Some employees at a U.K. hospital are saying the only buffet in a hospital should be named Jimmy (with an extra ‘t’ right, exactly as shown).

A new self-service buffet is making a pig’s breakfast of infection control at Coventry’s University Hospital, angry staff claim.

The help-yourself spread was unveiled at the hospital’s main restaurant last week and is open to workers, patients and visitors.

Shocked hospital workers say they were only warned about the change days earlier when a sign went up.

They claim the self-service system is a hygiene disaster waiting to happen.

Allowing sick patients to handle the food could quickly spread infections, such as the highly contagious norovirus sickness bug, staff say.

One angry worker told the Coventry Telegraph,

 “I think it is disgusting. Patients have been coming in with catheters and drip tubes in and rummaging through the piles of toast. Who knows what infections they are bringing down from the wards.”

Craig Smith, spokesman for contractor ISS, said the self-service breakfast buffet was launched to offer its customers more choice after consultation with staff and visitors.

“It is not unusual to have a self-service restaurant in a hospital – it is in place in hospitals up and down the country.”

From Katie Filion on assignment in New Zealand:

I have virtually no athletic capabilities, but during my elementary school days I was quite the track star. OK, maybe not a star, but I was good enough to make the track and field team.  I remember winning a few races, but usually a day at the track resulted in an embarrassing sunburn. Students at Arden Elementary school in British Columbia weren’t so lucky, with more than one hundred students sent home from the track meet with Norwalk-like virus, reports Comox Valley Echo.

Dr. Jordan Tinney, superintendent of the school said the health department was contacted and the symptoms are consistent with Norwalk. The virus affected no other schools at the track meet.

Dr. Charmine Enns, Comox Valley medical health officer, said,

 "Norwalk or Norovirus is ubiquitous. It's in all of our communities. It's easily transmitted because people have very little warning that they're going to get sick."

Enns stressed that gastro-intestinal illnesses of any type could be thwarted with good hygiene, especially hand washing.

While lab diagnosis had not been sought out, Enns said she was confident the students had been struck with Norwalk.

She explained,

"Typically if it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck then it probably is a duck. And it's quacking and walking like Norovirus."

Arden Elementary has been thoroughly sanitized and nearly all students have returned to classes.



 

One of Amy’s graduate students sent me the following picture this morning.

‘Nuff said.

This is what I sent out to all the previous subscribers of my various listservs over the years. I'm grateful for all the support I received and still pissed that the University of Guelph just scooped up the leftover money for their paper clip fund. Seriously, I left $140,000 that all you great supporters provided for news, and Guelph just sucked it up. Why anyone would ever give them another dime is beyond me. But I'm just a widget; I get that.

The listserv you have been subscribed to no longer exists. All of the activities of the International Food Safety Network at Kansas State University have been consolidated under bites.ksu.edu.

The 9,000 or so direct subscribers to fsnet-l have been transferred to bites-l. We’re still working on a daily digest version, so will keep the istserv going for now.

It’s a listserv, and you can subscribe with instructions below.

The fastest way to get breaking food safety news is to subscribe to barfblog.com. We’re also working on moving all the barfblog history to bites.ksu.edu.

The University of Guelph copyrighted the name, Food Safety Network in Canada, without telling anybody. And then they shut it down (no one ever talked with me, they just wanted the cash; what total assholes). I decided the name was old. A Network was cool before Al Gore invented the Internet in 1995, but now?

So everything is at bites.ksu.edu.

And everything is archived at http://archives.foodsafety.ksu.edu/fsnet-archives.htm and bites.ksu.edu

You can subscribe to bites-l

To subscribe to the listserv version of bites, (subscription is free), send mail to:

listserv@listserv.ksu.edu
leave subject line blank
in the body of the message type:
subscribe bites-L firstname lastname
i.e. subscribe bites-L Doug Powell

If you only want specific news, you can subscribe to RSS feeds to get just the news you want:

RSS (Rich Site Summary, or Really Simple Syndication) is a format for delivering regularly changing web content. Many news-related sites, weblogs and other online publishers syndicate their content as an RSS Feed to whoever wants it.
http://www.whatisrss.com/

If you only want stories about animal welfare, or norovirus, go to bites.ksu.edu and click on that section. Then click on the RSS symbol, and add to your reader.

Dr. Douglas Powell
associate professor, food safety
dept. diagnostic medicine/pathobiology
Kansas State University
Manhattan, KS
66506
cell: 785-317-0560
fax: 785-532-4039
dpowell@ksu.edu
bites.ksu.edu
barfblog.com

 

The two-month old didn’t just catch salmonella from exotic family pets.

It wasn’t like she chose to cuddle with them.

I have a six-month-old and don’t let her get intimate with reptiles.

The Widnes tot was taken to hospital after environmental health officers found the family’s corn snake and bearded dragon lizard were both carrying the deadly bacteria (Salmonella).

The story also says that pet owners are also being urged to keep the animals away from kitchen sinks and bath tubs, and to even avoid smoking and handling them.

So try not to smoke your lizard. Or let your baby touch it.

At some point while endlessly bitching at Chapman to finish his damn thesis and produce some papers, I realized, I wasn’t so good at closing the deal myself.

I could say I like blogging, being quoted in media, the immediacy of it all, but I also realized I needed the credibility of peer-reviewed publications.

So after grappling with divorce, the angst of children lost, the joy of remarriage and once again the commitment to an ideal, another kid, I decided that while I was bitching at Chapman, I better take care of my own shop.

So, with some pride, I announce the first of about a dozen peer-reviewed papers that are going to appear this year.

Designing effective messages for microbial food safety hazards, which will appear in an upcoming issue of Food Control, by Douglas Powell, Casey Jacob and Lisa Mathiasen, was started by Lisa back in 2003. I told her it was going to be published and she said, “about time.”

Casey did some excellent improvements, and the thing is coming out.

Here’s the abstract; I’ll post the full paper info when it’s published.

Despite numerous food safety information campaigns and educational efforts, microbial foodborne illness remains a significant source of human disease. New food safety messages transmitted using new media are required to enhance food safety from farm-to-fork. A review of the literature reveals that targeting a segment of the population and understanding knowledge, attitudes, and perceptions of the individuals comprising that segment can lead to successful communication of food safety messages. Messages found to be effective are relevant to the target audience, contain reliable information, are rapidly distributed at appropriate times, and are repeated. Those containing information that is easily received and understood have also been found effective. The use of media commonly accessed by today’s consumers is also valuable. Evaluation of the effect of all aspects of food safety messages and media, as measured through observation of recipients’ actions, is required to validate the effectiveness of food safety communications.

And I’m in love with my partner, cause she’s the meanest editor I’ve ever had.

And vice-versa.

I have a garden.

This is the spinach Amy harvested yesterday. Good crop, although I need to get out there and weed (or convince some students that it’s part of a local, natural experiment and they should volunteer; happens all the time).

I don’t think it’s sustainable to drive 11,000 miles to brag about it. I just like my garden.  And I have an excellent crop of blackberries and raspberries coming in.

I still won’t drive 11,000 miles to brag about it.

