If I owned a fake zoo store, like a pet store, I’d probably call it Serpent Safari. Reminds me of the scene in the 2003 movie, Almost Famous, when the lead guitar player goes off to meet real people, in of all places Topeka, Kansas, just down the road, and after doing some acid, a basement-dwelling dude asks the guitar player if he wants to watch him feed a mouse to his pet snake.

Yes.

Topeka. Real people.

A lawsuit has been filed in Lake County circuit court claiming that a 2-year-old boy contracted salmonella after touching an albino Burmese python.

A lawsuit seeking $50,000 in damages has been lodged against a reptile store and zoo in Gurnee Mills after a 2-year-old boy purportedly contracted salmonella after petting a snake there in December 2007.

Serpent Safari Inc. violated state laws by not providing liquid sanitizer for patrons or having a sign warning of infection risk to children younger than 5 who touch or handle reptiles, according to the complaint, filed Dec. 11 in Lake County circuit court.

Lawyer Michael Maher, who didn't return telephone messages Tuesday, filed the suit on behalf of Sara Wirtz and her son, Trevor, and Judith Penoyer, all of McHenry County. Without providing specifics, the suit alleges Penoyer also contracted salmonella.

Serpent Safari owner Lou Daddono countered that he's confident the albino Burmese python that Trevor would have petted did not pass on salmonella. The snake lives at the store and is not for sale.

Daddono, who also denied the negligence claims, estimated more than 400,000 visitors have touched the python without a problem in his 11 years in business. He questioned why it took two years for the salmonella suit to be filed.

Serpent Safari's lack of sanitizer or signs noting the need for hand-washing after coming in contact with reptiles amounted to negligence, the complaint alleges. More than $50,000 in damages are sought from the business.

Penoyer suffered "severe and permanent illness and/or injuries, externally and internally," says the suit. The complaint states Trevor's hospital expenses and other medical care will require his mother to pay large sums of money.
 

Italian authorities have seized some 500 tons of bad seafood and shellfish believed to be largely destined for New Year's Eve dinner parties.

Agriculture Minister Luca Zaia said Wednesday that worms were found in some of the fish seized across Italy between Dec. 10-23. In other cases, mussels defrosted months earlier were passed off as fresh, and fish coming from Asia was passed off as domestic.

Zaia described the food as "garbage" including brine jellyfish, and said organized crime was likely behind it.
 

Today’s USA Today asked a bunch of food safety types what the government could do to improve the school lunch program.

My full answer included,

“Does it have to be government? They’re not very good at this stuff.”

 What got published this a.m., along with a photo by Dave Adams of Kansas State, was,

"Government should set minimal standards and demand continuous improvement from all of its suppliers. More importantly, every cafeteria needs to make microbial food safety -- from hand washing to food handling -- part of the daily culture." 

Douglas Powell, professor of food safety at Kansas State University and the publisher of barfblog.com.

The story explains that in 1982, hamburgers from McDonald’s fast-food chain sickened at least 47 people in Oregon and Michigan. No one died, but the pathogen that caused the severe cramps, abdominal pain and bloody diarrhea turned out to be a little-known, especially dangerous form of the common stomach bacteria E. coli. The new subtype, E. coli O157:H7, produced a toxin that destroyed red blood cells and, in later cases elsewhere, caused kidney failure or death.

Confounded by the discovery, McDonald's hired one of the nation's best-known food safety scientists, Michael Doyle, and told him, he recalls, "to bulletproof their system so E. coli never happened to them again."

McDonald's reconsidered its old assumptions about food — from how often beef-processing plants should test ground beef to how well a hamburger must be cooked to kill off pathogens such as E. coli and salmonella.

The results helped change the industry. For years, the federal food code said burgers had to be cooked only until their internal temperature reached 140 degrees; McDonald's tests showed the safe standard was 155 degrees and that the meat must register that temperature for at least 15 seconds.

Microbial data also altered the demands McDonald's imposed on its suppliers.

After a couple of years, the company saw that "about 5% of the suppliers could not get down to what we considered a reasonable level for salmonella and E. coli," says Doyle, now director of the University of Georgia's Center for Food Safety. "McDonald's worked hard with them, but they couldn't get there, so McDonald's let them go."

The lesson, many analysts say, is that organizations with great buying power — such as fast-food chains or the school lunch program — can set higher standards, and industry ultimately will meet those standards because that's where the money is. The school lunch program purchases huge volumes of commodities such as beef, poultry and other staples –– $830 million worth in 2008.
 

Chapman asks me the other day, “How do we fight the dogma?”

Is that like fight the power? Fight the man? Fight for your right to party?

What he was talking about was food safety dogma, the kind where seemingly good people give bad food safety advice. Like the Brits and their piping hot turkey.

But this was directed at home. Why do good people reference bad advice, such as the cumbersomely named U.S. Partnership for Consumer Food Safety Education, and their Holiday food safety success kit, which says people should always wash their hands for 20 seconds with warm water and never defrost turkey on the counter (with exclamation marks, so readers know they are seriously serious).

When washing hands, water temperature doesn’t matter, 10 seconds is sufficient. Turkey can be thawed on the counter, don’t leave it there forever and don’t let the cat nibble on it.

The dogma part is, where are the references? How do groups like the horribly named Partnership come up with food safety advice? Is it some magical mystery tour or is there some reference to something credible? Who knows. It’s not publicly available.

So why anyone would reference the awkward Partnership as a credible source is bizarrely baffling.

 

Like pretty much every other county or town that has implemented some form of restaurant inspection disclosure, the system is way popular in Windsor, Ontario.

About 1,300 locations have been inspected under the star ratings, including all of the premises in the highest-risk categories, said Deb Bennett, Windsor-Essex County Health Unit’s health protection director.

“We’ve gone six months now with the star ratings. What we’ve seen is much positive comment from owners and consumers,” Bennett said.

