Vibrio Parahaemolyticus, a major causative organism of food poisoning in Japan, is known to bewidely distributed in the coastal sea areas, and it is supposed that the marine products, such as fishand cuttlefish, may be previously contaminated with the organisms in sea water before landing.Furthermore. it has seemed that the organism is weak under low temperature conditions.
The present study was carried out on the resistivity of the organism for the culture at low temperature. On the pure cultures with an agar medium at -20, -10, and 0°C, they became extinct in a short period of storage time (Table 1 ). But on the similar experiments using tuna meat pieces inoculated with the organisms, a considerable number of them survived for a long time unexpectedly (Table 2).
Therefore, from the food hygiene point of view, it was found that the insufficient refrigerated or frozen marine products which had been attacked by the organisms are no safe foodstuffs from the susceptible of poisoning.