Taylor Shellfish has another hatchery, in Hawaii, that hasn't been affected yet, so there will still be a source of seed for half-shell oysters for a while to come, Bill Taylor says. But if ocean acidification turns out to be the root cause of the hatchery failures, the future of the American oyster industry may depend on how fast we can reduce the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.

A shortage of oysters over the next couple of years may be inevitable. But will it be a temporary dip in a generally upward curve? Or are we at the pinnacle of the "Great American Oyster Renaissance," looking at a long downhill slide?

"I have my fingers crossed," Taylor says. "Ocean acidification has the potential to be worse than the pollution problems we solved with the Clean Water Act."

Robb Walsh is the author of Sex, Death and Oysters: A Half-Shell Lover's World Tour, which was released January 20.

Don't Mix Raw Oysters and Antacids!

In cooperation with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration's Gulf Coast Seafood Laboratory, Douglas Marshall and researchers at Mississippi State University built a model of the human stomach and introduced oysters containing Vibrio vulnificus to try to understand what happens to the bacteria in the human gut.

They found that while stomach acids were usually enough to kill much of the bacteria, some common medications changed the equation radically. When the researchers added antacids, the bacteria in the model stomach quickly grew to a level ten times higher than without antacids. Antacid users are now considered another "at risk" group who must avoid raw oysters at all times.