Microwaves are great for reheating, not so great for cooking
An outbreak of salmonella in raw, frozen, breaded stuffed chicken has sickened 32 people in 12 states. As the number of frozen, meal solutions increase – chicken kiev, cordon blue, strips, nuggets and others – a Kansas State professor is warning consumers to be careful with that entrée.
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“Some of these frozen meals are fully cooked and just need to be reheated, and some are raw,” says Dr. Doug Powell, associate professor of food safety at Kansas State University. “It doesn’t seem fair, but consumers really have to read the labels. Raw product should always be cooked in an oven, not a microwave, and needs to be checked with a digital, tip-sensitive thermometer to make sure the food has reached a safe temperature of 165F.”
Investigators from the Minnesota Department of Health notes that this is the sixth outbreak of salmonellosis in Minnesota linked to these types of products since 1998. The findings prompted the officials to urge consumers to make sure that all raw poultry products are handled carefully and cooked thoroughly, and to avoid cooking raw chicken products in the microwave because of the risk of undercooking.
A table of the relevant outbreaks is available at http://www.foodsafety.ksu.edu/en/article-details.php?a=3&c=32&sc=419&id=1245
and below.
Barfing 101 - How to handle vomit in the classroom
Amy brought up the question of how to handle barfing in class, when one of her students vomited during an exam. She said the student cleaned most of it, but she participated in the cleaning too.
At Kansas State University, students and faculty are advised to notify the custodial department immediately and to avoid coming into contact with vomit, according to John Woods, director of
Facilities Services.
“Custodians are supposed to be trained to go in and handle vomit,” Woods said. “We will be limiting the number of staff authorized to handle vomit.”
Woods explained that custodians are required to wear gloves, goggles, and a mask. They are supposed to spray the area, wait a few minutes, and scoop the vomit in a plastic bag with paper towels. They turn in the plastic bag to public safety.
Canadian food safety bureaucrats continue to stumble -- and more people are sick
I started FSnet, the food safety news, shortly after the Jack-in-the-Box outbreak in Jan. 1993. Sure, Al Gore hadn’t invented the Internet yet, but those of us in universities had access, and I started distributing food safety stories.
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It all seems sorta quaint now, what with Google alerts and blogs and RSS feeds, but my goal was straightforward: during the Jack-in-the-Box outbreak, a number of spokesthingies said, they didn’t know E. coli O157:H7 was a risk, they didn’t know that Washington State had raised its recommended final cooking temperature for ground beef, they didn’t know what was going on.
So FSnet was conceived and made widely available so that no one could legitimately say, they didn’t know.
Yet that’s exactly what federal bureaucrats in Canada said last night when questioned about the delay in warning those in southwestern Ontario that lettuce from Aunt Mid’s in Detroit, implicated in a large Michigan-based E. coli O57:H7 outbreak that has stricken at least 34, had made its way across the border.
And now at least two people in Ontario have tested positive for the same strain of E. coli O57:H7.
David Musyj, president and chief executive officer of the Windsor (Ontario) Regional Hospital, said last night that authorities in Michigan issued a public-health alert about the link to Aunt Mid’s iceberg on Friday, Sept. 26, 2008, but the Canadian Food Inspection Agency didn’t bother notifying Windsor health officials until Wednesday, Oct. 1, 2008.
"What happened between Sept. 26 and Oct. 1? Clearly there is a communication gap that occurred. I want an investigation to be launched into this to find out why there was a communication gap, whether it was our CFIA or whether it was the State of Michigan."
Dustin Pike, a spokesman for Agriculture Minister Gerry Ritz, said in an e-mail yesterday that the Public Health Agency of Canada notified the CFIA of the E. coli outbreak in Michigan potentially linked to the lettuce on Tuesday, and after determining that the product had been imported into Canada, the CFIA contacted Windsor health authorities the following morning. …
Davendra Sharma, a food-safety recall specialist at the CFIA, said the agency acted promptly when it heard of the outbreak to identify who in Canada purchased the product and to notify Windsor officials.
Again, I started FSnet all those years ago so bureaucrats and others couldn’t say, I didn’t know.
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The Michigan outbreak was first publicly reported on Sept. 16, 2008. Lettuce was identified as the primary suspect on Friday, Sept. 26 2008. Why it took until Tuesday, Sept. 30, 2008 for someone at Health Canada, the Public Health Agency of Canada or the Canadian Food Inspection Agency to notice there was an outbreak next door in product that could be shipped to Canada is baffling.
Especially because of all the bureaucrats that read FSnet. According to tonight’s numbers, 27 people at PHAC, 149 people at Health Canada, and 316 people at CFIA receive FSnet. That’s almost 500 people, and no one noticed?
Tonight, test results have, unfortunately, revealed that two cases of E. coli O157:H7 in Chatham-Kent, Ontario, are of the same strain identified in 38 cases in the United States. All of the cases are thought to be linked to shredded iceberg lettuce distributed by Aunt Mid's Produce Company. This product is distributed in five pound industrial bags to institutions such as hospitals and long-term care homes, as well as restaurants in southwestern Ontario.
