v.c
25.12.03, 14:30
French Health Watchdog Issues Oyster Shell Alert
PARIS (Reuters) - Anxious to show vigilance after being criticized in August
for failing to warn the public of an impending heatwave, France's national
health watchdog issued a stern warning on Tuesday about the dangers of
opening oysters.
"Numerous severe accidental injuries take place during the opening of
oysters, which are consumed in particularly large quantities during end-year
festivities," the INVS watchdog said in a statement.
It said some 2,000 people cut themselves each year while trying to pry open
oysters, 800 of them in December or January. Around 20 percent of such
accidents require hospital treatment.
"One should, wherever possible, try to prevent such accidents happening, by
taking simple precautions," the INVS said.
"Sit yourself down comfortably with an oyster knife and the appropriate know-
how, and either use hand protection or get an oyster-seller to open them."
The French slurp down thousands of oysters, many of them farmed off the west
coast, over the Christmas and New Year period.
French authorities have taken pains to give the public advance warning of the
risks of floods and cold weather, as well as a flu epidemic, after failing to
warn of the dangers of an August heatwave that killed 15,000 mainly elderly
people.