The 500 premises still to be inspected with star ratings are all considered low-risk and include establishments such as convenience stores.

“We have seen a dramatic improvement in the level of compliance,” she said.

As well, she said she’s hearing more from restaurants about receiving four stars when they expected five than from locations with fewer stars. The places seem to accept their lower ratings, she said.

Enzo Mancuso, who owns Mancuso’s Trattoria, 555 Erie St. E.  said,

“It’s like anything else, sooner or later you get used to it.”

His restaurant recently received its second five-star rating since they were introduced. Customers applauded when they saw him receive an inspection notice with the stars, which he can post in his window.

But this last bit sucks.

Customers may not know about a restaurant’s inspection and rating, and Bennett said the health unit will focus on efforts to make the public aware they can find out by contacting the health unit.

Market food safety achievements. People may be more concerned about whether their food will make them barf or not.
 

Meatingplace reports this morning that two approved red food dyes, FD&C No. 3 and No. 40, stain the protein and fat in bologna and turkey lunchmeat and may help deli managers quickly determine areas of listeria contamination, according to a study by University of Arkansas researchers funded by the American Meat Institute Foundation.

Researchers noted that use of a 1:1,000 dilution of the dyes could enable deli managers to determine whether additional cleaning is required before sanitizing the slicker or beginning operations.

Researchers also found that heating deli slicer components in moist oven conditions caused a five-log reduction of listeria within three hours at 82 degrees C. However, because this treatment would not be feasible to use on an assembled deli slicer because of potential damage to the electrical components, continuing research involves using various sanitizers alone and in combination with moist heat to reduce potential listeria contamination of disassembled stainless steel and aluminum deli components.
 

In my continuing quest to watch children’s TV and become addicted to every infectious kids song out there – because 1-year-old Sorenne has a cold and insists on being held -- we watched an episode of Special Agent Oso, the unique stuffed bear.

3 special steps, that’s all you need

wash the vegetables

chop the vegetables

toss the salad

Jade has to help make a salad for cousin Rachel, who can’t eat cheese or bread because she has food allergies – no pizza for Rachel.

Special Agent Oso -- the unique stuffed bear -- and Jade wash their hands before preparing the salad, and wash the lettuce, tomatoes and cucumber, straight from the garden, but eventually use a vegetable brush because the veggies are so naturally dirty. Problem solved.

BTW, the songs on these kids' shows are bizarrely infective, like a foodborne pathogen.

The Hot Dog song on Mickey Mouse Clubhouse was written and performed by They Might Be Giants, and the Handy Manny theme song was written and performed by Los Lobos.
 

The cafeteria in the Pennsylvania capital building where the governor and other state legislators hang out, form cliques and toss around tater tots, has not been inspected in four years – despite a state law requiring annual checks -- and is now closed after an infestation of rodents was discovered.

Pennsylvania Auditor General Jack Wagner said Thursday he received assurances in 2005 that the state Agriculture Department would inspect the facility, and his auditors later received false assurances that it was being inspected regularly.

Last week, Agriculture Department inspectors finally arrived at the ground-floor cafeteria, a popular coffee and lunch spot. They found a "severe" rodent infestation, including an "excessive" amount of rodent droppings on food preparation equipment and in cabinets, utensil bins and elsewhere. The droppings indicate the presence of live mice and are considered an imminent health risk.

The ground-floor cafeteria is now closed and is not expected to reopen until January.

I like potlucks because of the social interaction and sampling different kinds of foods.

I don’t like potlucks because who knows how various dishes are prepared, how they’ve been stored, and the dreaded double dipping.

I told Erin Quinn of the Waco Tribune-Herald in Texas Monday that,

Maybe you don’t want to eat the turkey noodle casserole made in the kitchen of the woman who you notice never washes her hands before leaving the bathroom.

And maybe you should avoid the pumpkin cheesecake brought by the guy whose shirts are always covered with cat hair.

“There is a lot of blind trust in it. Potlucks are really popular because they bring people together and do a lot of good things. But all of that fellowship can turn into a lot of sick people.”

Powell recommends bringing a digital thermometer to potluck parties. He jokes that this is the reason he is hardly invited to potluck parties.

Still, he said these parties are not inherently riskier than eating at restaurants. And most people, he said, wash their hands properly, have clean kitchens and cook food at the proper temperature.

Allison Lowery, a spokeswoman for the Texas Department of State Health Services, said she, herself, eats at potlucks and is not too concerned about any risks.

“You can’t go around being scared of everything. You’ve just got to have faith.”

In 2004, I spoke at a conference in Gold Coast, Australia. I did a TV bit on Good Morning Australia, or whatever the equivalent was to the U.S. Good Morning America about food safety. The chef at the conference center was with me, and well-versed in food safety. He had a digital tip-sensitive thermometer in his front pocket, which I asked to borrow for the interview. One of the PR types said something like, you can’t go on TV and talk about using thermometers, we have enough trouble getting Australians to store food in the fridge, which is largely used for beer.

A survey by the New South Wales Food Authority found that some household fridges were twice as warm as they should be after groceries were transferred into them and they took four hours to return to a safe temperature.

The authority's chief scientist, Lisa Szabo, said while most fridges operated well, overloading them with food or warm products increased the chance of micro-organisms growing, as did the age of the fridge and the condition of the seals.

Of the 57 fridges checked in the study, almost 23 per cent had an average temperature of more than 5 degrees. Almost 9 per cent had an average of more than 6 degrees. The highest average temperature for one fridge was 9.5 degrees.

Salmonella infections rise in the hotter months of the year (it’s summer there right now, and everyone, including Katie, is at the beach).

NSW Health statistics show 372 people had salmonella infections in both January and February this year, compared with 129 in June and 101 in July.

Last December 240 people had salmonellosis compared with 103 in June last year.

