EXPERTS are continuing to monitor shellfish from the Dorset coastline after they were found to contain traces of a potentially deadly toxin.

In May last year, sampling of scallops showed levels of the ASP toxin well above the maximum permitted legal level of 20mgs.

Levels dropped throughout 2014 but generally remained above the permitted level.

Weymouth Port Health Authority, working with the Dorset coastal local authorities, Cefas and the Food Standards Agency, has announced it will continue to carry out background testing of scallops for the presence of toxin in order to keep an overview of the toxin position.

But they have warned this does not alter the legal duty on fishermen and merchants who place scallops on the market to undertake their own testing on every batch of scallops landed, to ensure that any toxin present is below the maximum permitted level.

Scallops supplied to catering establishments and for retail sale must be accompanied by a certificate to say that the legal limit for toxin has not been exceeded. Shucked scallops used in catering establishments may only be purchased from an approved shucking establishment where the process has been verified as meeting a safe standard.

Recreational divers and other members of the public are advised that scallops gathered for their own consumption could contain toxins. Discarding the gut and gut membranes (shucking) gives a reasonable measure of safety in respect of ASP toxin as it concentrates in the gut but other types of toxin, if present, may not be so easily removed.

Paul Kimber, Chair of Weymouth Port Health Committee said: “Weymouth PHA officers working with the Cefas Lab will continue to monitor the overall toxin situation in regard to scallops and other filter feeding bivalve molluscs. This is part of a national public health control programme which the authority has been engaged with since the programme started some 15 years ago.”