Musyj of the Windsor hospital captures the failings of CFIA when he says:
"Once something is thought of seriously enough to raise a red flag, then you better call everyone affected by the red flag. You can't wait for a death to happen to notify everyone."
Although that seems to have been the CFIA policy with listeria: with 20 dead and counting, it’s a bad policy.
CFIA, what is your policy on going public with information that can prevent illness? Is your primary priority to protect public health? If so, can you provide evidence to back such a claim?
And how can any of you say you didn’t know?
Oh, and for those who see salvation in a single food inspection agency, as is often discussed in the U.S., please notice the dysfunctional mess that is CFIA.
New food safety infosheet -- Lettuce linked to E. coli O157 outbreak
Last week, an outbreak of E. coli O157 in Michigan was linked to bagged, industrial-sized packages of iceberg lettuce distributed to institutions and restaurants throughout the state, according to Michigan's Department of Community Health (MDCH). 34 illnesses in Michigan have been linked to this outbreak, as well as illnesses in IL, OH, NY and OR. MDCH suggests that the outbreak is associated with eating lettuce at a facilities supplied by Aunt Mid's Produce Company, a Detroit-based wholesale distributor.
In a press release yesterday, Aunt Mid's Produce Company reported that they hired an outside laboratory to test products and samples from their facility, and that the results from the tests "prove there is NO CONTAMINATION in Aunt Mid's products."
Strong words, especially since the outbreak has been linked to products that were consumed between September 8 and 19.
This outbreak is the focus of the newest Food Safety Infosheet, and can be found here.
Georgetown outbreak: Emergency so backed up there was 'vomiting in the waiting room'
Molly Redden of the Georgetown Voice in Washington, D.C. does an excellent job going beyond the soundbites of talking health-heads to capture the impact of foodborne illness, in the case on a bunch of university students who dined at Leo O’Donovan Cafeteria or Leo’s.
At least 96 students were treated by the Georgetown University Hospital or the Student Health Center for gastroenteritis from Tuesday night and Wednesday. …
Neil McGroarty (NHS `12), arrived at the emergency room at around 10:30 p.m., only hours after eating a roast beef sandwich from Grab N’ Go. He said within hours of arriving at the Hospital, the emergency room was backed up to the point that students who weren’t receiving medical attention began vomiting in the waiting room.
“I know that some people in the waiting room had been there for three hours. There was a boy yelling ‘help me, help me!’ but there were no doctors,” Kathrin Verestoun (SFS `11), who accompanied her roommate to the emergency room, said. “They ran out of rooms and set up stretchers in the hall. Some people were so dehydrated that they couldn’t find their veins for IVs. They were just bleeding. [My roommate] bled all over her stretcher.” …
A Food Establishment Inspection Report obtained by the Voice through a Freedom of Information Act request reveals that in June, the D.C. Bureau of Community Hygiene determined that Leo’s’ handwashing facilities were not up to code, although this was “corrected on-site.” According to the report, sinks used for handwashing in the service area lacked handsoap. …
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The actual number of students who have fallen ill may be far higher than reported. Interviews have revealed that many students who fell ill did not get medical help, like Katie O’Niell (COL `11), who began to vomit about three hours after eating a burrito at Leo’s.
“I didn’t feel like I could make it any further than from my bed to the bathroom,” she said.
Georgetown University dining hall closed; dozens of students barfing and crapping show up at Emergency last night
Amy and I went for lunch today in the student union. Nothing fancy, the salad fixin’s were reasonably priced, and the food selection was a lot better than when I was a student – way back in the old days, like on the Flintstones, with humans and dinosaurs playing together.
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Any food service operation is vulnerable to foodborne illness, but the university ones have been popping up regularly of late – Guelph, Michigan State, and now, Georgetown in Washington, D.C.
Georgetown University closed its dining hall today after dozens of students went to the emergency room last night with symptoms of severe vomiting and diarrhea.
A call from an emergency room doctor at Georgetown University Hospital at about 12:30 a.m. today alerted campus officials that many students were being treated for symptoms that could indicate a foodborne illness, said university spokeswoman Julie Bataille.
She said officials are not sure yet of the number of students, but it could be dozens. About 5,000 students participate in the campus meal plan and eat at the Leo J. O'Donovan Dining Hall, which most students call Leo's. The dining hall serves about 3,000 meals daily.
In an e-mail to the campus community today, Todd A. Olson, vice president for student affairs, announced that as a precaution the university had decided to close the dining hall and that breakfast would be served in a lounge on campus and that lunch and dinner would be served at the student center.
New food was delivered this morning, Bataille said, and health officials are now on campus taking samples and investigating the situation.
How much food poisoning is deliberate?
Not deliberately dumb, or deliberately daft, but deliberate with intent for death – or at least dysentery.