I was on this panel discussion at Kansas State about a month ago, where we were all told to talk for 6-8 minutes, and of course, the organic person talked scientific bullshit for 40 minutes.

And she drove to the meeting, while I rode my bike.

At what point did organic/natural/local types capture the language of sustainability? Even if they drive 11,000 miles to talk about it? I know lots of farmers who grow lots of decent food (far more than I could) and they are the stewards of sustainability, yet, the critics have captured the language.

Conventional farmers, get your voice out there.

Having a baby around the house has introduced me to a bunch of new life necessities like soothers, gripe water and wipes. I'm not a huge diaper-changing fan, but when it’s my turn I try to do everything in a quick, fluid-like step but it doesn't always work out. The wipes help a lot.

I have a close friend back in Guelph who also uses wipes. And he doesn't have a baby.

A couple of years ago he led a discussion at a party about the political-correctness of adults using baby wipes for the not-so-clean trips to the restroom. As the

r puts it, wipes can provide consumers a "shower-fresh" feeling for their bottoms. Since the discussion, this friend reports that he has been buying wipes, stashing them in his desk and covertly grabbing one daily as he goes to have a dump.

According to the

it turns out that flushing the wipes, even if they are the flushable ones is not a good idea for the sewer systems (at least in Raleigh).

Tissues and wipes of all stripes get balled up with hair and grease in the city's pipes, creating clogs that send sewage cascading from manholes. The problem has gotten worse in recent years with the introduction of wipes designed to disappear down toilets, Wastewater Treatment Superintendent T.J. Lynch said.

"What we see a lot of times in the collection system are overflows caused by those types of materials that don't degrade like they're supposed to or they claim to," he said.

Lynch knows this from experience and because he asked the lab at the Neuse River Wastewater Treatment Plant to test several kinds of wipes to see how quickly they break down in water.

The test, performed in March, was simple: Put a wipe or a tissue in a beaker of water with a magnet on the bottom that rotates, creating a vortex not unlike a flushing toilet. The lab put nearly a dozen products through this process, letting them spin for an hour.

Toilet paper begins to break down into a milky mush almost immediately, lab supervisor Darrell Crews said. Other items survived more or less intact. Some, such as Kleenex and other facial tissues, are well-known to people in the sewage business.

"A lot of people flush Kleenex thinking that it's just like toilet paper," Crews said. "But I can tell you, Kleenex doesn't break down. You can stir it, beat on it, it's just not going to break down."

It turns out that flushable wipes don't break down either, Crews said.

I’m not sure that public data exists around the extent of use of the wipes, but I doubt my Guelph friend is the only one sneaking around with them. Having them disposed in waste baskets beside the toilet, or elsewhere in the restroom after a clean-up probably isn’t a great public health strategy. Flushable wipes, if they breakdown and don’t lead to sewage spewing from manholes, are a good idea.

A brewery has been fined £5,100 after guests at a wedding reception were struck down with a serious outbreak of food poising.

Young & Co's Brewery plc, who operate the Bull's Head in Chislehurst, admitted to three food hygiene offences that caused 29 guests at a wedding to be ill.

The officers found that the wedding reception menu contained homemade chicken liver pate and a soft-centred chocolate pudding made from un-pasteurised eggs.

The paté had been cooked the previous day using a new cooker and was probably undercooked as cooking times and temperatures had not been reassessed for the new cooker.

A faulty fridge was also found to be in use in the kitchen.

Canada's governor general Michaelle Jean (below, right), the representative of Britain's Queen Elizabeth II – ‘hellooooo little people ‘ -- ate a slaughtered seal's raw heart today in a show of support to the country's seal hunters.

Hundreds of Inuit at a community festival gathered Monday as Jean knelt above a pair of seal carcasses and used a traditional ulu blade to slice the meat off the skin. After cutting through the flesh, Jean turned to the woman beside her and asked: "Could I try the heart?"

'It's like sushi'

A spokeswoman for EU Environment Commissioner Stavros Dimas said, "No comment; it's too bizarre to acknowledge.”
 

This is my fridge. This is my fridge on Salmonella and Campylobacter. This is how cross-contamination occurs. This is why it is important to lower pathogen loads before foods enter the home or a food service kitchen. Because foods can be a mess.

I bought a whole, fresh chicken a couple of days ago, but got some cheap lamb in the discount bin (the best time to go to Dillion’s grocery in Manhattan, Kansas, is between 10 and 11 a.m., lotsa foods discounted) so it sat in the back of my fridge for two days.

After two days in the back of my fridge I noticed fresh chicken blood had dripped into both the produce and fresh fruit crispers. Who designs fridges, engineers? Those drawers should be on top.

That red spot in the picture, that’s Salmonella- and Campylobacter-laden blood; it was also throughout the crispers. Those apples are in the pie we’re having tonight – whole wheat pie crust, love it. The rest has been cooked or tossed, and a full cleansing took place.

But food safety’s so simple; sure, without the chicken blood everywhere.

And this is my pie.

That’s me and Sorenne in the pool in Phoenix last week. And I’m pretty sure one of us, at some point, peed in the pool.And I'm pretty sure all the drunk fashionistas at the afternoon pool parties emptied themselves in the pool.

A new study by the Water Quality and Health Council found that nearly one in five adults admits to urinating in a swimming pool instead of using the toilet.

Eight in 10 adults are convinced their fellow swimmers are guilty of such a crime, the study said.

Nevertheless, health officials insist that swimming in and even swallowing urine-contaminated water isn't harmful to someone's health.

Don Herrington from the Arizona Health Department, "Urine in itself has been purified through a whole variety of bodily processes so that it's removed a lot of the contaminants in it.”

Swimmers should be more concerned about swallowing parasites than swallowing urine, officials said, especially cryptosporidium.

Phoenix Parks and Recreation spokeswoman Amy Blakeney urged sick swimmers to stay out of the pool.
 

Two weeks ago, the U.S. Grocery Manufacturers Association came out with a whopper that no one seems to have noticed.

In a press release intended to highlight private sector initiatives to bolster food safety – which I’m all for, they make the profit, they should shoulder the burden when they make their customers barf – GMA said,

“Ultimately, wider use of third party certification/audits will reduce the risk of food-borne illnesses.”

There is absolutely no evidence to support that statement.

In case there is some confusion, here is the statement in full:

Third party audits are an important part of America’s food safety net.  To ensure rigor and integrity in third party certification, policymakers and industry leaders should encourage the engagement of auditors employed by certification bodies accredited to international standards by recognized organizations such as the American National Standards Institute (ANSI). … By increasing the number of well-qualified auditors and developing universal food safety auditing criteria, industry leaders and policymakers will ensure that auditors are competent to review a particular facility, discourage duplicative audits, reduce auditing costs, and encourage wider use of third party certification/audits throughout the food industry. Ultimately, wider use of third party certification/audits will reduce the risk of food-borne illnesses.

