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Sushi Danger
Updated: 10:55 AM Jun 1, 2006
Betty Sexton
If you eat a lot of sushi beware. In rare cases raw fish can make you sick with parasites invading your body. A Colorado Springs woman learned that the hard way.
Tonight in a special call for action alert, Betty Sexton uncovers the dangers ad tells you what restaurants are doing to protect you. A word of warning some of the video may be graphic.
A Colorado Springs woman prides herself on eating healthy so the last thing she expected was to hear she was infested with parasites.
She ate a lot of sushi specifically raw salmon , until she learned fish tapeworms were living in her small intestine.
She wants to keep her identity secret because she doesn't want her children to know what happened. This woman we'll call sue says once those sharp pains went away she experienced bouts of nausea, diarrhea, fatigue, and bloating for months.
She even had those fluttering feelings that women get when they're pregnant.
Then she passed a four foot long tapeworm in her stool and went to see her doctor.
Dr. Phyllis Clark an internal medicine specialist sent off part of the specimen to the lab which came back positive for fish tapeworm, specifically undercooked or raw salmon.
Sue says she's now back to normal. Still, she's staying away from raw food of any kind. She's not sure where she picked up the parasite, but knows it was not a sushi restaurant here in Colorado Springs.
Local restaurant owners didn't want to talk on camera, but say they understand the dangers and take precautions above and beyond what's required by state and federal government.
They tell me they only buy the highest grade of salmon examining the whole fish before accepting it, then cutting it up, and freezing it for days to make sure it's safe.
We learned contracting fish tapeworm is very rare. In fact, the centers for disease control told me their last documented case was 25 years ago when four doctors got it from eating raw salmon in sushi.
Dr. Clark says the best advice, be careful when eating raw salmon and raw squid. Both can be loaded with parasites which are only killed when the fish is fully cooked or completely frozen.
She recommends only eating sushi in places with proper refrigeration and freezing, staying away from sushi sold on the streets in carts or in third world countries with less stringent laws.
She wants people to eat fish because it's healthy, but fish tapeworm left untreated can cause months and months of prolonged illness.
see I told you about sushi
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