Sweden’s security service Säpo is investigating possible sabotage following an incident which left 140 people at the headquarters of Confederation of Swedish Enterprise (Svenskt Näringsliv) suffering from dysentery.
The victims, which included employees of the association, its members, and other guests, all suffered from the illness caused by the Shigella dysenteriae bacteria after eating in the office’s cafeteria several weeks ago, reports the Veckans Affärer magazine.
According to the Metro newspaper, the group claiming responsibility for the attack is a left-leaning, internet-based forum which had previously staged demonstrations outside of the association’s headquarters.
In Texas, an IHOP restaurant has been closed three times in the past five months for repeated occurrences of what health investigators call a rare Salmonella, type C; over 10 people have been sickened.
Group C is a strain that researchers and health officials hardly ever see and it's so powerful it clings to surfaces and is more resistant to disinfection.
Police have been called in to help with the investigation.
FDA lax in produce oversight
The U.S. Government Accountability Office reported today that the Food and Drug Administration's efforts to combat foodborne illness are hampered by infrequent inspections, not enough staff and the failure to implement a program devoted to the safety of fresh produce.
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The report said that inspections at produce-processing facilities are rare and that when problems are discovered, the FDA relies on the industry to correct them without oversight or follow-up. …
The report also cited previously unpublished FDA data showing that 14 people died and 10,253 were sickened in 96 outbreaks associated with fresh produce from 1996 through 2006. This summer, salmonella sickened at least 1,440 people in 43 states and Washington, D.C.
But the report found that only 3% of the FDA's food safety budget goes toward efforts to protect fresh produce.
Trendspotting: Shopping cart sanitation
Some of you may remember the 2004 International Association for Food Protection meting in Phoenix. At a local supermarket I found this sanitizing system for shopping carts displayed prominently. That’s when I started to think, maybe food safety can be marketed.
A few months later and I was in the Gold Coast, Australia, for a food safety meeting. I told one journalist about this new trend I’d observed –always gotta be trendspotting – of more prominent use of sanitizers in grocery stores.
That turned into,
“Doug Powell, a food safety expert from Canada, says a decision to put hand wipes in supermarkets and provide sanitising towels for shopping trollies has been successful in reducing the number of food poisoning cases in the US and Canada.”
And it ran all over Australia.
So I wrote a letter which was published in the Sydney Morning Herald and read in part,
“The use of hand wipes in supermarkets and sanitizing towels for shopping carts has been experimental at best in the U.S., and has not and cannot be correlated with any reduction in foodborne illness (Shoppers urged to clean hands to wipe out food-borne diseases, October 11/04, Sydney Morning Herald).
“However, as the Food Safety Information Council correctly noted, and as I stressed during the interview, any measure -- whether on the farm, in processing, at food service, in the home, and yes, at retail -- that can enhance food safety awareness should be explored and encouraged.”
Now it appears some such work has been done.
USA Today reports today that supermarkets and other retailers that provide shopping carts are increasingly looking to limit germ exposure for customers and their families.
“A ShopRite supermarket in Passaic, N.J., installed a push-through cleaning machine on Tuesday that sprays each shopping cart between uses with a misty peroxide solution to kill bacteria, according to Jim Kratowicz, president of PureCart Systems, the manufacturer of the machine. …
“Studies conducted in 2006 and 2007 by FoodNet found riding in a shopping cart beside meat and poultry is risky for infants under six months.
“Doing so triples the chance they may contract salmonella and quadruples it for campylobacter, a diarrhea illness, according to Olga Henao, an epidemiologist for the CDC.
“Infants can become ill when they transfer bacteria from the packaging into their mouths, Henao said. Also, if raw juices leak out onto the cart, it can create a bacteria risk for the next infant in the cart, she said.”
Trendspotting is just so hip. Here’s Demetri Martin with his own trendspotting.
Canadian food safety bureaucrats still aren't that into you
If Canadian cattle or chickens get sick, the public is told all about it.
If Canadian people get sick, not so much.
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That’s what I wrote in Dec. 2006 in a piece called, Sorry, bureaucrats just aren’t that into you.
I’ve said the same thing for the past month as the listeria in Canadian cold-cuts outbreak became public. The latest figures show at least 18 dead and 60 confirmed or suspected ill.
The several-week delay in telling Canadians about listeria in Maple Leaf cold-cuts, coupled with the self-congratulatory and exceedingly false statements about the superiority of Canadian disease surveillance is just another episode in the arrogant and dysfunctional father-knows-best approach to providing health advice practiced by various Canadian authorities.
Dr. Phil would say the relationship between officials at the Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA) and the Canadian public is like a couple headed for divorce: they don't speak unless forced to, and when asked, it's denial, deceit and deception.
Rob Cribb of the Toronto Star reports today that a major review of Canada's food recall system three years ago identified serious problems that experts say continue to threaten public safety.
“Spotty inspections across the country, delays in warning the public about tainted food and a lack of follow-up to prevent repeat outbreaks are documented in the government report, obtained through access to information legislation.
