I beg to differ...Puffers are very toxic. every year people die trying to eat this fish. I would suggest to run activated carbon in your system. It's the only known thing to capture the poision. Run a search on the puffer fish and decide for yourself.
http://www.abc.net.au/science/news/stories/s1000732.htm
Tetrodotoxin is a toxin most famously associated with the Puffer fish. It has been found in about 80 species of the puffer fish species Tetraodoniformes.
The puffer fish is one of the better known marine animals to contain tetrodotoxin within its body because it causes many human deaths. The scientific name of puffer fish is tetraodontidae. It is native to the waters off Japan and particularly the Pacific Ocean. Interestingly, the puffer fish got its name from a defense mechanism it possesses. It is able to fill up its stomach with water or air through a special oral valve attached to the bottom of its mouth. The puffer fish first fills its mouth with water and then using a large muscle at the base of the mouth forms a tight seal so that the water cannot escape. The fish then uses a highly modified gill arch called a branchiostegal ray that forces the water through the puffer fish’s esophagus and down into its stomach. Dr. Peter Wainwright was the first to explain the mechanism of this peculiar trait. However, it is not specifically known how the water or air is ejected. This defense mechanism allows the puffer fish one method to scare off potential predators because it cannot swim very fast
Indeed, the puffer fish is a very complex marine animal with many mysteries. However, it is known that the roe, ovaries, and liver contain the highest concentration of tetrodotoxin in the puffer fish. The skin and intestines contain lesser amounts and finally the muscle and blood contain the least. Because the toxin is bacterial based, the concentration of toxin within the puffer fish varies with the season. The highest total concentration of tetrodotoxin in the puffer fish is during the winter months. Supposedly, the puffer fish is at its most “flavorful” during this time period. This toxin helps the puffer fish survive in the ocean environment against would be predators that learned not to eat the puffer fish.
While most of the cases of tetrodotoxin injuries or deaths occur in Japan, there have been three cases in recent years where tetrodotoxin poisoning did occur in the United States. The fatal dose of tetrodotoxin is about 1-2 mg, which is about 1 g of the ovary. This case will highlight the symptoms and treatment for contaminated puffer fish poisoning. The tetrodotoxin poisoning occurred on April 29, 1996 among three male chefs who ate puffer fish from a co-worker that brought it in from Japan. Each of them ate a varying amount of the puffer fish ranging from ¼ to 1 ½ oz. The symptoms appeared about 3-20 minutes after ingestion. The first guy who ate a ¼ oz of puffer fish had tingling in his mouth which was followed by dizziness, fatigue, headache, a constricted throat feeling, tightness in the upper chest, shaking, nausea, and vomiting ten minutes later. The second guy ate 1 ½ oz of the puffer fish and felt weak and collapsed 2-3 minutes after consuming the puffer fish. The third chef ate ¼ oz after a full meal and had the same symptoms as the first chef about twenty minutes after consumption. All three of the chefs were taken to the hospital and treated. They were treated by intravenous hydration, gastric lavage, and activated charcoal. All three were later released the next day. The gastric lavage clears the stomach of the toxin while the charcoal helps to absorb the toxin.
There is currently no anti-toxin for tetrodotoxin. Getting rid of it from the body or lessening its effects, such as using activated charcoal, usually treats the effects of the toxin. There are also no specific lab tests for the toxin in acute medical situations of which dietary history plays an important role for diagnosis. However, there are some bioassays that do detect tetrodotoxin in the lab setting. Patients that survive through the first several hours usually fully recover with no side effects. It is possible for patients that are severely poisoned to receive treatment by constant respiration from a machine because death usually occurs by paralysis of the muscles. As a competitive inhibitor, tetrodotoxin is allowed to run its course through the body of which by then the poisoning will usually stop.