One fridge in the study was loaded with drinks at 1.20pm, raising the temperature from 3.5 degrees to 14.5 degrees, and it took until 5.40pm for the fridge to return to 5 degrees. The study found that ''although [loading or cleaning] is unavoidable, limiting the duration or frequency of opening the refrigerator can minimize its impact on temperature rises'.'

As fridges across the state are filled with prawns, ham, champagne, desserts and fruit for Christmas celebrations, the Primary Industries Minister, Steve Whan, reminded consumers to keep the fridge out of the danger zone - between 5 and 60 degrees.
 

The things you can find on sale at Dillon’s supermarket (part of the Kroger chain) in Manhattan (Kansas).

For Christmas Eve dinner, which has no special significance other than we made it home from Minnesota before the storm hit, only to get walloped in Manhattan, I decided to cook the lamb – with a rosemary, Dijon mustard glaze, to a yummy and greasy thermometer-verified 140F. Accompanied with roasted potatoes and carrots, along with microwaved asparagus in garlic, olive oil and balsamic vinegar, with whole wheat rolls and a mushroom-fat-free-lamb-stock roux. Served with a 2005 Zinfandel from Napa Valley courtesy of Amy’s Aunt Jean and Uncle Mark.

Below is Sorenne doing her best Pebbles Flintstone impersonation on a lamb lollipop.

Nothing like a hot tub in a 15F blizzard to remove the grease and mess and stuff.

Christmas Day is usually T-bone steaks, but now I have to figure out if they are meat tenderized or not (good luck). More about that later.

I have no use for Christmas pudding, fruitcake, or those stale, doughy cookies strewn with sprinkles.

Gross.

Christmas pudding is apparently a steamed dessert made with dried fruit, nuts, spices and brandy.

It is common to put several charms or coins in the pudding, which are believed to bring prosperity in the New Year to the person who finds them.

The owners of High Timber, a London restaurant in the financial district, say they were advised to draw up the indemnity form by lawyers who regularly dine there.

Co-owner Neleen Strauss said,

"I thought it was going to be a pain but decided to do it to cover my backside. We're based in the City so a lot of my customers are lawyers and they suggested it. It is a bit crazy but I decided to take their advice."

The waiver says,

"I absolve entirely High Timber from all blame or liability should I come to any harm including, but not limited to, a chipped tooth, or any injury as a result of swallowing it."

Continuing the decline into idiocracy, a Texas woman faces charges after calling 911 30 times over six months, most recently to complain that her husband wouldn’t eat his dinner.

Last Friday, the woman allegedly made a pair of calls to 911, including a hang-up and another where a woman was heard screaming.

Police were dispatched to the residence and officer Paul Gonzales said police were told by her that "her husband did not want to eat his supper." A police report said the 53-year-old woman was also yelling "about things that happened two weeks ago."
 

NBC17 is reporting this afternoon that several customers have notified the 42nd Street Oyster Bar that they became ill after eating oysters at the longtime Raleigh restaurant.

Brad Hurley, a partner with 42nd Street Oyster Bar, told NBC17 that the restaurant received calls on Monday and Tuesday from customers who reported becoming sick over the weekend.

Hurley said the restaurant has pulled steamed oysters from their menus. The restaurant does have a separate batch of oysters from the North Carolina coast that is not suspected to cause illness that are still on the menu.

So far it has not been determined what is causing the reported illnesses. The restaurant is going through all equipment and working with the Wake County Health Department to determine the cause of the illnesses.
 

Here’s the video of rats in a Chinatown market that sparked the story in the Honolulu Advertiser that Chapman just blogged about.

The video sparked a Department of Health inspection of Pacing's, which was cited for a violation.

The Geller rat video has been seen by tens of thousands of people, and has spurred some to stop coming to Chinatown, according to shop owners, who say business has decreased — by 30 to 50 percent or more — over the last weeks.

Last year, Sekiya's Restaurant in Kaimukí closed its doors for days and dumped all its food after an E. coli outbreak, which sickened seven.
 

This Christmas will be my first away from snowy Canada and the family. Although I’ll miss the Filion family funtivities, I will not miss the cold. Rather I’m quite looking forward to seeing kangaroos for the first time, and attempting to surf in sunny Sydney.

While I generously apply the SPF, New South Wales (NSW) eateries will be preparing for new food safety requirements in the coming year. The Sydney Morning Herald reports that 10% of NSW eateries failed to meet inspection standards in 2009, and as a result a mandatory food safety supervisor will be required starting next year.

The State Government will today release its first food safety report card, detailing the amount of inspections, fines and prosecutions handed down over the year.

Primary Industries Minister Steve Whan said,

''The report shows 10 per cent of food businesses did not comply with the standards and required ongoing intervention.”

The minister said the Government had amended the Food Act and a mandatory food handler training program would come into effect to ensure every food business had a designated food safety supervisor.

NSW lists inspection results online where premises are Name and Shamed.
 

Every time there is a food safety outbreak with fresh fruits and vegetables, some journalist or lobby group will call up and say something like, “we want to do some sampling for E. coli or Salmonella and fresh produce.”

And every time, Chapman or I will walk the person through the limitations with testing, especially in fresh produce.

New studies by the New Zealand Food Safety Authority (NZFSA) highlight the limitations. In one, two out of 900 samples tested positive for Salmonella in lettuce, both from lettuces from the same grower.

In a related study, none of the chemical residues detected were of health concern, although NZFSA principal advisor for chemicals Dr Paul Dansted says he is disappointed with results from this year’s Food Residue Surveillance Programme (FRSP), which targets food likely to show up problems. This year’s focus was on spinach, celery, ginger and garlic.

“A significant number of samples had levels over the maximum residue limit (MRL) which is used for monitoring purposes, but it’s important to stress that dietary intake assessments on the non-compliant food showed none posed a health or food safety concern.”