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The 2005 Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA) review predicts concerns that have emerged from the current Maple Leaf listeria outbreak that has claimed 18 lives.
"There is no clear policy on when a recall requires public warning," the report states.
Timely public disclosure of food risks re-emerged as an issue last month when it took three weeks for officials to warn the public of tainted Maple Leaf meat. …
In the aftermath of the outbreak, public health officials and politicians were quick to reassure Canadians that the country has one of the best food safety systems in the world. But behind the scenes, the review documents a history of serious internal concerns: "Most findings in this report have previously been identified by the various parties involved in food recalls."
The CFIA audit paints a picture of a sometimes-chaotic system where turf wars can impact the public's need to know about food warnings. …
Doug Powell, a Canadian food safety expert working at Kansas State University, said any warnings officials received from the review appear to have been ignored. "It's contentment with mediocrity. The bureaucrats don't seem to care very much. They all talk a good game, but they never think it will happen to them, so they just go on."
I can imagine Dr. Phil asking in his Texas drawl "How's that working out for ya’ll?"
The most frustrating part is that CFIA is staffed with individuals who are excellent public advocates and spokespeople. On issues relating to mad cow disease or avian influenza, CFIA goes out of its way to communicate with Canadians, perhaps fearing that any crisis of confidence will reduce sales and impact Canadian farms.
Yet when it comes to the 11 to 13 million foodborne illnesses in Canada each and every year, CFIA has adopted a policy of don't ask, don't tell.
Maybe Dr. Phil can get the public and CFIA into a relationship based on open communication, trust, and respect, but I doubt it. Time to move on.
4 dead, 53,000 sick from melamine in Chinese baby powder; companies knew for months
The Associated Press reports that four babies have died and almost 53,000 have been sickened from melamine in baby formula in China that now appears to date back to Dec. 2007.
An investigation by the State Council, China's Cabinet, has found that for eight months, China's biggest producer of powdered milk, Sanlu Group Co. “did not inform the government and did not take proper measures, therefore making the situation worse.”
Melamine, which can cause kidney stones and kidney failure in babies, has since been found in infant formula and other milk products from 22 of China's dairy companies.
Also, Li Changjiang, who headed the General Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine since 2001, has resigned, a year after he and the government promised to overhaul the system.
Local equals safe - with some exceptions
Fluid leaking from a garbage truck in the streets of Tularosa, New Mexico, tested positive for E. coli a few days ago.
The vehicle was inspected after residents noticed the leak.
Tularosa Mayor Ray Córdova then inspected the vehicle and smelled something extremely foul coming from it. That's when he told residents to take samples of the fluid so he could send it off to a lab for testing.
Those tests came back positive for the E. coli bacteria…
On Thursday Alamo Disposal owner Art Cardiel said the leak came from a crack in the truck. However he also said believes the E. coli is coming from the bacteria in people's trash and not the truck itself.
"In this area, a lot of people grow their own fruit because there's a lot of water," Cardiel said. "Now how am I supposed to have any control over what I put in my truck that comes out of their trash cans?"
The owner of the company, Alamo Disposal, has been given 10 days to fix the leak.
In the meantime, this fluid can continue to leak into people’s gardens, contaminating produce – “fresh and local” produce.
Local producers tend to be more careful because it is often their own families, friends and neighbors who will eat the produce.
Be on the safe side, stock up now on local tomatoes, peppers and other fresh produce and preserve them for the winter.
Be on the safe side? Really? What if there’s a truck with E. coli-contaminated fluids leaking around?
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Grossology: The (Impolite) Science of the Human Body
That’s the name of an exhibit set to open yesterday at the South Florida Science Museum and expected to topple previous attendance records.
The Palm Beach Post reports The exhibition is based on a series of books by science teacher Sylvia Branzei whose research found that the average person swallows a quart of snot per day.
Other features of the exhibit include:
• guess the correct sequence of events that sets off barfing at the Vomit Center;
• match horrible odors to their correct source at Y U Stink;
• learn how vibrations of skin around the anus create a fart sound at Toot Toot; and,
• scale a 12-foot wall of pimples, warts and other skin blemishes.
Jennifer Cooper, a science educator at the museum, said,
"This is kind of a learning-in-disguise exhibit. They're learning without feeling like they're learning."
And you wonder why we call it barfblog.
Home-canned green beans sicken Ohio man, grandson
A Crestline, Ohio, man and his grandson remain hospitalized in Mansfield and Akron with foodborne botulism.
The Mansfield News Journal reports that the two remain in hospital after eating home-canned green beans last weekend. Two other grandchildren were treated for botulism and have been released from Children's Hospital.
There's a new Maple Leaf Listeria video
Just saw the below video during the CTV nightly news with trustworthy Lloyd Robertson. Michael McCain is keeping interested folks up-to-date on what's going on with the Listeria clean-up in Maple Leaf plants.
Still nothing on the results from the 3000 annual samples though.