I’ve been hearing such statements for 15 years, and while it sounds good, I’ve seen little evidence to back such proclamations. As I’ve written before,

The third-party food safety audit scheme that processors and retailers insisted upon is no better than a financial Ponzi scheme. The vast number of facilities and suppliers means audits are required, but people have been replaced by paper. Audits, inspections, training and systems are no substitute for developing a strong food safety culture, farm-to-fork, and marketing food safety directly to consumers.

If someone barfs, they’re going to go after the biggest name they can find, whether it’s a retailer or a processor. So protect that brand. Have your own people and some institutional expertise to assess food safety risks. And avoid unsubstantiated statements.
 

About 25 years ago, my ex was working as a veterinary intern and gave me a call. She said, you have to come see this.

A calf had been born with two heads and was at the vet school in Guelph and still alive. The heads were mirror images of each other. It was sorta freaky, but then again, so is most biology.

So I wasn’t that surprised when USA Today reported yesterday that a seven-legged calf (right) had been delivered on Thursday in Colorado.

The staff at the Steamboat Veterinary Hospital said the Black Angus calf, which was delivered by Caesarean section, had two spines but one head. One leg also had two hooves.

The calf lived for only about 10 minutes.

Veterinarian Lee Meyring says the birth resulted from an incomplete splitting of the embryo into twins.
 

The Canadian Food Inspection Agency has won the Canadian Association of Journalists' Code of Silence Award for 2008 for its dizzying efforts to stop the public from learning details of fatal failures in food safety.

"The judges were sick with awe at the intestinal fortitude the Canadian Food Inspection Agency gatekeepers have shown," said CAJ President Mary Agnes Welch. "It was clear that the CFIA's guard dogs found something they can really sink their teeth into."

The Canadian Food Inspection Agency has delayed and extended, ad nauseam, requests related to the Listeria outbreak that killed 22 Canadians and triggered hundreds - perhaps thousands - of illnesses.

Requests filed for inspections records on the Toronto-area Maple Leaf plant at the centre of the outbreak took nine months to produce and communication records with the company are still embroiled in delays.

For one of the biggest public health issues to face Canada in recent years, details behind the cause of the outbreak, the apparent delay in warning Canadians and the agency's handling of the aftermath remain filled with unanswered questions.

The ignominious Code of Silence Award, handed out Saturday night at the CAJ's investigative journalism awards banquet, dishonours the country's most secretive government, department or agency.

I’ve been writing and talking for a couple of years about the importance of food safety culture from farm-to-fork, and that companies should become more aggressive about marketing their food safety efforts.

Turns out, the two ideas can feed each other, in a synergistic manner (Chapman made the pic).

Those companies that promote food safety culture can market their activities, and then consumers have a way to choose at the check-out aisle, providing feedback to those companies that make food safety a public priority.

A leading London restaurant has been forced to close after a female diner died of a mystery illness following a 50th birthday celebration there.

Quaglino's was shut by management this week after the death of the Denise Martin who dined at the eatery with five friends on Saturday night.

The Health Protection Agency says it is investigating food poisoning as a possible cause of death.

Mother-of-two Ms Martin was found dead in her bed by partner Roy Johal,52, on Tuesday - three days after the meal which saw her eat oysters for the first time.

Last night the restaurant refused to comment, other than to confirm it had reopened following a two-day closure.
 

The Canadian Plastic Industry Association (likely feeling reduced sales due to the popularity of reusable cloth bags) says that reusable bags are a public health risk. In a press release yesterday the plastic dudes touted the results of a bag swabbing study conducted earlier this year. Cited as the first study of its kind in North America, the plastics industry swabbed a whopping 25 bags, with 4 controls looking for anything they could find.

Swab-testing of a scientifically-meaningful sample of both single-use and reusable grocery bags found unacceptably high levels of bacterial, yeast, mold and coliform counts in the reusable bags. The swab testing was conducted March 7-April 10th by two independent laboratories. The study found that 64% of the reusable bags were contaminated with some level of bacteria and close to 30% had elevated bacterial counts higher than the 500 CFU/mL considered safe for drinking water.

Um, yeah except that coliform isn't an indicator of really anything in a shopping bag. It's a great indicator of water quality, but not great for food (coliforms are all over the place, including on produce). And mean relatively nothing.

The lack of real data is probably why it was reported in CFU/ml (a water measurement -- pretty hard to tell what a ml of a shopping bag represents). The most telling data was that no generic E. coli or Salmonella was found.

Not the best methodology design. Or reporting of results.

Not to be phased by the lack of data, Dr. Richard Summerbell, Director of Research at Toronto-based Sporometrics and former Chief of Medical Mycology for the Ontario Ministry of Health (1991-2000), who evaluated the study results said, "The main risk is food poisoning. But other significant risks include skin infections such as bacterial boils, allergic reactions, triggering of asthma attacks, and ear infections."

Wow. Maybe if you're talking about yeast and molds? But when it comes to pathogenic microorganisms the data just isn't there.

We use reusable bags all the time for our shopping and take a few precautions to maybe reduce any potential risks: we keep them dry; wash them every couple of weeks and use one-use bags for raw meat.

Almost 100,000 pounds of ground beef are being recalled today after an epidemiological investigation linked E. coli O157:H7 infections in three states to the products.

The meat—sold frozen as ground beef, chopped steak, and pre-formed patties—was produced by Valley Meats LLC of Coal Valley, Illinois, on March 10, 2009 and distributed to various consignees nationwide.

A USDA FSIS press release states,

“The problem was discovered through an epidemiological investigation of illnesses. On May 13, 2009, FSIS was informed by the Ohio Department of Health of a cluster of E. coli O157:H7 infections. Illnesses have been reported in Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Illinois.”

The pathogen, found in the poop of warm-blooded animals, can be killed with sufficient heat. 

However, as the president and chief executive of the American Frozen Food Institute, Kraig R. Naasz, stated today in a letter to the editor of the New York Times,

“While food safety is a shared responsibility among food producers, government agencies and consumers, we recognize that the primary responsibility rests with food producers. Providing consumers with safe and nutritious products is a responsibility frozen food producers stake their names and reputations on.”

The letter was written in response to the Times’ May 15 article on frozen entrees, which Naasz felt did not “fully depict the frozen food industry’s commitment to product safety.”

With the name and reputation of Valley Meats on the line, will they be able to demonstrate a similar commitment to the safety of food? As the data on those sickened by Valley Meats' products are released, it's likely we'll find out.
 

Katie Filion and Brandon Speight, students in my food safety reporting class, write,

There is nothing appetizing about dead rodents, crusty slicers or sewage in a restaurant kitchen, but these are problems the Riley County Department of Health and Environment, in Manhattan, Kansas, has encountered during recent restaurant inspections. So how does a consumer, unable to witness what goes on behind the kitchen door, make an informed dining decision?

Perhaps unknown to some, restaurant inspection information is publicly available online in Kansas. After reviewing this data a few eateries appear to be dirtier than others, but what constitutes a bad inspection? 

Kathy Brower, an inspector for Riley County, answered some questions about the inspection process, and didn’t skip the dirty details.

Brower explained that foodservice establishments in Kansas are required to be inspected at least once a year. If a consumer contacts the health department with a complaint the establishment must be inspected within 24 hours. On the department website, consumers can see when an establishment has been inspected, and whether it was a routine inspection, customer complaint, or follow-up to address previous issues.

