Is It Safe To Eat Raw Oysters? What To Know About Vibrio Rise.

Oscar Wong via Getty Images There are some risks associated with eating raw oysters. In a now-viral video made in response to the first one, Morticia, a microbiologist in Boise, Idaho, who worked on research under grants from the United States Department of Agriculture and the National Institutes of Health, shares the risks associated with eating oysters ― or any seafood ― as oceans get warmer as a result of climate change. Although rates of infection are low overall, oysters have the highest amount of seafood related deaths in the U.S. “If you are healthy and what we call ‘immunocompetent,’ which really just means your immune system is able to work properly and eliminate infections, your body will be able to clear the infection without a hospital visit or antibiotics. “This is where that high mortality rate we associate with Vibrio infections comes from.” The most recent outbreak was in 2019, causing gastrointestinal illnesses linked to oysters imported from Mexico. “Mortality is extremely rare in healthy individuals, but for individuals with certain medical conditions, it can cause severe side effects.” Immunocompromised people are more vulnerable to infections, and since the immune system plays a role in defending the body from bacterial, fungal, parasitic and viral infections, this puts them at a higher risk for complications, one of which is sepsis.