Publishing papers by press release is a bad idea
Last week, researchers at Texas Tech gushed in a press release about the food safety errors on cooking shows broadcast by the Food Network.
“Researchers analyzed 49 shows airing over a two-week period and used 17 different coded categories: six positive and 11 negative. Positive categories included hand washing, cleaning equipment, washing fruits and vegetables, adequate refrigeration, and use of a thermometer. …
“The results weren’t exactly savory with 118 positive food safety measures and 460 poor food handling incidents. Among the most noticeable culprits were not washing fruits, vegetables and herbs properly and a lack of hand washing in general.”
I have an interest in such work. In 2004, my laboratory reported that, based on 60 hours of detailed viewing of television cooking shows, an unsafe food handling practice occurred about every four minutes, and that for every safe food handling practice observed, we observed 13 unsafe practices. The most common errors were inadequate hand washing and cross-contamination between raw and ready-to-eat foods. The abstract is available at http://www.foodsafety.ksu.edu/en/article-details.php?a=3&c=14&sc=102&id=842.
(Mathiasen, L.A., Chapman, B.J., Lacroix, B.J. and Powell, D.A. 2004. Spot the mistake: Television cooking shows as a source of food safety information, Food Protection Trends 24(5): 328-334.)
So I e-mailed one of the researchers and asked, hey, has this been published in a journal anywhere?
She didn’t answer my e-mail.
But Lubbock Online did, in a story today, which concluded the Tech study has yet to be published but is under review for publication in the academic food safety journal "Food Protection Trends."
That’s great. The more research on these areas the better. Sometimes there is a need to issue a press release about research as it is on-going, but in this case, why not wait until the journal article is published. Then us mere mortals can actually get the paper and review it for ourselves.
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Food irradiation videos highlight, uh, creativity?
Whether you’re Lou Dobbs with your own cable show or Norman B- and his Deviations from the Norm, you too can have your own opinions about food irradiation.
I have mine, and want individuals to have choice at the checkout counter.
“Food irradiation of fresh produce is an additional tool that can help reduce the threat of foodborne illness — but it is not a magic bullet. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has published a final rule allowing the irradiation of fresh iceberg lettuce and fresh spinach, available at: http://www.cfsan.fda.gov/~dms/cfsup185.html
"Farmers still need to practice good agricultural practices, and the possibility of post-processing contamination still exists, Powell said, but added that irradiation is safe and should be made available at the retail level.
"There's a lot of people already speaking on behalf of consumers and what they may or may not do," Powell said. "When it comes to food, consumers vote with their wallets at checkout, not on public opinion surveys. I'd really like to see someone step up and offer consumers the choice. There have been enough serious outbreaks of foodborne illness in fresh produce that the interest in irradiated spinach and lettuce should be strong."
But check out these videos.
Buying fresh produce is an act of faith: Here's why
Buying any sort of fresh produce is an act of faith. The Associated Press explains why in a story today.
At the end of a dirt road in northern Mexico, the conveyer belts processing hundreds of tons of vegetables a year for U.S. and Mexican markets are open to the elements, protected only by a corrugated metal roof.
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration suspects this packing plant, its warehouse in McAllen, Texas, and a farm in Mexico are among the sources of the United States' largest outbreak of food-borne illness in a decade, which infected at least 1,440 people with a rare form of salmonella.
A plant manager confirmed to The Associated Press that workers handling chili peppers aren't required to separate them according to the sanitary conditions in which they were grown, offering a possible explanation for how such a rare strain of salmonella could have caused such a large outbreak.
The AP has found that while some Mexican producers grow fruits and vegetables under strict sanitary conditions for export to the U.S., many don't — and they can still send their produce across the border easily.
Neither the U.S. nor the Mexican governments impose any safety requirements on farms and processing plants. That includes those using unsanitary conditions — like those at Agricola Zaragoza — and brokers or packing plants that mix export-grade fruits and vegetables with lower-quality produce. …
(There) is no public list of the chains that require sanitary practices, meaning there's no way to know whether the fruit and vegetables in any particular store is certified or not. …
Agricola Zaragoza is one of the uncertified plants, manager Emilio Garcia told the AP. He said the packing plant washes produce from both certified and uncertified producers, opening up the possibility for contamination. He refused to give details about his suppliers. …
Kathy Means, a vice president for the U.S. Produce Marketing Associations, said food safety is in the hands of the food industry, with most major produce buyers requiring both U.S. and foreign food producers to have third-party audit programs. However, Means said, not all buyers follow the same rules.
"It's not government-regulated, so it's up to the company to require it.”
I say, cut the BS and start deliberately marketing food safety. That way, someone has to back it up; not some dance with an auditor or certifier, or some other third party that has nothing to do with credibility and everything to do with providing distance when the shit hits the fan – or the produce.
Sarah Palin: what will you do about sandhill cranes pooping on peas and giving Alaskans campylobacter?
We can’t kill all the birds. That’s my usual response when talking about the practicality of on-farm food safety systems for fresh produce. Yes, birds are salmonella and campylobacter factories. But, as a farmer, you do what you can to reduce risk.
