Mounting concerns about the safety of molluscan shellfish makes this volume a must for seafood microbiologists, marine biologists, environmental scientists, fisheries biologists and food scientists. This comprehensive reference describes and assesses the contamination indicators in shellfish and their growing waters. It profiles virtually all the bacterial and viral pathogens associated with illness from the consumption of shellfish and reviews the latest, most successful methods of detection and analysis. It also supplies a concise, historical overview of shellfish control efforts, discusses the environmental factors affecting indicators from shellfish growing waters, assesses current harvesting and processing standards and practices with suggested new approaches and surveys the latest international efforts in controlled purification. This book should be of interest to seafood microbiologists; toxicologists; marine biologists; environmental scientists; government regulators; fisheries biologists; food scientists; and plant managers.