Brower additionally explained that during the inspection process the health inspector is looking for several things, some of which are categorized as non-critical violations and others as critical violations, and are based on likelihood to cause illness.

 “Examples of non-critical violations are things like mildew issues, thawing messes or dust,” said Brower. “Critical violations are more based on health risk, like hot or cold holding temperatures, ensuring clean food contact surfaces, pest control, and proper food handling.“

Critical violations -- the problems that have a higher risk of making someone sick-- are enforced on a three-strike rule.

“[An establishment] is given a violation, and has two chances to correct this violation before they are assigned a fine. Fines range in severity, and are based on the type of violation. They can be between $100-500 per violation,” explained Brower.

What’s the grossest thing Brower’s ever seen during an inspection?

 “Raw sewage backed-up in a kitchen, a wall-mounted veggie slicer that hadn’t been cleaned in over a year, and mice. There are so many different things it’s hard to say…There’ve been several instances of mold and mildew in bad places.”

So which restaurants in Manhattan are the dirtiest? Brower wouldn’t say, but after reviewing the inspection results online, a few appear to have more problems than others.  To be considered a dirty diner an establishment had to have several violations, with a high number of critical violations, repeat violations or customer complaints being a red flag.

With inspection results for over 250 foodservice establishments in Riley County listed on the department website, it is difficult to pinpoint only three that fared the worst. The website includes results for all foodservice operations, including schools and hotels, not considered in the search for Manhattan’s dirtiest diner.

In the end, the three restaurants in Manhattan that appear dirtiest are: Grizzly’s Grill, Bobby T’s and Hunam Express.

When asked if inspection is a good thing, Anthony Parker, owner of Grizzly’s Grill, who landed on the list because of last year’s inspection with a whopping 11 critical violations and repeat pest problems, said, “Yes and no. Every time there’s a new health inspector things change. I could be doing something one way for 5 years, and a new inspector decides they don’t like that. Then I get written up.”

Parker explained he feels the inspection process may not be fully understood by consumers.

“The biggest thing is when people read about violations and they aren’t educated about what [a violation] means they can sound worse than what they are. Based on the inspection criteria you could go into any consumer’s household and shut them down.”

When asked about the critical violations found during last year’s inspection, Parker added, “[Critical violations] are corrected on site. A lot of the repeat [violations] come from turn over of staff… I could tell them until I’m blue in the face, but until inspection they don’t realize it’s the law they need to follow, and I say things for a reason.”

Should inspection results be available to the public? Parker feels there are some holes in the disclosure system,

“It depends on how bad you did. The last [inspection], I wish it would disappear… but I would prefer more of an explanation for consumers. For example, temperature violations are usually a degree or two off, but that doesn’t appear on the website.”

Overall Parker says the poor inspection ranking on the website has negatively affected business.

Bobby T’s landed on the dirty dining list for last year’s July inspection with 8 critical violations, and several inspections throughout the year. Though Greg Bollenbach, co-owner of Bobby T’s, didn’t wish to comment on any of the previous inspections, he did say the inspection process is both necessary and beneficial.

“You’ve got to do it. What [inspection] does is heightens your awareness. If they come in and find a problem with the hold temperatures of one food item it alerts you, and makes you check all your stuff. Overall it improves product safety and quality. And in the end, it’s a learning process for everyone,” explained Bollenbach.

The third restaurant on this dirty dining list, Hunam Express, was inspected seven times last year, four of which in response to customer complaints. Numerous critical violations were observed during nearly all of these inspections, including issues with employee handwashing. No one at the establishment was available for contact.

Though health inspector Brower didn’t give an opinion on the dirtiest diner in Manhattan, she did indicate that corporate establishments usually fair better than privately owned operations. Is this always the case? No, but this time around a corporately owned foodservice establishment didn’t land amoung the dirtiest diners in Manhattan. Why?

Kirk Keling, general manager of Applebee’s in Manhattan, who has had it’s fair share of violations in the past, explained that the health department isn’t the only one to inspect Applebee’s.
“We’re inspected quarterly by operations, semi-annually by Applebee’s, and then at least once a year by the health department,” explained Keling.

But would more inspections result in fewer violations? Unlikely. Is the information on the health department website enough for consumers to make a decision based on? Maybe, but as Brower explained, it is important to recognize that inspection is only a snapshot in time, and an establishment with one violation may not necessarily be safer than an establishment with five.

Regardless of where consumers chose to eat, having the information available online provides choice – those who wish to learn more about their local diner can check the website, and those who could care less, won’t.

Katie Filion and Brandon Speight were students in a food safety reporting class this past semester at Kansas State University

Restaurant inspection reports are available at:
http://kensas.kdhe.state.ks.us/pls/certop/FSresults4?SelStr=(psnam=;pcnty=;pcity=Manhattan;)
 

Earlier this week, Penelope Cruz  missed an event at the Cannes Film Festival after suffering food poisoning.

Cruz had been due to appear, but Weinstein said she was ill with "some sort of food poisoning" and was seeing a doctor.

She was slated to present a trailer and teaser for the film with Harvey Weinstein, but Cruz was too sick to make an appearance.

Weinstein Co. boss  – who looks the opposite of Penelope Cruz – told reporters Monday at an event to promote her forthcoming musical Nine.

According to Us magazine:

A source -- who said she got feverish after eating fish Sunday night -- told Us that the actress didn't want to pull out of the Hollywood Dominos event.

"She really wants to be there," the source said earlier Monday. "The priority is to get better for tomorrow night. No one wants to lose their Cannes moment."

Sounds like Penelope was having a different type of can moment.

Megan Hardigree (right) writes,

Research shows that people learn handwashing and other hand hygiene acts at a young age, primarily during toilet training. To support parenting efforts, the Disney Channel’s television show, “Can You Teach my Alligator Manners,” reinforced hand hygiene manners on an episode today. Mikey’s pet alligator, Al, had the Alligator Sniffles. Mikey told Al he should cover his mouth and nose during sneezing and coughing with a tissue and to wash his hands (or paws) with soap and water thoroughly afterward to prevent the spread of germs.

We can all learn from Mikey and Al. Washing hands is not only important, but is necessary to do before and after eating or handling food, before and after using the bathroom, and, especially, when we are sick or have sick-like symptoms (e.g., sneezing, coughing, blowing your nose).

Thank you, Disney, for enforcing hand hygiene in children, and their parents, including my sister-in-law, Jessica, who watches the show everyday with my niece Kolbi Lee (below)

Your Health columnist Kim Painter wants to know in USA Today tomorrow if the spike in handwashing compliance after SARS hit Toronto in 2003 will be replicated with swine flu in 2009 – and will it last?

In summer 2003, researchers descended on airport bathrooms in the USA and Canada and discovered a dirty truth: More than 20% of restroom visitors left without washing their hands.

But there was one big exception: In Toronto, which had just endured a deadly outbreak of severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS), fewer than 5% of people left dirty-handed. During that outbreak, public health officials had repeatedly urged people to protect themselves by washing their hands.

