and sanitation with the DEC.
Though the state feels like "it's pretty cut and dry" that shellfish should be avoided, "shellfish is important to people. They want to eat it, [and] they don't really care what the risks are," Stryker said.
Stryker said people shouldn't worry about the toxins when eating regulated commercially-harvested shellfish.
"We've never had a case associated with commercial fishing," she said.
Officials are still waiting to receive urine samples back to confirm the pair did indeed suffer from shellfish poisoning, Wilkinson said. But the leftover clams tested positive for the toxin, and alongside the couple's symptoms, "That's usually close enough for us anyway," he said.
Contact Laurel Andrews at laurel(at)alaskadispatch.com and follow her on Twitter at @Laurel_Andrews