Passengers who throw up in the back of a cab could get charged more than double – as well as face a hike in taxi fares.

The so-called soiling fee will be increased from £40 to £100 in South Ribble if the council gives the go-ahead.

Cabbies in the South Ribble Council area have asked the authority to consider putting up the fares for the first time since September 2006.

Drivers say that the rising cost of fuel and insurance premiums – as well as an increase in the number of inebriated passengers – means it is costing more to stay on the road.

Now anyone who forces a taxi off the road by soiling it through their drunkenness could be hit with the £100 charge.

Vomiting customers are currently charged £30.

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I got around to sending this to the Boston Globe:

The advertisement masquerading as a story about raw milk in the March 23, 2008 Boston Globe magazine (Got raw milk?) should have noted that the author is an advocate for raw milk, which may help explain the statistical cherry picking throughout the story – like comparing confirmed illnesses from raw dairy products to the overall estimated illnesses from food.

A table of raw dairy outbreaks is available at http://www.foodsafety.ksu.edu/articles/384/RawMilkOutbreakTable.pdf

Yes, lots of foods make people sick. And people should be free to choose what they ingest.

The 19th century English utilitarian philosopher, John Stuart Mill, noted that choice has limits, stating, "if it [in this case the consumption of raw unpasteurized milk] only directly affects the person undertaking the action, then society has no right to intervene, even if it feels the actor is harming himself."

Excused from Mill’s libertarian principle are those people who are incapable of self-government – children.

Science can be used to enhance what nature provided. Further, society has a responsibility to the many -- philosopher Mill also articulated how the needs of the many outweighed the needs of the one — to use knowledge to minimize harm.

Adults, do whatever you think works to ensure a natural and healthy lifestyle, but please, don't impose your dietary regimes on those incapable of protecting themselves: your kids.

Dr. Douglas Powell is scientific director of the International Food Safety Network at Kansas State University

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A FSnet reader provided a link to the French Ministere de l'Agriculture and we're going to start trying to translate the significant microbial warnings and outbreaks.

Amy, the French professor partner took a crack at this one:

"On March 25, 2008 the press conference held by DGS, DGAL, InVS and AFSSA made precisions on the available information on the contamination of hamburger by the bacteria E. coli O157:H7 on which the shelf life has expired.

This outbreak was revealed by analyses that were undertaken at the producer’s initiative, conforming to communal and national hygiene rules.

It remained to be clarified the levels of contamination of these products because the first analyses were conducted without a microbial count. The official count analyses performed on the same hamburgers confirmed an important contamination on two samples and a weaker one on two others.

Since beginning informing consumers on March 21, 2008, there have been no human cases confirmed tied to this outbreak. In specific, no hemolytic uremic syndrome cases have been found.

Recommendations for consumers:
You are reminded that if you bought or are storing in your freezer the lots of hamburgers in question (fresh ground steak or ground meat, 5-15% fat, Monoprix or Carrefour brands, expiration date March 17 or 18, 2008, sanitary check number FR 50.147.02), you are formally recommended to not consume them and to bring them back to the store where you bought them.

In case digestive problems arise within a maximum of 10 days after consumption of the hamburgers from the incriminated lots, you are recommended to consult your physician and indicate your consumption to him."

And in what I've learned to love about the French, the press release says,

If you have not consumed any of the hamburgers from the incriminated lots or if you have no symptoms, it is useless to worry or to consult anyone.

The release also says to cook hamburger to the center. Whatever that means. What is French for piping hot?

Generally, it is advisable to remember that cooking the hamburgers through to the center prevents the consequences of such an outbreak, as the bacteria are destroyed by a temperature of 65°C.

Here's our advice.

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Bayou Bob found that sticking a rattlesnake inside a bottle of vodka and marketing the concoction as an ''ancient Asian elixir" made a lot of money.

But Bayou Bob Popplewell doesn't have a liquor license.

So Bayou Bob was arrested Monday after the Texas Alcoholic Beverage Commission obtained arrest warrants on misdemeanor charges of selling alcohol without a license and possessing alcohol with intent to sell.

Popplewell said he will fight the charges and that his intent is not to sell an alcoholic beverage but a healing tonic. He said he has customers of Asian descent who believe the concoction has medicinal properties.