Eight out of 27 celery samples and four out of 24 spinach samples had residues that were over the limit. There were none over the limit in 50 samples of garlic, but ginger had 11 samples out of 39 over the limit.

“Celery and spinach can be more vulnerable to persistence of chemical residues,” Dr Dansted says. “Because of their shape, residues that wash off in the rain can collect in the base of the plant. We expected to find some problems, but this is not good enough. We will take regulatory action to ensure better compliance in future.”

Properly structured sampling programs are essential to validate that food safety programs are working. But testing is not enough.
 

One of my graduate students, Manoelita Warkenten, did a great job this morning presenting a departmental seminar about the use of gross-out information to increase handwashing compliance rates in various settings.

Sarah Reasoner, another of my graduate students, who had already gone through the seminar fire, did an outstanding job prepping Manoelita. I didn’t have to do much. I like it that way.

Irish Health reports today that one in three people in Ireland don’t wash their hands after going to the toilet.

That’s gross.

The Tomah Journal writes:

In most circumstances, the test of whether an activity should be illegal isn’t whether it creates harm, but whether the cost of eradicating the harm is exceeded by enforcement costs.

Many activities -- drunk driving, manufacturing methamphetamine, hunting from the side of the road, dumping untreated sewage -- are worth the cost of enforcement. But is selling raw milk? Two area lawmakers don’t think so, and they’re probably right.

State Rep. Chris Danou (D-Trempealeau) and state Sen. Pat Kreitlow (D-Chippewa Falls) have introduced legislation that would legalize on-farm sales of raw milk in Wisconsin. Critics claim that raw milk is unsafe, and that’s true in the narrowest literal sense. According to the federal Center for Disease Control and Prevention, 39 raw milk-related bacterial outbreaks in the United States between 1998 and 2005 sickened 831 people, hospitalized 66 and killed one. In Wisconsin, bacterial outbreaks linked to unpasteurized milk sickened 189 people and hospitalized three.

In the large scheme of things, however, those aren’t large numbers. Last year, 23 people died in Wisconsin snowmobile accidents, and nobody suggests banning snowmobiles.

The benefits of raw milk are economic. Raw milk has a passionate, if small, base of consumers who are willing to pay farmers top dollar. In a struggling economy when it’s difficult for dairy farmers to make ends meet, it’s an economic boost that can’t be easily dismissed.

Most Americans grew up with pasteurized milk, and in an easily grossed-out food culture like ours (how many of us eat beef tongue, sweetbreads or chicken gizzards?) the prospect of raw milk as a widely consumed commodity appears very slim. And there’s no doubt that if a consumer wants to follow a safety-first approach to food consumption, pasteurized milk is the logical option. But if consumers want to take a moderate risk and consume raw milk, it’s not worth the resources of the state to tell them they can’t. Wisconsin has bigger law enforcement problems than people who take their chances.

How many kids have to get sick and die from consuming unpasteurized milk? If the consumer wants to take the risk and consume such a product, fine, just don’t impose it on your kids and don’t say you weren’t informed.

            I remember quite fondly when I worked in the Provincial Lab in Alberta and was testing unpasteurized milk that had made a number people sick. I was shocked from the number of positive bacterial cultures, in particular, Campylobacter jejuni, a nasty foodborne pathogen.

An employee who worked on the butcher's counter at an Adelaide supermarket has tested positive for hepatitis A, prompting a health warning.

The supermarket specialises in retailing products to the Afghan community.

"While the chances of becoming infected are small, we're asking customers who bought produce from the butcher's counter during the infectious period to be aware of the risk," director of public health Kevin Buckett said.

Hepatitis A is spread when traces of faecal matter containing the virus contaminate hands, objects, water or food and are then taken in by mouth.

The 'ole poop-on-the-hands-oral-fecal-route routine.

Dr Buckett said employees from the Vatan supermarket had been offered a vaccination against hepatitis A and health officials continued to work with the business owners to inform the local Afghan community of the health warning.

He said 55 cases of hepatitis A had been reported in South Australia so far this year compared to just 19 in 2008.

My girlfriend during my first two years of university was Alison from Manchester, U.K.

She was nice, not nice, I can’t decide. It was a long time ago.

I really like Amy. And she’s taking me  and Sorenne to Manchester in early Jan. We won’t be eating at Manchester’s Tai Pan restaurant that served customers cockroach-infested rice and was fined £70,000 by a magistrate - who called its hygiene standards 'absolutely outrageous'.

Manchester Magistrates Court heard that health inspectors found kitchens at the restaurant in Upper Brook Street, Manchester 'full of cockroaches'.

They were found living in the rice steamer and dead ones were spotted in the oil used to cook customers' food.

The restaurant's chefs were also storing chopping boards on a floor covered in 'a thick layer of greasy dirt' and cooking with utensils caked in old food.

Boxes of food were used to hold toilet doors open and many areas of the restaurant's kitchens were so cluttered with junk they were impossible to clean.

The owners of the restaurant were found guilty of fourteen counts of violating of the Food Hygiene Act in their absence.

Food is 21st century snake oil. In an era of unprecedented affluence, consumers now choose among a cacophony of low fat, enhanced nutrient staples reflecting a range of political statements and perceived lifestyle preferences, far beyond dolphin free tuna.

In fall 2000, I contacted Procter & Gamble to ask for the data substantiating the claim that Fit would eliminate 99.9 per cent of bacteria on fresh produce,

After a bunch of calls to various PR types I got hooked up with some scientists at P&G in Cincinnati, who verbally told me that sample cucumbers, tomatoes and the like were grown on the same farm in California, sprayed with chemicals that would be used in conventional production, and then harvested immediately and washed with Fit or water. The Fit removed 99.9 per cent more, or so the company claimed, because no data was ever forthcoming.??????