Doug Powell, a food scientist at Kansas State University, said if changing handwashing behavior was simple, "we wouldn't have so many people getting sick each year."

The story summarizes handwashing compliance advice for businesses, schools and hospitals as:

•The voice of authority. Just as federal health officials enlisted Obama to endorse handwashing, Dan Dunlop, president of Jennings, a North Carolina marketing company that has designed handwashing promotions for hospitals, has enlisted hospital CEOs and medical chiefs to inspire handwashing in their troops. School principals, PTA presidents and restaurant managers could do likewise, he says.

•The audience. "With younger people, what seems to work is being blunt and gross," Powell says. Powell, who writes at barfblog.foodsafety.ksu.edu, tells his students that when they eat without washing their hands first, they may be eating feces. (But he uses another word.)

•Social pressure. In one unpublished study, Craig found that petting-zoo visitors who left a barn through a crowded exit washed their hands more often than those who left by a less-crowded door.

•Keeping supplies up. Powell says he hears often about bathrooms in schools, college dormitories and other germ hotspots that lack soap (or paper towel – dp).

L&M Companies, Inc. of Raleigh, NC is recalling one lot of whole cantaloupes because it has the potential to be contaminated with Salmonella. No illnesses have been reported to date, and we are working with the FDA to inform consumers of this recall.

The whole cantaloupes were sold between May 10-15, 2009 in Walmart Supercenter Stores in North Carolina and South Carolina, and in the Walmart Supercenter Store located at 315 Furr Street in South Hill, Virginia. Consumers who have purchased whole cantaloupes from these Walmart stores during this time period should not consume them, and should destroy the product.

The recall comes after a cantaloupe at a small farm from which L&M Companies sources product tested positive for Salmonella. L&M Companies has ceased shipments from this farm, and the grower continues to investigate the cause of the problem.

A table of U.S. outbreaks related to the consumption of cantaloupe is available at: http://www.foodsafety.ksu.edu/articles/1183/cantaloupe_outbreaks_.pdf

With cantaloupe, the most important risk reduction strategy for consumers is to minimize the chances of contaminating the interior of the fruit.  This is done by preventing the rind from contaminating the inside of the cantaloupe, either by direct contact or by cross contamination.  There are different methods used for preparing a cantaloupe, but there is disagreement over which is the most effective technique.

References:

“Reducing Salmonella on cantaloupes and honeydew melons using wash practices applicable to postharvest handling, foodservice, and consumer preparation”. Tracy L. Parnell, Linda J. Harris, Trevor V. Suslow.  University of California.  International Journal of Food Microbiology 99 (2005) 59-70.

“Effect of Sanitizer Treatments on Salmonella Stanley Attached to the Surface of Cantaloupe and Cell Transfer to Fresh-Cut Tissues during Cutting Practices”. Dike O. Ukuku and Gerald M. Sapers.  U.S. Department of Agriculture. Journal of Food Protection, Vol. 64, No. 9, 2001.

Cumbrian health chiefs have issued urgent advice about farm visits after confirming that four children were stricken by cryptosporidium, carried by cattle and lambs, and were investigating an unspecified number of other possible cases.

The infections came after a number of recent farm visits, health officials say.

Pauline Little, an assistant head at the school, which sent 59 children on the visit, said,

“It was an absolutely fantastic visit. The farm was immaculate. Children were given the chance to milk a cow and stroke baby goats. They were given hand gel to clean their hands afterwards. And when we got back to school, we did more about washing hands than we would normally.”

The Health Protection Agency (HPA) North West yesterday advised parents and children how best to reduce the risk of infection during and following farm visits.

* Parents and teachers should check the hygiene facilities at the farm to ensure there are good hand-washing facilities with hot water, soap and paper towels.

* Children and their supervisors should always wash hands carefully after touching animals and other farm objects, especially before eating or drinking.

*Children must not eat or drink or put their fingers in their mouths whilst close to animals and before washing their hands.

Prof. Hugh Pennington of the U.K. has gone so far as to say that children under five (who are more vulnerable because of their still-developing immune systems) should be banned from visiting livestock farms because of the serious risk of acquiring E. coli O157:H7 infection from farm animals. Such a ban already exists in Sweden.

There is much to learn from interacting with animals, farms, and the world. The challenge is to do so in a microbiologically safe manner.
 

The N.Y. Times repeated my year-and-a-half-old home-alone reporting and video shoot with ConAgra pot pies and other frozen thingies in a front-page feature this morning and reached the same conclusion: the cooking directions suck.

(BTW, the Times video accompanying Friday's story also sucks, and they appear to use the wrong kind of thermometer -- always be tip-sensitive)

The frozen pot pies that sickened an estimated 15,000 people with salmonella in 2007 left federal inspectors mystified. At first they suspected the turkey. Then they considered the peas, carrots and potatoes.

Threatened with a federal shutdown, the pie maker, ConAgra Foods, began spot-checking the vegetables for pathogens, but could not find the culprit. …

So ConAgra — which sold more than 100 million pot pies last year under its popular Banquet label — decided to make the consumer responsible for the kill step. The “food safety” instructions and four-step diagram on the 69-cent pies offer this guidance: “Internal temperature needs to reach 165° F as measured by a food thermometer in several spots.”

… attempts by The New York Times to follow the directions on several brands of frozen meals, including ConAgra’s Banquet pot pies, failed to achieve the required 165-degree temperature. Some spots in the pies heated to only 140 degrees even as parts of the crust were burnt.

And in a staggering example of corporate arrogance coupled with blame-the-consumer, Jim Seiple, a food safety official with the Blackstone unit that makes Swanson and Hungry-Man pot pies, said pot pie instructions have built-in margins of error, and the risk to consumers depended on

“how badly they followed our directions.”

That’s assuming people can read, that they can read English, that the instructions are microbiologically validated and that the instructions are clear – meaning there has been direct or video observation of consumers attempting to cook following the instructions.

WRAL in Raleigh reports that the cause of an outbreak of a foodborne illness in 10 patrons of EVOO may never be found. 

Andre Pierce, Wake County's director of the environmental health and safety division says regardless of the outcome [of the test results], he's confident the problem was created at the restaurant.

“If you had some source issue with a product, you would expect to have calls around the state,” Pierce said. “We didn't have anything like that …So we believe there's something that was going on possibly at that facility that was the problem. Pierce suspects a toxin or chemical caused the sickness, perhaps through cross contamination.

Incident reports from Wake County show all of the customers who became ill ate salads. A sample of tuna was sent for testing.

“This appears to be a classic case of histamine fish poisoning,” said North Carolina State University microbiologist Dr. Lee-Ann Jaykus, who 5 on Your Side asked to review the reports. "Scombrotoxin fish poisoning is probably the leading cause of seafood associated food-borne illness,” Jaykus said.

Scombrotoxin fish poisioning is caused by histamine and is often caused by temperature abuse of fish. Illnessess are similar to allergic reactions and can strike patrons quickly. Gotta keep that fish cold to reduce the risk.