But alcohol commission agent Scott Jones pointed out that investigators confiscated 429 bottles of snake vodka and one bottle of snake tequila. At $23 a bottle, that's almost $10,000 worth of reptilian booze.

Camilla Hsieh, an Asian studies lecturer at the University of Texas said there is some merit to Popplewell's claim that snake vodka could be seen as a tonic. There's a street nicknamed ''Snake Alley'' in Taipei, Taiwan, where street vendors put the gall bladder of a freshly killed snake into a glass of strong liquor. The drink, sold to the highest bidder, is supposed to improve eyesight and sexual performance
.
''It's like the ancient version of Viagra,'' Hsieh said.

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In March, 2008, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration advised people not to eat cantaloupes from a Honduran grower because the fruits may be contaminated with Salmonella and have sickened 50 people in the U.S. and Canada.

Doug Powell of the International Food Safety Network looks at how cantaloupes and prepared and what you can do, if anything, to reduce the risk of Salmonella from the melons.

The latest iFSN infosheet recommends that cantaloupe be refrigerated as soon as they have been sliced up because bacteria such as Salmonella, can grow nicely on the orange meat of the fruit at room temperature.

If you wash the outside of the cantaloupe, vigorously use a scrub brush under running water to remove any easy-to-get to bacteria (and try not to splash the water all around the kitchen).

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The 8,500 citizens of Alamosa, Colorado, are frustrated.

Salmonella has contaminated the city's water supply, sickening more than 200 people since last week. For everyone else, the inconveniences are immense.

Alamosa -- in the heart of the vast San Luis Valley, about 200 miles southwest of Denver -- draws its water from deep wells that tap the aquifer directly. Because the drinking water comes straight from the ground, it is not chemically treated.

John Pape, a state epidemiologist, said some residents may have continued to drink tap water after the warnings, adding,

"Just because the government tells you not to do something doesn't mean you're not going to do it."

I got a chance to talk about the outbreak this morning on Denver's #1 for Country, KYGO, with morning show hosts Kelly, Mudflap and JoJo (right, exactly as shown). They found me via barfblog.com.

I said the flushing of the water system was a good idea, but the source of the original contamination needed to be identified so it could be prevented in the future. I also mentioned that the 5,000-strong community of south Galway, Ireland, has been under a boil-water advisory for the past five months after high incidences of Clostridium perfringens were detected in the Clarinbridge public water supply. In follow-up tests, trace levels of cryptosporidium were detected. There have been no reported cases of cryptosporidiosis but the boil-water notice has remained in place ever since.

A thorough investigation into the intricacies of a munincipal water supply becoming contaminated can be found in the Walkerton Commission of Inquiry, held after E. coli O157:H7 got into the water supply of Walkerton, Ontario in 2000, sickening half the town of 5,000 and killing seven.

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Out-of-work songstress Julie Andrews tried the put-bugs-on-restaurant-food-and-get-a-free-meal move in the movie Victor/Victoria.

In Dubai, it will only get you a 25 per cent discount.

Seven people celebrating a birthday at a Dubai diner received a 25 per cent discount on their bill after they found four insects crawling around their meals.

One of the disgruntled customers said,

"We were surprised when the receipt said 'bug on food' as a reason for the discount. I think they were trying to be funny."

An official at the restaurant said,

"… the guys thought being friendly and having a joke about the environment would relax the diners because it was a birthday, but unfortunately it didn't."

People aren't as funny as they think they are. Especially me.

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In what must shurly be a shock for smugly complacent Canadians (we have the best health care in the world - not) Rick Holley, a professor in the department of food science at the University of Manitoba says that Canada’s food isn’t as healthy as everyone thinks.

In the most appropriate use of the word "eh" I've seen today, Holley asked his audience in a March 19 seminar,

"So food in Canada is the safest in the world, eh?"

Every year, one in three people suffered a food-related illness, and around 500 to 1,000 cases were fatal.

Holley said if an outbreak does occur, only one in five people seek medical attention and, out of these, samples are only collected from 13 per cent of these cases. Twice as many Canadians are infected with salmonella and camylobacter when compared to Americans, and eight times as many Canadians than American report E. coli infections.

"These aren’t exactly results you would expect to see if Canada’s food is the safest in the world."



Holley also noted the United States has set targets to drastically cut the spread of these illnesses, which Canada has not.