It now appears that the 18 people in Alaska sick with campylobacter got it from eating raw peas from a farm, where apparently sandhill cranes were crapping all over the peas.
The Anchorage Daily News says that Joe McLaughlin, state epidemiologist with the state health department, said Thursday afternoon the likely culprits in spreading the illness in Mat-Su are sandhill cranes.
Apparently the migratory birds love the peas in Mat-Valley Peas' fields. And what geese can do to a sidewalk, cranes do to a field.
"The farmer thinks that's the likely scenario," McLaughlin said. "He has another field with cattle nearby, but it's highly plausible that the cranes' poop is the cause."
Duane Clark, who markets the peas for longtime grower John Hett, said, "They don't have proof we're the ones, and we don't have proof we're not."
"I've been farming for over 30 years," Hett said, "and never had a problem."
Shayne Herr, Hett's son-in-law and manager of the farm, said, "If DEC's concerned, we're concerned." He said his family eats raw peas all the time, "and we never get diarrhea. We wash them and we're fine. If we don't like them, we don't sell them."
It's a new marketing slogan: our food is fine cause we don't get diahhrea.
Ladies Tea outbreak linked to Country Cottage
An E. coli O111 outbreak linked to Country Cottage, a Locust Grove, OK buffet restaurant, has expanded to a church gathering in Broken Arrow, OK (not to be confused with Neil Young's home, the Broken Arrow Ranch in Northern California).
According to KFSM, Tests show at least one person at the tea, which was catered by Country Cottage, has E. coli O111. There are four additional probable cases and 10 suspected cases.
The Country Cottage outbreak was the inspiration for the latest iFSN infosheet, which you can download here.
What would Sarah Palin do? Peas in Alaska source of campylobacter, 18 sickened
My mom was a hockey mom. She and dad drove me all around Ontario to play hockey. I still remember the brawl between some of the hockey moms when we played Galt (before it was Cambridge). The cops were called. I may have been 13. My mom wasn’t involved (at least she won’t admit she was involved).
I coached and helped out with my four girls playing hockey, so I guess I was a hockey dad. I’m not a pit bull and don’t wear lipstick.
Sarah Palin may be a hockey mom who thinks the Flintstones are an accurate representation of human-dinosaur co-habitation and is open to war with Russia, but what I’d really like to hear about is how the vice-presidential candidate responds to foodborne illness in her own backyard.
The Anchorage Daily News reports that a farm in the Matanuska Valley has been called the focal point of a campylobacter outbreak that has sickened at least 18 people in Southcentral Alaska after they ate raw peas.
Mat-Valley Peas in Palmer sells the peas in 5- and 10-pound bags with cooking instructions that would have prevented the outbreak, but some retailers and sellers at farmers markets have repackaged the peas in smaller quantities and left out the cooking instructions, said Joe McLaughlin, state epidemiologist with the health department.
The first of the 18 cases, including one person who was hospitalized, occurred Aug. 1.
And my mom, she never had to brag about being a hockey mom. She was the real deal.
Stay away from the Chinese baby formula - dozens of babies sick in China cause of melamine in baby formula
Elizabeth Weise reports in the USA Today today that Chinese newspapers are reporting that infant formula has been linked to kidney problems and kidney stones in babies there because the formula contains melamine — the same industrial contaminant that poisoned and killed thousands of U.S. dogs and cats last year.
No baby formula approved for use in the United States is manufactured in China, according to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.
"We want to reassure the public that there's no contamination in the domestic supply of infant formula," says Janice Oliver, deputy of operations for FDA's Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition.
In addition, no U.S. manufacturers or marketers of infant formula receive ingredients from China. "We contacted all of them,' says Oliver.
"Chinese-manufactured infant formula is illegal in the United States and should not be coming into the United States, and we have controls at the borders to insure that infant formula products don't come in," says Oliver.
However, the agency is concerned that illegal infant formula may be sold in Asian and ethnic markets. That happened once before in 2004, when fake infant formula from China, which killed dozens of babies in that country, was found in at least one U.S. store.
The FDA is working with state officials to make sure that all Chinese, Asian and ethnic markets are aware of the problem, Oliver says. The agency is also alerting the Chinese community to avoid using China-produced formula.
Reports in the Chinese media from several provinces say that as many as 60 babies have been admitted to hospitals with kidney stones and that the illnesses have been linked to use of a specific brand of powdered infant formula.
Melamine is a by-product of plastic manufacturing. It can be used to mimic high-protein additives such as wheat and rice gluten. Adding melamine to ordinary wheat flour, for example, makes it test as if it is the higher protein, higher cost wheat gluten.
Pot pies, pâté and pregnancy: The medium and the messages to create a food safety culture
Food safety culture will be the topic of a presentation by Kansas State University's Doug Powell as part of the K-State Department of Diagnostic Medicine and Pathobiology Seminar Series.