One problem. Many of the chemicals used have harvest after dates, such as the one tomato chemical that must be applied at least 20 days before harvest. Residue data on produce in Canadian stores reveals extremely low levels, in the parts per million or billion. So that 99.9% reduction is really buying consumers an extra couple of zeros in the residue quantity, all well below health limits.

The Wall Street Journal picks up on this theme today, stating that everything from hand-sanitizing liquids to products like computer keyboards, shopping carts and tissues tout that they kill 99.9%, or 99.99%, of common bacteria and fungi.

But some of these numbers look like the test scores in a class with a very generous grading curve. They often don't include all pesky germs, and are based on laboratory tests that don't represent the imperfections of real-world use.

Human subjects, or countertops, in labs are cleaned first, then covered on the surface with a target bug. That is a far cry from a typical kitchen or a pair of grimy hands.

"The 99.99% message is more powerful among consumers than 'antibacterial' or 'germ kill' alone," Maria Lovera, senior brand manager of skin care for Playtex Products Inc., maker of Wet Ones antibacterial wipes, wrote in an email.
In a study soon to be published, University of New Mexico biochemist Laurence Cole found that in two of three brands' home-pregnancy tests, fewer than two-thirds of pregnancies among women who had missed their periods were detected.

To cite a 99.9% fatality rate, manufacturers don't have to kill 99.9% of all known bugs. Regulations don't require them to disclose which bugs they exterminate, just that the products are effective against a representative sample of microbes. For instance, many products can't kill Clostridium difficile, a gastrointestinal scourge, or the hepatitis A virus, which inflames the liver. Yet by killing other, more common bugs, they can claim 99.9% effectiveness.
 

The holidays bring bad food safety advice, and in what’s turning into an annual tradition, it’s time to bash the Brits.

“The Food Standards Agency is hoping to reduce the number of food safety clangers that are served up this Christmas, with its Christmas food safety advertising campaign.”

WTF is a clanger?

Oh, Dick van Dyke, is there nothing you can make sound Cockney?

“The Agency's TV and radio adverts are jovial but have serious underlying messages about the preparation and cooking of turkey:

don't wash it (you don’t need to)
defrost it thoroughly
cook it properly

That’s terrible grammar; a bulleted list should contain bullets, with semi-colons and an end period. I thought the Brits were serious about this stuff.

“The Agency’s research has shown that many people wash their turkeys before cooking, with older women the most frequent turkey-washing offenders. But washing meat or poultry can cause harmful food poisoning bacteria to splash on to worktops, chopping boards, dishes and utensils, where they can linger for days.

“Partially defrosted turkeys are another common festive food safety blunder.”

This is good stuff: don’t wash the bird, and defrost the thing – notice they don’t say whether it’s OK to do it on the counter or not.

But then, once, again, with all the food safety communication thingies in the government employ, the best they can come up with is,

“To ensure that the turkey is cooked properly, make sure it is piping hot all the way through. Cut into the thickest part (between the breast and thigh) to check that none of the meat is pink, and the juices run clear.”

No. Use a tip-sensitive digital thermometer. Color is a lousy indicator.

UK chief science thingy, Andrew Wadge, I’ll be in the U.K. Jan. 2 – 10, and I’d be glad to meet with you and your crack food safety risk communication team to talk about turkey prep recommendations.
 

Rock band Green Day has postponed tpnight's concert in Melbourne after lead singer Billie-Joe Armstrong came down with a case of suspected food poisoning.

A spokesthing for Frontier Touring Company said,

"Although Billie-Joe was determined to perform tonight it became apparent at 4.30pm (AEDT) today that he would be unable to take to the stage - particularly in light of the lengthy 2.5-3 hour show the band traditionally perform.”
 
The concert has been rescheduled to tomorrow night (December 16).
 

ESPN reported today that Mark Fistric of the Dallas Stars missed last Saturday night's game vs Los Angeles after being hospitalized with symptoms consistent with a foodborne illness. In an effort to step out of hockey and into epidemiology, Fistric (below, left side of the Blackhawk sandwich), who has 3 points and 14 penalty minutes this season, reported that he believes the illness was caused by a pregame meal on Friday.

"The last thing I ate was a pregame meal in San Jose, and everyone ate it and no one got it," Fistric said. "I felt fine during the game. But when I was getting on the bus, it started hitting me. It was the most pain I'd ever felt in my stomach and they took me right to the hospital [when the plane landed]."
Fistric said he was put on antibiotics and got plenty of sleep the last few days.

Although most pathogens will create symptoms within a couple of days, Fistric might have been exposed up to ten days before feeling ill. While it might make a reappearance, it's usually not as simple as blaming the most recent meal for the illness.

As I dug up some stats on Mark Fistric, I came across some info on his dad, Boris, who was drafted by the Detroit Red Wings in 1979 and spent his professional career in the minor leagues. Boris was a bit of a bad ass, racking up 460 penalty minutes in 64 games as a junior (that's about three fights every two games) and breaking 390 minutes twice while with Kalamazoo of the International League. Wow.

You can take the girl out of Northern Ontario, but you can’t take the Northern Ontario out of the girl. Since moving to New Zealand I’ve picked up a few Kiwi-isms, but I’ve managed to keep my awful hick accent, and still occasionally read the news for happenings near my hometown.

Sudbury, home of the OHL (that’s ice hockey) team Sudbury Wolves, has begun posting the results of restaurant inspections online, reports Northern Life Online. The website, www.sdhu.com, launched today, and reports go back to November 1, 2009.

Stacey Laforest, a manager in the Health Unit’s Environmental Health division, said,

“Before we had the technology to go online, the public could call us for inspection and enforcement information for restaurants and other food premises. Posting the information on our website makes it more accessible to the public.”

[F]ood premises in the Sudbury and Manitoulin districts are listed alphabetically by name. Information includes food premises inspection reports, food safety convictions reports, food safety closures reports, an explanation of commonly used terms, and a link to the applicable legislation.