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Two items on the growing saga of Salmonella-associated Honduran cantaloupes (linked to 59 illnesses in the US and Canada).  Yesterday the Honduran president was pissed at the US import alert, today there is a quote from the Honduran trade minister Trade Minister Fredys Cerrato:

"The United States has the obligation to compensate Agropecuaria Montelibano for the losses it has suffered after its melon exports were paralyzed"

This was followed by comments from Agropecuaria Montelibano's  GM,  Edilberto Rodriguez who was quoted as saying:

"We have never had any complaints from our clients in the United States or Europe."

The second item comes from Jim Prevor over at the Perishable Pundit who posted a criticism of FDA's handling of the alert, but included a weird document that he received from Agropecuaria Montelibano.  The document appears to be lab results of a sampling of the hands of two employees  on March 10 (well after the outbreak would have started).

I'm just not really sure what these hand sampling results really say since it's not clear when they were sampled (like if it was right after handwashing?) and what the results are supposed to represent (are they saying this indicates that all of our employees have clean hands?).  Weird. Not sure sampling hands is a good strategy in trying to demonstrate a good food safety program.

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Julie Schmit reports in USA Today Tuesday that the abuse of non-ambulatory cattle at a California slaughterhouse has renewed calls for a ban on the slaughter of such animals, and newly released government records show such mishandling in past years was more than a rare occurrence.

The Animal Welfare Institute, an animal-protection group, said that more than 10% of the humane-slaughter violations issued by the U.S. Department of Agriculture for the 18 months ended March 2004 detailed improper treatment of animals that couldn't walk — mostly cattle.

The finding, drawn from USDA records the institute recently received in response to a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request, is included in a report to be released Tuesday on humane-slaughter violations. It comes as the USDA steps up checks on conditions at the nation's 900 slaughterhouses following abuses at Westland/Hallmark Meat, now at the heart of the biggest beef recall ever.

An undercover animal-rights worker at the plant used a video camera to document workers moving downed cows with forklifts, sticking them repeatedly with electric prods and spraying water down their noses to make them stand, allegedly to get them to slaughter (below).

The USDA called the actions "egregious violations of humane-handling regulations." American Meat Institute (AMI) spokeswoman Janet Riley called them an "anomaly."

But the USDA records obtained by the Animal Welfare Institute describe 501 humane-handling or slaughter violations that occurred at other slaughter plants. At one plant, a downed cow was pushed 15 feet with a forklift. Other companies were cited for dragging downed but conscious animals, letting downed cattle be trampled and stood on by others and, in one case, using "excessive force" with a rope and an electric prod to get a downed cow to stand, the enforcement records say.

As I wrote in Feb., the city leaders in Toulouse, France, figured out by 1184 that selling the meat of sick animals was forbidden unless the buyer was warned.

In the Middle Ages, violation of regulations ranged from fines to flogging to banishment._Hallmark/Westland Meat Packing Co. will be flogged in the media and the two-year recall should effectively banish the company.

But unlike 12th century France, USDA has access to the same video technology that a single undercover worker -- not the five USDA inspectors on-site -- was able to use to bring down a large corporation. Producers and processors who say their food is safe should be able to prove it. Producers and processors who say they treat animals humanely should be able to prove it.

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Ralph "Bubba" Miller, the proprietor of Bubba's Barbecue in Charlotte, North Carolina, preaches food safety.

"Food safety is going to become a major issue in the future. With the quality of help going down, I see something disastrous happening."

The Charlotte Observer reports that in Miller's world, ensuring food safety for customers is a matter of knowing the national standards for safe food handling and embracing them.

Miller points out that his restaurant, on Sunset Road near Interstate 85, consistently earns top scores from local health inspectors, adding,

"People will plan their trips around eating lunch and supper with us. This is a safe and clean place to eat."

Way to market food safety, Bubba. I'm with ya.

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Nathan Dalenberg was quite annoyed this week to find a letter from Kathryn Dalenberg (no relation) in the Gadsden Times in Alabama lamenting the inhumane handling of livestock at US slaughter facilities.

In his own letter today, Nathan points out that not all facilities are the same and cites the extensive steps his facility takes to ensure humane handling by all employees. "I myself am a big animal lover," he says, "and would not tolerate animal cruelty in my facility."

Nathan goes on to say that "just because I kill animals for a living and also eat them doesn't mean I don't love them."
 
