Toxicological trivia from October 09, 2009: "Red Tide" is the popular name of poisoning with symptoms of paralysis and breathing difficulty after eating shellfish contaminated with some toxin that comes from marine plankton with which cone snails feed . We can say that: a) The contaminated shellfish can easily differentiate which is not; b) This poisoning has a specific antidote; c) It can cause death in just 15 minutes.