In December my wife introduced me to a friend of a friend who was into game fishing. Although he lives in Surat Thani he prefers to go to Ranong as the fishing is better there.

He organized a two day trip and we managed quite a few barracuda. On tv in the UK last night there was a programme about fishing in Cuba where it was mentioned that baracuda can harbour ciguatera food poisoning. Looking on Google this only seemed to occur in the Atlantic Ocean.

Are barracuda free of this in Thailand?

No but it is not often reported so unknown as to how much a danger it is - I would not be eating any large barracuda here as there are coral reefs and they get this from eating fish that live there. I did eat a lot of barracuda in Conakry, West Africa and it is really good - it is not the ocean but the location and fish the barracuda are eating.

I appreciate it is what they are eating and not the location but the article that I read, as I had never heard of it before, only referred to instances in the Atlantic. It looked rather nasty having no antidote and possible re-occurance many years later.

It is well established issue in the Pacific also - but can vary greatly by area. What I always heard was never consume in an area of coral reefs.

Ciguatoxin is produced by microscopic organisms that grow on the surface of marine algae, seaweed, or coral. The poison gets into plant-eating fish when they feed on the algae or seaweed.

http://health.hawaii.gov/docd/dib/disease/ciguatera-fish-poisoning/