Kathryn is an admitted vegetarian. Unfortunately for her, that doesn't make her food any safer. As Nathan wrote: "Hope she never ate any of the E. coli contaminated spinach."

Here's another line from Nathan that I also enjoyed: "When people speak or write about things they don't know or haven't seen firsthand, it makes them seem somewhat foolish."

Yep. Even animal lovers can get E. coli. Or Mad Cow... So whatever you choose to eat, please handle it properly. And don't eat poop.

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The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has issued an import alert regarding entry of cantaloupe from Agropecuaria Montelibano, a Honduran grower and packer, because, based on current information, fruit from this company appears to be associated with a Salmonella Litchfield outbreak in the United States and Canada. The import alert advises FDA field offices that all cantaloupes shipped to the United States by this company are to be detained.

In addition, the FDA has contacted importers about this action and is advising U.S. grocers, food service operators, and produce processors to remove from their stock any cantaloupes from this company. The FDA also advises consumers who have recently bought cantaloupes to check with the place of purchase to determine if the fruit came from this specific grower and packer. If so, consumers should throw away the cantaloupes.

To date, the FDA has received reports of 50 illnesses in 16 states and nine illnesses in Canada linked to the consumption of cantaloupes. No deaths have been reported; however, 14 people have been hospitalized. The states are Arizona, California, Colorado, Georgia, Illinois, Missouri, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon, Tennessee, Utah, Washington, and Wisconsin.

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Today's infosheet focuses on the food safety and pathogens risks associated with this weekend's holiday. Raw egg dishes and the handling of chicks and ducklings can increase the risk of contracting Salmonella infections.

Infosheet highlights:

Handwashing is necessary after handling animals.  Children can get sick by touching the birds and then putting their hands in their mouths.
Eggs can carry Salmonella and need to be cooked to reduce risk;  an egg with a runny yolk poses a greater risk than a completely cooked egg.
Salmonella can infect the ovaries of healthy hens and contaminate eggs before the shells are formed.

You can download the infosheet here.

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Helen Branswell of the Canadian Press reports that Canadian researchers have found antibiotic-resistant Staph in pork products in available at Canadian retail stores:

[The discovery] raises questions about how the contamination occurred, how frequently it happens and whether it has implications for human health.

Just under 10 per cent of sampled pork chops and ground pork recently purchased in four provinces tested positive for methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus or MRSA, lead researcher Dr. Scott Weese reported Wednesday in a presentation to the International Conference on Emerging Infectious Diseases in Atlanta.

To date Weese's team has tested 212 meat samples bought in four different provinces. Most were pork chops but the group also tested a few pork shoulder roasts and some ground pork.

None of the pork roasts carried the bacteria but an equal percentage of pork chops and ground pork did. The rates of positive MRSA tests ranged from zero per cent in one province to 33 per cent in another. Weese didn't want to name the provinces.

What is most interesting to me are Weese's comments about what food handlers actually do:

"If they do what they're supposed to do in terms of meat handling, then it should be perfectly safe. But do people do that is the question?"

What food handlers do (whether in the restaurant, packing house, slaughter house or home) is an area of uncertainty, and there isn't a whole lot of data around it.  We've been conducting some research of food handler practices using observation,  (T6-12, An Exploratory Study of Food-handling Practices at Church Dinners in Canada was presented at IAFP in 2007) and will be presenting some of our newest findings this summer at IAFP in Columbus, OH.

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I love our garden. It's a decent size, with lots of berries, beans, tomatoes and greens.

With spring just around the corner, I've started some seeds (right, interspersed amongst the French literature books that Amy is fond of) and started working the soil.

It's also time for a new crop of stories about how local food is safer, better and just all around morally superior. Like the Arizona Republic last week, which stated,

"An increasing number of consumers hit hard by escalating food costs are, planting backyard gardens to save grocery dollars while protecting the environment against pollutants and themselves against tainted food."

Architects Miro Chun and Bryan White of Phoenix were cited as saying the garden provides a plentiful supply of organic produce, fits in well with their commitment to eat as locally as possible and gives them peace of mind when food-safety scares erupt, with Chun quoted as saying, "We were glad we could pick spinach out of our garden when spinach was making people ill."

Maybe. Depends on what was in the soil. From the backyard to a farmer's field, the basics are the same, especially with fresh produce that is not going to be cooked: know the source of water, know what is being added to the soil, and wash your damn hands.