I took a gander at the website, curious what East Side Mario’s received on its most recent inspection – it hasn’t been inspected since November. Neither have the majority of restaurants in the database, with every one I clicked on returning a blank screen. I’d rather see a card at the door.

For the Neil Young fans, Helpless (below), because There is a town in Northern Ontario…

Following the lead of mash-up artist Girl Talk, the Centre for Molecular Epidemiology led by Professor Frank Møller Aarestrup at Technical University of Denmark (DTU), is planning on creating a infectious disease surveillance tool by combining elements of google maps/pulsenet.  The new tool, nicknamed Google Bacterium, could allow laboratories across the globe to see outbreaks of foodborne illness in almost real-time (as soon as PFGE maps or sequences are uploaded).

The centre will develop software and hardware solutions which can handle these large volumes of data, analyse DNA sequences and swiftly return clinically, biologically and epidemiologically relevant information on bacteria species, strains, antimicrobial resistance and treatment options as an open source solution.

The plan is to start with salmonella, staphylococci and coli bacteria – with the potential for expanding the collaboration to also include viruses, parasites and other bacteria. In the long term, the system will also be able to include the identification of ‘good’ bacteria for industrial uses.

The centre will also develop an Internet platform which will show all the data on a world map to visualise the global spread of bacteria. It will be a bit like a Google Bacterium which will be accessible to everyone on the Internet.

Sounds awesome, mash it up, I'd love to be able to get email alerts about clusters of illnesses in certain geographic areas.

Canada was settled by French and other European explorers by canoe – hence the Canadianism, as stated by Pierre Berton, a Canadian journalist and novelist,

"A Canadian is someone who knows how to make love in a canoe without tipping it."

The National Post reports this morning that for the second time in four years, health authorities in France have identified an outbreak of the parasitical illness trichinosis from bear meat devoured by French travelers in northern Canada.

The grizzly that ended up as steaks, stew and even "grizzly-bear Bolognese" had been threatening an Inuit camp on the Nunavut shore when it was shot by rangers, with the carcass later divided up among locals and visitors.

In 2005, 19 French travelers got sick after eating black bear in Labrador, while two others caught trichinosis from a polar bear in Greenland a few years earlier.

A Paris-based expert who investigated the outbreaks attributes the spate of bear-meat illness among his compatriots to the French culinary penchant for trying unconventional meats, and either eating them raw or cooking them very little.

One of the French adventurers -- on a sailing trip across the Arctic -- ended up hospitalized for 11 days after digesting the tainted food in September, though she avoided the most serious heart and brain complications of the infection.

Dr. Jean Dupouy-Camet, head of a trichinosis-tracking program, said in an interview from Paris,

"It's quite fascinating to see that French people seem quite fond of bear meat. French people travelling abroad like to consume exotic meats ... [And] they are usually fond of raw meat: steak tartare."

But the latest episode was not confined to the French sailors. Members of another North-West Passage sailing expedition, headed by a Canadian, ate some of the same meat and two of them also became ill.

Other people have had witty things to say about Canada. British novelist Douglas Adams said each country was like a particular type of person, and "Canada is like an intelligent 35 year old woman." America, on the other hand, is a "belligerent adolescent boy" and Australia is "Jack Nicholson." I may prefer Australia. 

This Is South Wales reports that Hon Yip Hoh pleaded guilty to 14 counts of failing to meet regulations at Swansea Oriental, in Brynmor Road and was fined £7,000.

Inspectors found his premises in a "filthy" and unhygienic state, including:

• dirty and greasy cardboard and newspaper was used to line trays and to line shelves and also in the operating gas oven;

• cooked chicken placed on top of raw chicken left to defrost at room temperature;

• when asked, staff demonstrated they were not using cleaning materials with antibacterial properties; and,

• no hot water and inadequate drainage facilities.
 

State budgets are tight and getting tighter, but politicians in Wisconsin are determined to promote the Badger State in a slightly cheesy way: ??????The state Assembly is considering a bill that would name the bacterium that converts milk into cheese as -- ready for it? -- the official state microbe.??????

The microbe, Lactococcus lactis, is poised to join the state's list of 21 designated symbols, which includes an official dance (the polka), beverage (milk) and domesticated animal (the Holstein dairy cow). It would also be a first for the nation.
 

Ogonori, also called ogo or sea moss, is a type of edible seaweed eaten along the coasts of Japan, Southeast Asia, Hawaii, and the Caribbean. Ogonori is typically eaten cold and, for the up-and-coming microbiologists in the crowd who have spent hours autoclaving, ogo is a source of the thickener agar.

Apparently it’s easy to find – in Hawaii.

A seafood and produce store in Chinatown was cited by a Department of Health sanitarian Friday after a KHON2 report showed a man picking ogo from a drainage canal at Ala Moana Beach Park and then selling it to the owner of the business.

A Sanitation Branch inspector cited Cruzzette Store owner Felicidad Dela Cruz for purchasing ogo from an “unapproved source.”  Dela Cruz faced a fine of up to $1,000 a day had she continued to purchase ogo from the man captured on Thursday’s video by KHON2.

“She said that if somebody gonna get sick it will be my fault,” said Dela Cruz, as she described her conversation with the health inspector.

When asked what she had learned about food safety, Dela Cruz was quick to reply.

 “To know where my product (is) coming from and to be safe,” she said in broken English.  “I don't want anybody get sick.”

Community gatherings around food awaken nostalgic feelings of the rural past -- times when an entire town would get together monthly, eat, enjoy company and work together. And also, as Rob Tauxe says in an article about new trends in foodborne pathogens, have created some of the easily traced foodborne illness outbreaks:

The traditional foodborne outbreak scenario often follows a church supper, family picnic, wedding reception, or other social event. This scenario involves an acute and highly local outbreak, with a high inoculum dose and a high attack rate. The outbreak is typically immediately apparent to those in the local group, who promptly involve medical and public health authorities. The investigation identifies a food-handling error in a small kitchen that occurs shortly before consumption. The solution is also local.

