Determination of histamine in canned mackerel implicated in a food borne poisoning

An incident of food borne poisoning causing illness in three victims due to ingestion of canned mackerel occurred in December 2001, in Taipei Prefecture, northern Taiwan. Analyses of biogenic amines showed that the leftovers of the victims’ canned mackerel contained 153.9 mg/100 g of histamine. The three other mackerel cans of the same brand and lot number as the suspected canned sample had histamine greater than the hazard action level of 50 mg/100 g. The contents of other biogenic amines in all these four canned samples were found to be less than 10 mg/100 g. Given the high histamine content and the presence of other biogenic amines in the suspected canned mackerel, this food borne poisoning was strongly suspected to be due to histamine intoxication. In addition, 48 canned products belonging to six different kinds of fish were purchased from various common markets in Taiwan for analyses. The average content of the various biogenic amines in these canned fish products was lower than 5 mg/100 g. Among them, only one can of tuna and one can of anchovy had histamine (18.7 and 7.5 mg/100 g, respectively) greater than the US FDA allowable limit of 5 mg/100 g.