Dose-response relationships in cereulide intoxications: Data from outbreak related and routine food testing

Cereulide is an extremely heat stable toxin produced in food during growth of emetic Bacillus cereus group strains. Ingestion of cereulide leads rapidly to nausea, vomiting
and occasionally to organ failures and even fatal outcome. Based on animal trials the emetic dose is estimated to be approximately 10 μg/kg body weight [1], whereas the
acute reference dose (ARfD) is estimated to be 0.03 μg/kg body weight, corresponding to 1.8 ng/g of food [2]. Reported cereulide concentrations in food samples
associated with intoxications are mostly in the range of 1,000 ng/g, while the B. cereus (s.l.) levels range from 102 to 107 cfu/g [1]. Here we present cereulide
concentrations in food samples from outbreaks and routine testing together with colony counts and sequencing based characterization data of emetic isolates.