In 1997, two elderly people died, more than 100 made a trip to the emergency room, and 700 more reported feeling ill after an annual church dinner of stuffed ham, turkey and fried oysters at Our Lady of the Wayside Parish in Chaptico, Md., population 100. Tests showed that Salmonella in the ham likely caused the illnesses.

In September 2004, near Buffalo, N.Y., 28 confirmed cases of salmonella infection were reported following an annual community roast-beef dinner. Volunteers were not trained in food service and "didn't quite understand the importance of maintaining a hot or cold temperature," investigators said.

The nasty bugs that cause foodborne illness don't distinguish between commercial and charitable food operations.

The newest food safety infosheet focuses on a recent outbreak of Salmonellosis linked to a church fundraiser in Conway, SC. It's not entirely clear what factors led to the outbreak, but what is apparent is that over 125 of the 1,500 participants had were left with foodborne illness symptoms including abdominal cramping, diarrhea and vomiting after their BBQ plates were consumed. Fourteen individuals were hospitalized.

To download this week's infosheet, click here.

My oldest daughter is 22. I put in a lot of hours watching Barney, Sharon, Lois and Bram (it’s a Canadian thing), memorizing all the books of Guelph’s own Robert Munsch (who can resist the sentimentalism of, Love You Forever), and renting bad Disney movies from the video store around the corner.

That seems quaint, given that I settled the 1-year-old in the car the other weekend by holding the iPod touch so she could see it in her car seat with Beauty and the Beast playing.

Up until a few months ago, I didn’t even know Barney was still on the air.

But here I am, doing all the bad children’s TV thing again. Sorenne perks up when the Barney music comes on, but still prefers Stephen Colbert.

There’s a 7-year-old kid on Barney who has totally co-opted my look – shorts, high-cut Cons, and shaggy Andy Samberg hair.

Maybe it’s time for a new look.

Handy Manny, one of Sorenne’s favs, had extensive handwashing instructions this morning. Most of the kid’s shows do. Handy Manny is also culturally sensitive and mixes things up with English and Spanish.

I can’t wait ‘till Sorenne can respond to a survey asking her about the effectiveness of the handwashing message.
 

Retired Jack-in-the-Box food safety guru David Theno, told hundreds of tree fruit growers at the 105th annual meeting of the Washington State Horticultural Association in Wenatchee on Monday, Dec. 7 that regarding food safety,

"It doesn't necessarily cost more to do it right. Costco and Wal-Mart are huge drivers of food safety and are willing to spend a little more."

 

Mum-of-two Nina McLaren and her best friend Jodie Davies, both from Flint, became seriously ill after spending four days in the Spanish  resort of Benidorm last month.

In total, 14 holidaymakers contracted E.coli O157 after  stays in Benidorm during November.

Now travel lawyers at Irwin Mitchell, along with the Health Protection Agency, have launched an investigation into the source of the bacteria.

27-year-old Jodie told the Daily Post:

“The whole ordeal has been so distressing and painful that I really do wish we had never gone on holiday at all, it feels like we haven’t had one.  … To learn that there were so many other people that fell ill with the same thing is a real worry. I wouldn’t wish it on anyone so it’s a relief to hear that there is an investigation into where the source was.”
 

Sorenne’s first birthday was fun but her 1-year doctor’s visit was not. She got 5 shots and a blood draw which left her in tears and a bit leery of nurses for future visits. All I could think about was how thankful I am that she is not a sick child and that this kind of torture is preventative and not curative treatment. I do not know how parents of sick children cope with watching their children suffer. Doug said, “Now imagine watching your child in the hospital with HUS.”

One of Sorenne’s jabs was for Hepatitis A. I got that shot and follow up in 2003-2004 because I was visiting risky countries like Iraq and Senegal. Sorenne will be immunized as a baby and we should never have to worry about at least that illness in the future. Now if only there were a vaccine for dangerous strains of E. coli, Salmonella, and other foodborne illnesses.

I’ve been interviewed and quoted by Prevention magazine a few times about food safety stuff. They didn’t seem any worse or better than anyone else and I always took the time to explain things from my world of microbial food safety and what makes people barf.

But their latest story, which did not include me or any other food safety expert I know, claims to present, The top 7 foods avoided by food safety experts.

Greg Johnson, editor of the Kansas City-based The Packer went twitterlistic, writing that the "7 foods experts won't eat, from Prevention mag lists conventional apples and potatoes. Too bad "experts" are bunch of leftist hacks.”

Not sure if it’s a left or right thing – the U.S. is big on moral dualism. Maybe it’s a dumb or smart thing.

Liz Vaccariello, editor in chief of Prevention Magazine, recently interviewed several experts on food healthfulness and safety. She asked, “What foods do you avoid”, and was surprised by some of the answers.

1. Canned Tomatoes, Canned Soup, Canned Green Beans

Something to do with BPA. Risk is minimal. Canned tomatoes are a great source of antioxidants. Canned soup and green beans are great comfort food. Food safety is impeccable.

2. Corn-Fed Beef

Something to do with nutrient profiles and blowing Whole Foods. Corn-fed beef rocks.

 3. Microwave Popcorn???

Something about the chemicals. Eat real food, not popcorn.


4. Nonorganic Potatoes and Carrots???
Something about root vegetables absorbing pesticides. I worry more about microorganisms, and eating enough fruits and vegetables.


5. Farmed Salmon???
Something about chemicals in farmed salmon, which are far below acceptable government limits. Farmed salmon preserves the environment.

6. Milk Produced with Artificial Hormones???
Something about rBST and this is the best someone at the Campaign for Safe Food at the Oregon Physicians for Social Responsibility can come up with, when 30 per cent of all people in all countries get sick from the food and water they consume each year, and none of it has anything to do with genetically engineered hormones.