Powell, associate professor of diagnostic medicine and pathobiology and scientific director of the International Food Safety Network, will present "Pot pies, Pâté and Pregnancy: The Medium and the Messages to Create a Food Safety Culture" at 3:30 p.m. Thursday, Sept. 11, in the Practice Management Center on the fourth floor of K-State's Trotter hall. The seminar is free and open to the public.
Powell will provide an overview on the different mediums and messages his research team has experimented with to foster a food safety culture, from farm to fork.
"From pot pies, peanut butter, deli meats and pizza to peppers, tomatoes, spinach and more: food can make people sick -- a lot of people," Powell said. "The World Health Organization estimates that up to 30 percent of all citizens in developed and other countries will get sick from the food they consume each year.
"But statistics are easy to ignore," he said. "In the past month, a 26-year-old died and 206 were sickened with E. coli 0111 after eating in Locust Grove, Okla. Nineteen people have died and dozens sickened with listeria after eating deli meats in Canada. In a separate outbreak, at least seven pregnant women in Quebec have acquired listeria from cheese, leading to premature births and illness in their babies."
Powell said the challenge is to provide reliable and relevant information in a compelling manner to reduce the burden of foodborne illness.
Want effective food safety communication? Put a name and a face on victims
Acording to the Western Mail, in a speech tomorrow, Professor Hugh Pennington will tell world food safety experts at FoodMicro in Aberdeen that “we owe it to people like Mason Jones” to ensure “top-rate” safety systems are put in place. Mason Jones was a five-year-old boy who died after eating a school lunch in October 2005. Some 150 schoolchildren were sickened in the outbreak traced to the John Tudor & Son meat plant in Bridgend, which supplied hundreds of schools in the Valleys with cooked meats. Owner William Tudor was sentenced to 12 months in jail in 2007 after admitting breaching food hygiene rules and supplying contaminated meats to schools. A public inquiry into the outbreak, which Pennington led, was chronicled on barfblog.
What struck me about Pennington's comments was how he, like Doug and I have been doing through barfblog and food safety infosheets, was putting names and faces on the victims. Pennington is calling out the food safety professionals to make food safety personal. Food safety communication isn't just about the statistics, it's about the stories..jpg)
We're not just making this stuff up.
Morgan and colleagues (2002) evaluated various safety messages targeted at farmers regarding the use of personal protective structures for vehicles, by presenting message combinations and surveying 433 members of the target audience. Although the researchers did not look at practices (self-reported or otherwise) of the target audience, and only measured what the respondents felt would have the highest impact with them, they found, that messages based on stories, and those that were meant to elicit fear about individual practices had more impact with than presenting consequence-based statistics alone. Slater and Rouner (1996) investigated the effectiveness of a variety of messages containing a combination of narratives and statistics around the safety of alcohol consumption with a convenience sample of 218 undergraduate students. Slater and Rouner (1996) found that survey respondents who were non-believers prior to the presented information, rated messages with narratives as higher quality and perceived them as more effective. Slater and Rouner (1996) also found that statistics alone only reinforced respondents who identified themselves as already believing in the messages. Psychologist Howard (1991) argues that narratives and storytelling are effective methods in conveying information and suggests that there is a better understanding of one's place in a system when individual sees himself or herself as an actor within the context of a story.
Our research supports this concept of storytelling: the most impactful infosheets (from a food handlers' point of view) are the ones which put a name and a face on victims, the food safety offenders and their establishments. Food safety communications is about storytelling, and personalizing the outcomes for the front-line staff who are in control.
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Howard, G. S. 1991. Culture tales: A narrative approach to thinking, cross-cultural psychology, and psychotherapy. American Psychologist, 46: 187-197.
Morgan S.E., Cole H.P., Struttmann T. and Piercy L. 2002. Stories or statistics? Farmers' attitudes toward messages in an agricultural safety campaign. Journal of Agricultural Safety and Health. 8:225-39.
Slater, M. D., & Rouner, D. 1996. Value-affirmative and value-protective processing of alcohol education messages that include statistical evidence or anecdotes. Communication Research. 23: 210-235.
Hurricane Gustav and food safety
I have been following Hurricane Gustav closely on the news. I choke when I see images of the storm and people evacuating their homes, the same homes that were devastated by Katrina 3 years ago. 
As reported by the New York Times:
“More than one million households in Louisiana were without power, with most of the outages — about 300,000 — concentrated in the greater New Orleans area, Gov. Bobby Jindal said at a televised news conference. As flood waters and tidal surges continued to subside, city and state officials struggled to get electricity to hospitals and sent thousands of emergency workers onto streets to clear debris and fix downed power lines.”
Residents who are left without power should take the following precautions to minimize risk of foodborne illness:
1 – The refrigerator and freezer doors should be kept closed as much as possible to keep the cold temperature longer. A refrigerator keeps food at safe temperatures for about 4 hours if unopened. Dry or block ice also helps maintain the proper temperature: at or below 40°F for a refrigerator and 0°F for a freezer.