On Sunday my Kansas family and I went out for brunch at a local restaurant. I ordered French toast, which I was less than impressed with, but since it was a busy day I didn’t throw my breakfast at the waitress.

An angry South Carolina Waffle House patron did throw a waffle at her waitress, which lead to an altercation involving a gun, reports WLTX.com.

 [Crystal Samuel] didn't get what she came for. Instead, she says while she waited for her order, her friends started eating. That's when Samuel says she was told they couldn't eat from carryout trays inside the restaurant.

The two proceeded to have a verbal argument inside the restaurant, and Samuel admits,

"I did actually throw some food but it didn't hit her. That's when she [Yakeisha Ward, the waitress] jumped across the counter and we got into it."

The altercation moved outside, where Ward went to her car, got a gun, and attempted to shoot Samuel.

Ward has bonded out of jail. On Tuesday afternoon, News 19 found her inside the Waffle House where the incident happened.
 

A 47-year-old Israeli woman crawled feebly to the front door to call for help from a neighbor before passing out. Her partner, also 47, had already fallen unconscious.

FOX News reports that the couple began to feel dizzy after eating a meal of fried blowfish, and could barely breathe when the ambulance arrived.

“From what they have been able to tell us,” Rambam Hospital spokesman David Ratner said, “a neighbor gave them the fish as a gift. They didn’t know what it was; they fried it up for dinner and ate it.“

The couple was unaware of the neurotoxins contained in the skin and certain internal organs of blowfish that are highly toxic to humans. Contacting or ingesting these toxins leads to muscle paralysis and can result in an excruciatingly slow and painful death.

Marine biologist Dr. Nadav Shashar said, though the fish is the second most poisonous vertebrae in the world, it is considered a delicacy in Japan and Korea, "but they know how to prepare it."

Dr. Shashar concluded by saying, “The basic rule of thumb is simple: Don’t stick things in your mouth if you don’t know what they are.”

Don't eat poop or blowfish poison.

I love Pearl Jam -- Two of their albums (Ten and Vitalogy) definitely make my top 5 favorite albums. They are my guilty pleasure (the band I'm not too sure I want to tell folks I love because it might reduce my coolness factor).

It's a stretch, but Pearl Jam provides some barfblog material today:

According to 93X Rocks, a public-access-to-restrooms law, that Pearl Jam guitar player Mike McCready has been lobbying for, was signed into law yesterday.

The guitarist, who suffers from Crohn's Disease, testified before the Washington State legislature in favor of a bill that would allow people suffering from inflammatory bowel diseases to use business restrooms. The bill singed into law yesterday has that provision, and also requires businesses to allow any customer to use an employee restroom if three or more employees are working at the time and the request doesn't pose a security risk.

Yeah for Pearl Jam, the pooping activist band. Hope those restrooms will also have to be stocked with the tools needed for proper handwashing.

It was about 105 F when Amy and Sorenne and I touched down in Phoenix yesterday afternoon, to visit family and do some work. Pools – and air conditioning – become increasingly popular in Phoenix and elsewhere as the temperatures climb.

So that means the annual increase of cryptosporidium and other bugs related to exposure in swimming pools. Debate has raged over the past couple of years in various communities: what’s the best way to keep poop out of pools, especially with kids in diapers (I have one of those).

The U.S. National Swimming Pool Foundation marked the emergence of summer by sending out a press release today about some research presented in March by researchers from University of North Carolina-Charlotte that found swim diapers help slow the release of disease-causing germs, but the benefits are short lived.

The researchers measured the amount of microspheres that released from swim diapers worn by children. The microspheres have a similar size (five microns) to that of Crypto. Normal swim trunks, common disposable diapers and reusable diapers with and without vinyl diaper covers were tested. Swimming trunks without a swim diaper of any kind had the poorest performance - almost 90% of the microspheres were released into the water within one minute.

Swim diapers released about 50% of the microspheres within one minute. A vinyl diaper cover placed over a disposable swim diaper slightly improved performance. Still, over 25% were released into the water within two minutes.

"When a fecal accident contains about a billion disease-causing Crypto oocysts, hundreds of millions of oocysts get into the water within minutes," explains Dr. James Amburgey, the lead scientist in the study. "Swimmers only need to ingest about ten Crypto oocysts to become infected."

"This study confirms that parental restraint is the key to preventing Crypto outbreaks - not swim diapers. Swimming with diarrhea is irresponsible because it places other people's health at risk," reinforces Thomas M. Lachocki, Ph.D., CEO of the National Swimming Pool Foundation(R) (NSPF(R)) who funded the research.
 

Things are winding down at Kansas State University for the year – at least on the teaching side. In the past, Amy and I have planned some exotic trip to France or Canada to get out of Kansas for the summer, but this year, we’re staying fairly put, with baby Sorenne. Maybe she’ll get acclimated to the heat.

On Friday, for the second year now, Amy hosted the Modern Languages departmental end-of-semester soiree, where all the language professors get together in a Tower of Babel sorta thing. Good fun, good food. And in a food porn moment, Katie made language-based cupcakes. What’s your favorite?

(Oh, and the A-Goo cupcake was in honor of baby Sorenne, cause she says that a lot.)
 

Jack Pendleton found a snakehead, the size of the end of his thumb, while eating Sunday at the T.G.I. Friday's in Clifton Park, N.Y. The chain restaurant said it regrets the appetite-killing error. Pendleton said he has no plans to sue.

Pendleton, doing what all consumers should do to hold suppliers of food accountable, snapped a photo with his cellphone camera, then summoned the waiter.

Amy Freshwater, a spokeswoman for the chain, said in an e-mailed statement the company is trying to determine what happened.

"We are taking this situation very seriously. We immediately pulled the broccoli from this restaurant and began an extensive investigation. As a precautionary measure, we pulled broccoli from all restaurants that received product from this supplier. We have since isolated the specific lot date of the broccoli in question and have now reintroduced the product in all restaurants not included in the product hold."

I don’t really know Mike Doyle, other than the brief chats we have at meetings where our paths cross a couple of times a year and talk about our kids’ hockey-playing ambitions, or the time Amy and I ran into Mike and his wife at the local Orlando supermarket in 2006 cause I guess we were all too cheap to buy hotel food and went to stock up.

I have no idea if Doyle, the Director of the Center For Food Safety at the University of Georgia, is even interested in the job of director of the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Food Safety and Inspection Service (although I know others who have had the job and it’s not a dream posting) but his name is getting slogged through the mud that is the Intertubes in a manner that does nothing but confirm that journalism shouldn’t be dead just yet. Sometimes it’s important to check things.

Obama Foodorama, a blog apparently set up to fascinate on all things foodie about the new President, says that,

“Dr. Mike Doyle is Ag Secretary Tom Vilsack's leading contender to head USDA's Food Safety and Inspection Service. … Those in the know on the pick say the choice of Doyle is a step backward for Sec. Vilsack, who has so far put together a swell team at USDA. … The word "shill" has been used frequently in e mails about Doyle.”

If shill means talking straight about microbial food safety, sign me up.

“How invested is Doyle in the economics of food safety? He actually holds patents on a number of microbiological solutions for disease outbreaks.”