Researchers from the northeast U.S. reported in the Feb. 2008 Food Protection Trends that based on interviews with 94 home gardeners of fruits and vegetables that,

"Home gardeners, although they acknowledged that they could get sick from consuming produce, did not seem to be aware that contamination could come from a variety of sources such as soil, compost, fresh manure and/or the water supply. Results indicated that there was a 'disconnect,' or lack of understanding, of the sources and mechanisms of pathogenic bacterial contamination as related to its homegrown produce."

This is common. Think like a microorganism and most problems can be predicted and prevented. Be the bug.

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Daughter Courtlynn and her friend Emma discovered a product I'd never heard of or seen while grocery shopping today.

Grapple. "Looks like an apple. Tastes like a grape."

Apparently Grapples have been around for a few years. The bag of Braeburn apples I bought were $1.70/lb; the Grapples rang in about $4/lb.

Courtlynn said she liked the idea, but was underwhelmed after consuming one.

"Tastes like an apple."

Welcome to Wildcat country.

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It's not just the dogs that can get sick from contaminated pet treats like the Roll Over Pork Tenders Premium Dog Treat that was voluntarily recalled yesterday. With those manufactured bones, or strips or pigs' ears, the salmonella can be transferred to human hands or food preparation surfaces (if you're placing the treats on a counter or something).

Amy uses treats to train and reward (spoil) our dogs all the time, and when I told her a few months ago about the potential for salmonella or other shit to be on her hands afterwards, she seemed a little horrified.

Dude, wash your hands, especially after handling pet treats.

Don't eat poop.

As noted by the Canadian Food Inspection Agency, there has been one illness reported associated with the Roll Over Pork Tenders Premium Dog Treat.

People may risk bacterial infection by handling the treats directly or by contact with pets who have used the treats. Anyone who may have handled the treats should wash their hands with warm water and soap. Consumers should dispose of these treats in the trash.

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The Chicago Department of Public Health closed the Quiznos sandwich shop at 1809 N. Harlem, after inspectors found sewage backing up from two drains in the food preparation area.

CDPH was alerted to the situation by a motorist who called 311 last night to allege that Quiznos’ staff was disposing of the sewage by shoveling it out their back door and into an alley. No evidence of that activity was found by CDPH inspectors today.

Quiznos will remain closed until its management has corrected the violation and passed re-inspection.

Representatives of the Quiznos franchise will have to explain themselves at an administrative hearing on April 17 and pay a fine expected to total $750.

Chicagoans who believe that a sandwich shop or other food establishment is operating in an unsafe manner are encouraged to dial 311 and report it.

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Canadian journalists contact me regularly. This morning I was in Toronto's Globe and Mail, offering sage words about food safety and travel.

"Take a look at the bathroom. You want to see soap, paper towels and lots of running water. If you don't see those, you've got a problem, because those are the essentials for good hand washing."

Ok, not so sage, Boring

The journos -- and many others -- often contact me through my University of Guelph e-mail address.

Don't.

I mean yes, contact me, I love the attention, but don't go through Guelph.

In Feb. 2007, my previous institution, the University of Guelph, Canada, unilaterally decided not to continue a partnership with Kansas State, and eliminated access to my staff and funds that I had established in Guelph (about $750,000). An additional $135,000  the fine supporters of the Food Safety Network had provided to produce news has also magically disappeared.
 
And no one at Guelph will talk about it.

Now, the University of Guelph has frozen my e-mail account. They didn't tell me, it just stopped working. So if you sent an e-mail to my Guelph account -- and I was getting about 100 a day on that account -- please resend to dpowell@ksu.edu. You won't get an error message from the Guelph account, so you'll just think I'm being aloof or something and not bothering to respond. You may think that anyway. When I inquired about what had happened, since an e-mail account is fairly standard for adjunct professors and alumni, I was eventually told, and this is a direct quote from an admin-type,

"Your name (was removed) from sponsored accounts as we could not think of any reason why you needed a UofG account."

Oh well. The hacks and posers can busy themselves with e-mail account access management. I have news and research to produce. In the 68 F sun. With my family. In Kansas.

And there are some big changes coming to the daily news. If you have any suggestions, please e-mail me, at Kansas State University, dpowell@ksu.edu.

