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Evaluation of the study carried out by ANSES on the effectiveness of sanitary shucking of queen scallops (Aequipecten opercularis) contaminated by okadaic acid toxins
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DOI：10.2903/j.efsa.2026.10164.png)
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Abstract
En 中文
Following a request from the European Commission, EFSA evaluated the effectiveness of sanitary shucking of queen scallops (Aequipecten opercularis) contaminated with okadaic acid (OA) group toxins. Specifically, EFSA was tasked to evaluate a study conducted by the French Agency for Food, Environmental and Occupational Health & Safety (ANSES), to assess the appropriateness of a proposed threshold of 4000 μg OA eq/kg in whole scallops, intended to ensure compliance of the edible part after shucking, and to provide recommendations on sampling schemes that would allow detection of non-compliant lots/areas above the threshold of 80 μg OA eq/kg. The assessment was supported by structured literature searches on the hazard profile of OA group toxins and contamination events. The ANSES study was assessed previously in the EFSA CONTAM Panel opinion, but it was not possible to retrieve a safe shucking level of OA for A. opercularis. No new occurrence data were submitted for the current assessment. While the ANSES study results indicate that shucking was effective and provided compliant edible part under the specific conditions studied, the following limitations were identified: restricted number of samples, representativeness across contamination scenarios and concentration ranges. The proposed limit of 4000 μg OA eq/kg is substantially higher than the highest whole-scallop level observed in the study (approximately 900 μg OA eq/kg), and it is unknown whether the relationship between OA levels in muscle vs. whole scallops would remain unchanged at higher concentration levels. Consequently, it is concluded that the proposed threshold of 4000 μg OA eq/kg in whole scallops cannot be endorsed based on ANSES study alone. With regard to sampling schemes for shucked scallops, the number of individual scallops required in a pooled analytical sample to reliably classify batches as compliant or non-compliant depends strongly on the observed mean contamination level and the variability.
Keywords:
Aequipecten opercularis
dinophysistoxins
lipophilic marine biotoxins
okadaic acid
scallops
shucking
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