Uhm, professors are supposed to get outside funding. And patents. And speak their mind in a way that can be validated. Doyle has published about 500 peer-reviewed journal articles, which is 500 more than any of his critics

I don’t really know the dude, but I know Doyle’s consistent on food safety.
 

Reuters reported yesterday that new information from the World Health Organization suggested pigs sickened with H1N1 swine flu should not be consumed, despite earlier insistence that fully cooked pork is perfectly safe.

The story states,

"The WHO comments appear more cautious than those from the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) and World Organisation for Animal Health (OIE), which said import bans are not required to safeguard public health because the disease is not food-borne and has not been identified in dead animal tissue.

The WHO however said it was possible for flu viruses to survive the freezing process and be present in thawed meat, as well as in blood."

Well, who in their right mind drinks raw pig blood thinking it won't possibly make them sick?

I didn't find any statements on the WHO website that mentioned the ability of viruses to survive freezing--or its pertinence to the consumption of fully cooked pork--but I discovered that the WHO, FAO, and OIE have reissued their joint statement from April 30 today to address misunderstanding of the consumption of meat from H1N1 infected pigs. The statement reads, in part,

"Authorities and consumers should ensure that meat from sick pigs or pigs found dead are not processed or used for human consumption under any circumstances."

Sick or dead animals should never be slaughtered, regardless of the cause of illness or death. This  reduces the risk for cross-contamination. The statement reassures,

"Heat treatments commonly used in cooking meat (e.g. 70°C/160°F core temperature) will readily inactivate any viruses potentially present in raw meat products.

Pork and pork products, handled in accordance with good hygienic practices recommended by the WHO, Codex Alimentarius Commission and the OIE, will not be a source of infection."

But I shouldn't be spelling this stuff out--the WHO should. And they should address the bit about viruses surviving freezing and how that impacts food handlers.

Authorities should communicate the risks and how they're being managed (or can be managed) in a way the public can understand and the media can't mess up. It's their responsibility to a concerned public.

U.S. President Barack Obama and VP Joe Biden (right, photo from AP) ordered a couple of medium-well hamburgers for lunch today at Ray's Hell Burger in Virginia, and while media and blog reports were the usual gaga over, OMG, the President ate, no one asked, what does medium-well mean? Was the President at risk of contracting foodborne illness like the other 83 million American mortals each year?

Color is a lousy indicator. And who knows what medium-well means from one mom-and-pop shop to the next. One of the blogs is already having a heated discussion about what medium-well means and not one person has mentioned temperature.

Anyone out there want to do a graduate degree? Go to 100 burger joints, order burgers, and when they ask how would you like it cooked, ask the server, what does that mean. See if anyone mentions temperature. Write up the various responses in a methodologically sound way. You may save a President.
 

Megan K. Kelly-Hardigree, soon-to-be handwashing guru and latest barfblogger (right, pretty much exactly as shown), writes:

After being rightfully fired from a Dominos Pizza in North Carolina, Kristy Hammonds apologized to the public on ABC's Good Morning America this morning. Hammonds admits that the video she and co-worker, Michael Setzer, posted was meant to be a joke. And it was hilarious, what with the disgusting video of cheese in the nose and wiping of the rear with a sponge meant for cleaning pizza pans.

Unfortunately for Kristy and her two kids, the joke's on her.  She is having a hard time (along with thousands of other non-pranking Americans) finding a job.  Ironically, her applications are being rejected from other fast-food restaurants like McDonalds and Taco Bell.

I believe this is called karma. Or a bad Alanis Morissette song. She's Canadian even.
 

A New Zealand restaurateur whose poor food safety practices caused more than 50 Christmas Day diners to fall ill has had his appeal thrown out.

Robin Pierson, the owner-operator of Bushmere Arms, was ordered to pay $400 in fines, along with $850 in reparation to victims and $10,414 in costs to the Crown in a case brought by the New Zealand Food Safety Authority (NZFSA).

The court heard that on 25 December 2006, Pierson’s restaurant provided a Christmas Day buffet luncheon for about 110 diners, with a selection of ham, beef and turkey. The next day some of the diners called him complaining of illness after the luncheon. Fifty-seven reported varying degrees of stomach pain, abdominal cramps and diarrhoea.

A Health Protection Officer found the symptoms of illness described by the complainant diners were consistent with food poisoning caused by Clostridium perfringens. C. perfringens was also found in samples of the leftover turkey, and the enterotoxin form of the bacteria in faecal samples from two of the ill diners.
While C. perfringens can be found in the stools of normal people, the enterotoxin is only found in people with C. perfringens food poisoning.

NZFSA’s Assistant Director of Compliance and Investigation Justin Rowlands, said the luncheon had all the hallmarks of an outbreak in waiting.

“The turkey was inadequately thawed, cooked, and reheated. The person serving meats at the buffet also used the same knife to carve the turkey, meat and ham, raising the chance of cross contamination. Also, the restaurant did not have formal steps in place for operating safely during stressful periods.”

I cringe when pompous professorial types begin sentences with, “Clearly …” 

It happens a lot.

Over the years, I’ve repeatedly heard a variation of, “Clearly, government agencies can’t regulate and promote food at the same time.” I was on National Public Radio in Maryland a few weeks ago and the statement was repeated mantra-like by both the host and some activist dude.

Yesterday, it was Sylvain Charlebois, a business professor at the University of Regina, telling Canadian parliamentarians they should establish an independent food safety agency reporting directly to Parliament because the Canadian Food Inspection Agency is failing consumers because of its “dual mandate.”

That wasn’t so clear to Ronald Doering (right) who served as the CFIA's president from 1997 to 2002 and practically designed the agency. He called Charlebois's proposal to "hive off food safety" to a body reporting to Parliament instead of to a minister, “silly.”

"The principle consensus all around was if you're going to reorganize how you're going to do food safety, animal heath and plant protection, you've got to make sure you've got accountability right. All parties agreed that we needed to have the agency report directly to a minister in the traditional way, and there could be no doubt that the minister the agency reported to would be accountable for its work."

Sure, CFIA has problems -- like staff figuring out how to subscribe to FSnet. About 400 of them got deleted last week because of repeated error messages due to changes in e-mail addresses. About 250 figured out how to resubscribe; the other 150 decided to personally e-mail and demand I play secretary. Veterinarians with entitlement issues?

Back to the issue. I’ve always thought it’s easier to market safe food and never had much time for the armchair conspiracy theorists.

Doering also said it's "simplistic" to argue the CFIA's dual mandate presents a problem for consumers. Rather, he said Canadians are well-served by putting "the whole food chain in a single enforcement agency, so the CFIA is responsible for seeds, feed, fertilizers, all plant health, all animal health, all food, all commodities because they are all connected."

"The Canadian food, animal health and plant regulatory system is admired around the world. The idea we can export to a 100 countries food, animal or plants without inspection has to say something about the credibility of the regulatory agency."

Cases of Salmonella Saintpaul linked to raw alfalfa sprouts are now up to 35 and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration thinks they can all be traced to one seed supplier.