Don't eat poop.

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This barfblogging stuff can be fairly cool (thanks, Bill).

I wrote an opinion piece about the on-going inquiry into the 2005 E. coli O157 outbreak in Wales, and how the findings to date were somewhat similar to what happened after the 1996 E. coli outbreak in Scotland.

Didn’t send it to any media outlets, but posted it on barfblog.com.

That was Feb. 27, 2008. Yesterday, the opinion piece/blog entry apparently made an appearance at the inquiry in Wales.

The Western Mail reported that the Welsh E. coli public inquiry was yesterday shown a blog entry suggesting that chairman Professor Hugh Pennington was trapped in Groundhog Day and that worrying parallels have emerged between the world’s worst E.coli O157 outbreak and the cause of the South Wales Valleys outbreak.

The Scottish outbreak was caused by meat produced by award-winning butcher John Barr, who was found to be using the same knives to handle both raw and cooked meat.

The inquiry into the South Wales outbreak has heard how butcher William Tudor relied on one vacuum-packing machine for both raw and cooked meats. The single machine, which was in use for at least nine months before the outbreak and has been repeatedly referred to as a serious risk of cross-contamination.

In 1999 Prof Pennington said,

“The prospect of another Mr Barr type situation is still quite real because everybody I talk to in meat inspection and environmental health tells me there are people who are still not doing the right thing.”

But despite the recommendations, Tudor repeatedly passed routine environmental health inspections and was awarded his butcher’s licence just over a month before the outbreak, which killed five-year-old Deri Primary School pupil Mason Jones (right), even though Bridgend Council’s inspectors were aware that he was working with only one vac-packing machine.

Asked about the Groundhog Day blog, Dr Salmon said,

“The butcher, John Barr, as far as I understand, was extremely well connected in the location of which his enforcement was taking place. It will be important to take into account how much such considerations may or may not have applied in the case of William Tudor.”

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Health officials are reporting that shiga toxin -- and that often means E. coli O157:H7 but that has not been confirmed in this case -- has sickened at least six people in Texas. Three of the cases were children and one of those children died.

Most of the cases were reported in Bastrop County.

Doug McBride, spokesperson for the Texas Department of State Health Services, said,

"The bacteria that can produce this shiga toxin typically live in the intestines of animals, so the origin is usually going to be related to fecal matter from animal waste. … What's unusual about this is to have six cases within a few days and in a relatively small geographical area."

Health official are awaiting the results of lab tests to identify a specific bacteria.

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"I thought I had mono when I was a teenager but it turns out I was just really bored."

One of my favorite lines from Wayne's World, if only because it was so apt: I had mononucleosis when I was 17, and would sleep for hours on end, but maybe I was just really bored.

That probably doesn't apply to Roger Federer, 26.

Last month, after falling ill for the third time in six weeks, he had extensive tests in his native Switzerland and in Dubai, where he lives part time. According to Federer, the conclusion was that he had contracted mononucleosis.

Federer had already said he experienced food poisoning before the Australian Open, which he said disrupted his preparation for that tournament.

But Federer, who complained of feeling sluggish during the Open, said it appeared that the mononucleosis was the more serious issue.

Mike Myers can empathize.

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My old -- and we're all getting old -- hockey/Guelph buddies are golfing in Myrtle Beach this weekend, the annual getaway (right is my friend Steve, upon learning that the universe had been altered and I won putting last year).

I took a pass this year, as my youngest daughter and her friend are going to hang out in Manhattan (Kansas) for a week. Can you think of a better place to spend spring break?

So I thought about the food safety at the new course the boys are trying out this year as one of Queensland's most prestigious golf courses came under investigation after as many as 15 wedding guests fell ill from suspected food poisoning last weekend.

Queensland Health and the Ipswich City Council have launched an investigation into Brookwater Golf Club after guests fell ill while attending a wedding reception on Saturday.

Late last year, the club appointed leading Brisbane chef Russell Armstrong as its executive chef and launched a new a la carte dinner menu. Mr Armstrong also has his own signature restaurant – Salt on Armstrong – in Brisbane City.

On its website, Brookwater claims it supplies wedding guests with "innovative seasonal menu selections, featuring the freshest regional cuisine."

Hope they got the food safety basics together. In August, 2005, during the halfway point of the annual International Association for Food Protection golf tournament in Baltimore, a burley, 50-ish goateed he-man requested his hamburger be cooked, "Bloody … with cheese."