2 – If any meat, poultry, fish, or eggs, where left over 40°F for more than two hours, it is safer to discard it. A thermometer in your refrigerator helps you determine the temperature (make sure it is working properly).
Residents who are in flood areas:
1 – The safest is to stick with bottled water. However, if you don’t have access to this, you can also filter (through clean cloths) and boil the water for at least a minute. Water can also be disinfected with household bleach, which kills some, not all, pathogens. Add 1/8 teaspoon (8 drops) of bleach per gallon.
2 – Discard food that has come in contact with floodwater, including anything in cardboard boxes, home canned foods, or damaged cans.
A more complete guide can be found here, and please, stay safe.
Botulism, babies and bad advice
Amy and I don’t really disagree about much. But we can each get moody and self-absorbed and go after each other. Especially at the end of 20-hour drives. That’s about how long it takes to go from Manhattan (Kansas) to Guelph (Ontario) and at the end of one epic journey back from Guelph two years ago, tired and driving through Kansas City with a trailer full of my crap that I just had to have in Kansas, Amy decided to entertain herself by asking me, who are you to publish an opinion, or something like that.
I’ve always thought that academic-types had a responsibility to share their knowledge in a compelling manner with the public, rather than just complain about people’s opinions of things scientific and otherwise. But really, who the hell am I? Why should anyone listen? Or care?
I questioned myself for a couple of months and didn’t do much public stuf. Then I got over it. But I still question myself and try to do my homework.
I’m not so sure about Dr. Dave in the video below.
This is from some mommy television show in Canada that Ben sent me. It’s called, The Mom Show. In the clip below, Dr. Dave, appears to have no clue about botulism in babies less than a year old.
Clostridium botulinum can cause sickness in very young children, and infants under the age of 1 years old are most at risk. Honey may contain Clostridium botulinum spores that can grow in the digestive tract of children less than one-year-old because their digestive system is less acidic. The bacteria produces toxin in the body and can cause severe illness. Even pasteurized honey can contain botulism spores and should be not be given to children under the age of 12 months.
The advice is clear: do not give any honey to children less than one-year-old.
But maybe I don’t know what I’m talking about.
Food safety in Thailand
On Thursday I spent a couple of hours with some visiting food safety types from Thailand, sharing our experiences with on-farm food safety and fresh produce.
Near the end of the talk, I put up a sample of a daily FSnet mailing for additional information. For policy analyst Thepchoo Sripoti, left, with Thailand’s National Food Institute, light bulbs went off. He said,
“I am a big fan of your FSNET for almost 7 years. It gives me new information on food safety around the world. Wish you have a great success all the way.”
Thanks for the kind words and the visit.
Canadian consumers, if you have Maple Leaf deli meats, it's your fault
In possibly the worst – or most incongruent – press release ever written, the Canadian Partnership for Consumer Food Safety Education, the group with the excessively explanatory name, says they have "issued some simple guidelines to reduce the risk of microbial foodborne illnesses. This is of special interest to Canadians in light of recent coverage of listeriosis.”
So for all the money this group gets from government and industry, they can’t be bothered to say, hey, if you’re pregnant or immunocomprimised, you shouldn’t eat this stuff.
Instead, just more messages funded by taxpayers telling them to feel good about the food they buy.
This is the same group that wanted to use a Mrs. Doubtfire-inspired food safety spokesthingy to reach out to university students, until the trans-generders in Canada got word and forced the campaign to disappear.
Stick it in: Use a thermometer to cook foods so your friends don't barf at football
U.S. college football kicks off Saturday. Time to put on your favorite school’s colors and brush up on that fight song. Thousands of students and alumni will be heading out to the stadium, tailgating, and firing up those grills. Hamburgers, chicken, ribs, or beans, there will be plenty of food on hand.
Use a food thermometer to make sure you aren’t serving your friends and family undercooked meats. Make sure to cook ground beef to 160°F(1), while chicken needs to reach 165°F(2). That way when your team takes the field, you aren’t puking or stuck on the toilet. And using a thermometer will make you a better cook. People are impressed by this. Good food safety will allow you to fully enjoy the tailgating atmosphere, so you can cheer your school onto victory.
It’s all on video, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YmyMmjfFo5Y
References
1: Ryan, Suzanne M., Mark Seyfert, Melvin C. Hunt, Richard A. Mancini. Influence of Cooking Rate, Endpoint Temperature, Post-cook Hold Time, and Myoglobin Redox State on Internal Color Development of Cooked Ground Beef Patties. Journal of Food Science. Volume 71 Issue 3 Page C216-C221, April 2006
http://www.blackwell-synergy.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1365-2621.2006.tb15620.x?prevSearch=authorsfield%3A%28M.C.+Hunt%29
2: Focus On: Chicken. Food Safety and Inspection Service. United States Department of Agriculture. April 4, 2006. http://www.fsis.usda.gov/factsheets/chicken_food_safety_focus/index.asp