Thank you Paul with your replay.
Always enjoy reading your comments on shell related
questions.
Um forte abraço, Carlos (South Portugal)

P.S- lead-containing gasoline is not used in Portugal
nowadays.


--- "Monfils, Paul" <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> 1) - Do they still use lead-containing gasoline in
> Portugal?  If so, it
> seems reasonable that lead-containing deposits from
> automobile exhaust might
> well contaminate roadside vegetation, which
> theoretically could become
> concentrated in the tissues of snails which feed on
> that vegetation.  I
> don't know if any actual studies have been done to
> establish this. It would
> be an interesting question to explore.  I have seen
> warnings against
> gathering edible plants from such areas, so I would
> be suspicious of snails
> feeding on those same plants. If the snails are
> lead-contaminated, no manner
> of cooking will remove the metal.
>
> 2) -  I know of no normal human parasite that uses
> land snails as an
> intermediate host, though there are plenty of fresh
> water snails that serve
> as vectors of human parasites.  By "normal" I mean
> parasites whose usual
> final host is humans. There are some very rare cases
> of bovine lungworm
> infection in humans, and certain terrestrial slugs
> and snails do serve as
> intermediate hosts for such parasites.  Cows get
> infected by inadvertently
> consuming snails along with the grass they eat.  But
> those snails, while I
> don't remember the exact genera involved, are tiny
> species, not the larger
> forms usually eaten by humans.  And, to become
> infected with anything from a
> snail, you would have to eat the snail uncooked.
>
> Paul M.


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