His sidekick piped up, "Me too."

Our golf foursome of food safety types were alternately alarmed and amazed, but ultimately resigned to conclude that much of what passes for food safety advice falls on deaf ears.

I asked the kid flipping burgers if he had a meat thermometer.

He replied, snickering, "Yeah, this is a pretty high-tech operation."

The young woman taking orders glanced about, and then confided that she didn't think there was a meat thermometer anywhere in the kitchen; this, at a fancy golf course catering to weddings and other swanky functions along with grunts on the golf course.

And this pic (left) is when Richie finally did something useful and scored a hole-in-one, netting a $300 free bar tab for the group in 2005.

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A shortage of veterinarians who treat farm animals is, according to USA Today, stressing the nation's food inspection system, prompting the federal government to offer bonuses and moving expenses to fill hundreds of vacancies.

There is a severe shortage of veterinarians who treat farm animals or work as government inspectors. The scarcity is most severe in the USA's Farm Belt, the lightly populated rural areas in the Midwest that produce much of the nation's meat.

Gregory Hammer, president of the American Veterinary Medical Association says,"

"We're in a crisis situation. We don't have enough rural veterinarians to be a first line of defense against animal diseases."

The number of vets needed will grow by 22,000 by 2016, making it one of the fastest-growing professions, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reports.

The nation's 28 veterinarian schools produce 2,500 graduates a year, a number that hasn't changed in three decades. Baby boomer retirements — especially among farm vets — hasten the shortage.

Ralph C. Richardson (right), dean of the College of Veterinary Medicine at Kansas State University and all-around cool guy wrote in today's USA Today today that

The Kansas Legislature, in concert with the veterinary college at Kansas State University, has established "The Veterinary Training Program for Rural Kansas" as a way to ensure an adequate number of veterinarians practicing in rural Kansas.

It allows a veterinary student to borrow $80,000 over a four-year period while in college. After graduation, $20,000 worth of educational debt is forgiven for every year up to four years that these new graduates practice in rural Kansas. This opportunity is granted to five KSU veterinary students every year.

The VTPRK allows new graduates to establish themselves in underserved areas without worrying about paying back large educational debts.

Kansas and Kansas State University are committed to keeping rural America thriving and to ensuring the safety of the urban food supply.

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From displaced Guatemalans to the Amazon rain forest to the angst of high school sweethearts, Canadian singer-songwriter Bruce Cockburn has been there for four decades to turn protest into song.

Now, Cockburn is traveling to Nova Scotia, Canada, for a Friday appearance to help kick off the four-day Real Food, Farming and Flowers weekend focused on food security and related issues, both locally and globally.

The headline says, Cockburn here to promote food safety, once again confusing food safety with local food.

Mark Austin, co-organizer of the Truro and Halifax events, said,

"I believe, as many do right now, we have to find a way to reconnect. There’s a lot of talk about buying locally, growing your own food and supporting farmers’ markets," with where our food comes from. Along with that, we need to produce food in a sustainable way. In other words, I’m not a great believer in industrial farming and processed foods."

That’s all great. And has nothing to do with microbial food safety.

If I Had a Rocket Launcher. If a Tree Falls in a Forest. Lovers in a Dangerous Time.

'80s music really sucked.

Judge for yourself …

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Joe Watson-Webb, a retired showman, has come up with a novel way to deal with potential thieves: firing chickenshit at them from a 30-foot catapult (Right, from Daily Mail)

Local cops have said that they will prosecute Watson-Webb if he uses the catapult to defend his property against arsonists and robbers, but he says,

"I'm not out to kill anyone or even hurt them. I just want to keep yobs off my land. … This is a serious issue. People all over Britain are sick and tired of feeling like prisoners in their own homes and seeing yobs get away with it."

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The Salt Lake Tribune reports that babies in diapers will most likely not be banned from public pools this summer to prevent the spread of cryptosporidium.

But, their parents may be required to buy special swim diapers that do a better job of containing diarrhea than widely available but ineffectual diapers like Huggies' Little Swimmers.

And if there is another outbreak, tots in diapers will likely be banned.

Utah had one of 2007's largest crypto outbreaks in the nation, with 1,949 crypto cases reported. To try to stem the illness, spread through fecal-oral contact, pools in most of the state barred children under 5 from late August to late September. Children in diapers were banned through mid-November.

