Happy, Hepatitic Clam?

Throughout the U.S. there have been 28,000 cases of infectious hepatitis so far this year, as against 12,000 in the same period a year ago. The upsurge of the disease, which is usually spread through human fecal matter, was expected (TIME, Nov. 14). But New Jersey has logged a logarithmic increase: 1,014 cases, as against 437 in all of 1960. Seeking the cause of the flare-up, Dr. Roscoe P. Kandle, the state's commissioner of health, had hundreds of victims interviewed ; then he pointed an accusing finger at the lowly clam.

A few cases, said Dr. Kandle, could be traced to seepage from septic tanks; probably a majority were spread from person to person within families. But when patients were asked what they had eaten 30 to 60 days earlier (because the virus plays possum for that length of time), a surprising number mentioned clams on the half-shell. The raw-clam fanciers, suggested Dr. Kandle, might account for as many as 250 cases.

Nothing makes a clam happier than sewage seepage, but it might also make him a carrier of the hepatitis virus. New Jersey began checking its clam diggers to make sure that they were not harvesting in polluted waters.