That seed supplier, based in Kentucky, is voluntarily withdrawing from the market all of its 50-pound bags that have a lot code starting with “032.” All of these bags contain seeds from Italy and may be contaminated.

In addition to details about the withdrawn sprouts, the FDA alert states,

“FDA has no evidence that alfalfa seeds from other lots, or sprouts grown from them, are affected by this market withdrawal… Suppliers who can verify that their products were not sourced from the affected lots may wish to notify their customers; likewise, retailers, restaurateurs, and food-service facilities who have verified the sources of their alfalfa products may wish to notify their customers.”

Businesses that can prove they get food from safe sources on purpose—and didn’t just get lucky with this one—should brag about that, too.
 

Food pornography is nothing new. Neither are so-called underground restaurants. That the St. Louis Post-Dispatch thinks both may be new and newsworthy may help explain the decline of American newspapers (and look at that cool arm decal in this pic from the Post, right, below).

Although underground restaurants have been popping up around the country for several years, this incarnation, launched last summer, appears to be the first of its kind in St. Louis.

Diners learn about an upcoming monthly dinner only through word of mouth. They sign up on a website using a pass code. On the day of the dinner, they get an e-mail telling them where to go. Sometimes it's a private house; other times, it's a rented space. …

Health department officials in the St. Louis area say underground restaurants violate health codes because they lack the proper inspections and permits.

"Even if a church sets up a buffet for a charity event, they need a permit," said Craig LeFebvre, a spokesman for the St. Louis County Health Department.

If someone invites friends to a private dining event in St. Louis County, they're not violating any laws. But if they put up any signs — including a website — and the event is open to a paying public, they need a permit, explained Gerrin Cheek Butler of the county's health department.

The chef, who asked not to be identified, said,

"The whole thing is an experience. It's not just this consumer thing, where you show up, order, and get pushed out the door an hour later."

Correct. It’s a way to charge a premium for porn.
 

Elizabeth Weise of USA Today once again goes to the food safety frontlines to report about the mobile testing laboratory being used by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, this time at the border crossing between Mexico and Nogales, Arizona.

Seventy percent of the fruits and vegetables Americans consume in winter are imported from Mexico, a total of 7 billion pounds, says Allison Moore, communications director for the Nogales-based Fresh Produce Association of the Americas. About half comes through Nogales.

The road that leads to the border begins to fill with trucks carrying fruits, vegetables and manufactured goods at 6:30 a.m. By noon there can be a line of trucks up to 7 miles long snaking through the low desert hills waiting to make the crossing (right ,photo from USA Today).

The lab represents a new era for the agency in keeping the food supply safe, says Michael Chappell, FDA acting associate commissioner for regulatory affairs. It is a tool that can be suited up and rolled out to anyplace in the country facing the danger of contaminated food, whether at the hand of terrorists or Mother Nature.

In the three weeks the trailers were based in Nogales before heading to their next assignment, the FDA estimates that direct contact with the truckers shaved tens of thousands of dollars in testing costs and spoiled produce. The mobile unit also may help repair the agency's reputation, which has been battered by public frustration with the contamination of such popular foods as peanuts and spinach.

Foodborne illness can be an unpleasant experience or something more serious. The World Health Organization estimates up to 2 billion people get sick from food and water each year – 30 per cent of all citizens in all countries.

Dr. Douglas Powell, associate professor of food safety at Kansas State University, leads a group of individuals passionately committed to reducing the incidence of foodborne illness, through research, teaching and information. The group strives daily to be the international leader in comprehensive and compelling food safety information that impacts individual lives – and reduces the number of sick people.

The electronic publications, barfblog.com and bites.ksu.edu, are comprehensive, current and compelling sources of food safety news and analysis, and help foster a farm-to-fork culture that values microbiologically safe food.

Research
•    The effectiveness of food safety messages and media in public discussions of food safety issues, such as the risks of listeria to pregnant women, legislation surrounding raw milk, public availability of restaurant inspection data, and the safety of fresh produce, are evaluated through qualitative and quantitative methods.

•    Observational research methodologies are used to quantify individual food safety behaviors from farm-to-fork, to enhance handwashing compliance, thermometer use, food packaging information and interventions that can reduce the number of people that get sick from the food and water they consume.

Teaching
•    A graduate program in food safety risk analysis – including food safety, language, culture and policy -- is being developed and will include distance-education.

•    Courses are currently taught in Food Safety Risk Analysis, and Food Safety Reporting.

Information
•    Dr. Powell is the publisher and editor of bites and barfblog, rapid, reliable and relevant sources of food safety information. Dr. Ben Chapman of North Carolina State University is the assistant editor.

•    bites and barfblog are produced by a cross-cultural team of secondary, undergraduate and graduate students as well as professionals who create multilingual and multicultural food safety and security information, including weekly food safety information sheets, and multimedia resources.

•    Research, educational and journalistic opportunities are available for secondary, undergraduate and graduate students through bites.ksu.edu and barfblog.com.

For further information, please contact:

Dr. Douglas Powell
associate professor, food safety
dept. diagnostic medicine/pathobiology
Kansas State University
Manhattan, KS
66506
cell: 785-317-0560
fax: 785-532-4039
dpowell@ksu.edu
bites.ksu.edu
barfblog.com
donteatpoop.com
youtube.com/SafeFoodCafe

or

Dr. Benjamin Chapman
Food Safety Specialist
Department of 4-H Youth Development and Family & Consumer Sciences
NC Cooperative Extension Service
North Carolina State University
Campus Box 7606 (512 Brickhaven Drive)
Raleigh, NC  27695-7606
919.515.8099 (office)
919.809.3205 (cell)
benjamin_chapman@ncsu.edu
 

While on the road for several hours yesterday after visiting family, I finally settled on National Public Radio. I hear lots of good stuff on NPR when I’m in the mood for it. Just a few miles from home, I heard a story about some bad risk communication from an uninformed political figure. That’s always fun in my line of work…

According to the NPR story aired yesterday (heard by clicking Listen Now), when asked about the outbreak of swine flu on the Today show, U.S. vice president Joe Biden said he has told his family,

“I wouldn’t go anywhere in confined places now. It’s not that you’re going to Mexico – it’s that you’re in a confined aircraft and when one person sneezes, it goes all the way through the aircraft.”

Dr. Mark Gendreau, whose research has focused on flying and the spread of diseases, was quoted as saying that a sneeze would only travel about 3 feet. Only people two seats in front or two seats behind a sneezer on an airplane were in danger of contacting infected droplets.

Dr. Gendreau recommended washing hands often and using alcohol-based hand sanitizers to limit the spread of infection.

Biden also told the Today show that, if they had another form of transportation, he does not suggest that his family ride the subway.

In response, New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, who often rides the subway to work, said,

“I feel perfectly safe on the subway and taking the subway does not present any more risks than anything else.”

The text version of the NPR story now available online states that,

“[T]he vice president's office [later] issued a statement translating Biden-speak into bureaucratese: Biden was merely restating the same advice the Obama administration is giving everyone, to avoid unnecessary travel. The statement also reiterated the now-familiar admonition to cover your face when you cough.”

That’s not what I heard.