State epidemiologist Robert Rolfs was quoted as saying,

"Children should be able to go swimming. Most of the children aren't causing any trouble."

The suggested state rule would require waterproof pants and/or swim diapers that fit around the legs and waist for children 3 or younger, those who aren't potty-trained, and anyone without control of bodily functions.

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Frank Zappa (right) would be proud.

And parents who warn their kids not to eat dirty snow (especially the yellow variety) are left wondering whether to stop them from tasting the new-fallen stuff, too, because of Pseudomonas syringae, bacteria that can cause diseases in bean and tomato plants.

A paper published last week in the journal, Science, found that snow -- even in relatively pristine spots like Montana and the Yukon -- contains large amounts of bacteria.

Dr. Penelope Dennehy, a member of the American Academy of Pediatrics' committee on infectious diseases, said,

"It's a very ubiquitous bacteria that's everywhere. Basically, none of the food we eat is sterile. We eat bacteria all the time.''

Dr. Joel Forman, a member of the pediatric academy's committee on environmental health, said,

"We eat stuff that's covered with bacteria all the time, and for the most part it's killed in the stomach. Your stomach is a fantastic barrier against invasive bacteria because it's a very acidic environment. … I can say that I'm not aware of any clinical reports of children becoming ill from eating snow. And I looked,'' Forman says.

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When I became editor-in-chief of The Ontarian, the University of Guelph student newspaper way back in 1987, one of the first stories I did was to rate the bathrooms at various local bars.

The paper lost thousands of dollars in advertising from disgruntled bar owners.

We found new advertisers, and the idea is still going strong.

powderroom.ca has launched a national, interactive map that allows Canadians to chart their favourite restrooms across the country, evaluating each one on a five-star system that reflects overall accessibility, cleanliness, lineups, location and decor.

Canada.com reports that although the online map is part of a campaign to promote awareness of overactive bladder, a condition affecting 12 to 18 per cent of Canadians, it's likely to benefit anyone planning a road trip - especially those accompanied by kids.

A similar effort already has proven successful in Australia where, since 2001, the government-funded National Toilet Map has given folks the loo lowdown on roughly 14,000 private and public bathrooms in the area.

Every bathroom should have running water, soap and toilet paper. If it doesn't, let someone in charge know.

Dude, wash your hands.

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The North County Times reports that Tony Martin and his wife, Mary McGonigle-Martin, of Murrieta, California, have filed a civil lawsuit in Fresno County after their then seven-year-old son was sickened with E. coli O157:H7 and hospitalized for two months in 2006.

According to the lawsuit filed Feb. 6, Chris developed hemolytic uremic syndrome, a common cause of kidney failure, due to E. coli infection.

Hospitalized from Sept. 7 to Nov. 2, 2006, Chris "suffered life-threatening injuries that have left him permanently injured," the suit states. The Martins have incurred more than $450,000 in medical bills.

The suit says the source of the E. coli was raw milk produced at Organic Pastures Dairy in Fresno and sold by a Sprouts store in Temecula.

Sprouts store owner Linda Watson was quoted as saying,

"There is no information I know of that any E. coli in any raw milk was sold at our store, or anywhere else for that matter."

A table of raw-milk related outbreaks is available at http://www.foodsafety.ksu.edu/articles/384/RawMilkOutbreakTable.pdf

Mark McAfee, owner of Organic Pastures Dairy in Fresno, said there is no proof that his company is at fault, as also alleged in the lawsuit, adding,

"When a person sues for a food-related illness, they must be able to show a connection between a product and the person. There isn't a connection here. …  Because there isn't any connection, we feel confident we have a very strong defense."

Seattle attorney Bill Marler who is representing the Martins in their lawsuit, said,

"Under California law, the whole distribution chain is strictly liable. We don't have to prove the store did anything wrong or was negligent, just that it was in the product. Selling unpasteurized milk is a risk stores shouldn't be willing to take. … The message here is, whether it is raw or pasteurized milk, you have to be willing to take the responsibility of making sure your product is safe for your consumers."

Tony Martin was further quoted as saying,

"We live in a society where people are not that concerned with getting a pathogen and they need to be," and that some proponents of raw milk are "zealots" in the ways they push the product.

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