7. Nonorganic Apples and Pears???
Something about pesticide accumulation. Total BS. Bring on the conventional apples and pears. My kid loves them.

The Bismarck Tribune of North Dakota reports that more than 150 people became ill after Aggie Jennings of rural Washburn catered  three separate events — a family reunion and two weddings in June — and the illnesses were confirmed as salmonella poisoning.

State epidemidologist Kirby Kruger said 32 people who attended the wedding met the case definition of salmonella poisoning and 13 tested positive for salmonella montevideo, a strain associated with baby chickens.

Jennings raised chickens at her rural residence, he said.

The DNA pattern in the most recent cases matched that pattern and can be traced to a hatchery in Iowa, Kruger said during the investigation.

After the outbreak, the First District Health Unit in  Minot issued a cease-and-desist order to Jennings, telling her to stop all catering activities.

The following weekend Jennings catered a wedding in McClusky where more than 15 people became ill with salmonella poisoning.
 

From the there’s-an-award-for everything category, the U.K. Food Standards Agency has apparently copped a statue for clear communication about listeria.

“The Agency has been given an award by the Plain English Campaign for a leaflet advising the over 60s about food safety and the food poisoning bug listeria. Food safety and healthy eating messages are often based on complicated science, but the Agency strives to make these messages as accessible to as many people as possible. We are therefore pleased that these efforts have been recognised by our partners and by the Plain English Campaign.”

The U.K. government agency that has millions of dollars to engage consumers and the best they can come up with is to serve turkey ‘piping hot’ rather than use a thermometer is now blowing itself for its, ‘Look out for listeria’ campaign. The award-winning leaflet is attached, and it essentially blames old folks for getting listeria.

The science is not complicated and neither are the communications. The level of state-sponsored arrogance is somewhat alarming.
 

Colonel Sanders and KFC won't buy them.

Campbell Soup stopped using them more than a decade ago because of "quality considerations."

Yet as reported in today’s USA Today, the U.S. National School Lunch Program is an awesome outlet for egg producers struggling to find a market for 100 million egg-laying hens culled each year.

From 2001 through the first half of 2009, USA TODAY found, the government spent more than $145 million on spent-hen meat for schools — a total of more than 77 million pounds served in chicken patties and salads. Since 2007, 13.6 million pounds were purchased.

Because the hens are usually restricted to tiny cages, they often suffer from osteoporosis and have especially brittle bones that easily splinter. When schools reported bones in the chicken, the government stopped purchases for school meals in April 2003. After new provisions aimed at preventing bone splinters — and lobbying by the trade group, United Egg Producers — purchases resumed that July.

Besides the bones issue, some scientists believe spent-hen meat is more likely to carry salmonella, which can be especially dangerous for children. A 2002 study by Washington State University's Avian Health and Food Safety Laboratory found that spent-hen carcasses were four times more likely than broilers to be contaminated with salmonella. The spent hens in the study were from a single plant, so the results offer no proof that similar problems occur on a broader scale. …

Officials with the U.S. Department of Agriculture say spent-hen meat is safe and nutritious. "Mature hens must comply with the same safety standards as any other chicken processed and sold to consumers," says Rayne Pegg, head of the USDA's Agricultural Marketing Service.

Still, the USDA is buying fewer spent hens today. In 2006, it purchased 30% of all spent hens processed nationwide; now, it buys less than 10%.

Craig Brooks, who oversees food distribution at the South Carolina education department, isn't sorry to see fewer spent hens.

"The taste just didn't go over."
 

New messages, new media. That’s become sortof our mantra here at bites.ksu.edu because, as the Washington Post reiterated this morning,

“Between 1998 and 2004, illnesses reported by CDC that were caused by E. Coli, listeria, campylobacter and a few other bacteria decreased by 25 to 30 percent, perhaps because of improvements in the handling of meat and eggs. Since about 2004, however, the rate of these illnesses has basically remained steady.”

There’s lots of new media toys out there, but it’s the high-tech version of signs that say, “Employees Must Wash Hands.” Reposting press releases – especially in the absence of critical analysis -- is a waste of bandwidth and resources. And there is no evidence it results in fewer sick people.

Sponsorship opportunities are available for bites.ksu.edu, barfblog.com, and the bites-l listserv (as well as the infosheets and videos; how about a movie?). ??????In addition to the public exposure – why not stick your company logo on the bites-l newsletter that directs electronic readers to your home site or whatever you’re flogging that week -- and reaching a desired audience, you can receive custom food safety news and analysis. We’ve also resurrected the food safety risk analysis team – assessment, management and communication – and offer 24/7 availability and insanely rapid turnaround times. If your group has a food safety issue -- short-term or long-term -- work with us.

The money is used to support the on-going expenses of the news-gathering and distribution activities, and to develop the next generation of high school, undergraduate and graduate students who will integrate science and communication skills to deliver compelling food safety messages using a variety of media. Research, training and outreach are all connected in our food safety world.

If you have a sponsorship idea, let’s explore it. Feeling altruistic? Click on the donate button in the upper right corner of bites.ksu.edu or on barfblog.com. Want to just send a check? Make it out to: K-State Olathe Innovation Campus, Inc.???18001 W. 106th St., Ste 130???Olathe, KS 66061 and send to Terri Bogina??????.
 

Tomorrow’s Washington Post has a food safety feature with some relevant history and reminders that get lost in the vitriol of activist politics. Excerpts (some will say cherry picking, go read the article yourself) below.

Arthur Allen, a Washington writer and the author of "Ripe: The Search for the Perfect Tomato" (March 2010, Counterpoint), writes that whatever our politics, we increasingly eat from a communal kitchen.

“The increasing number of front-page outbreaks and the high-profile critiques of the food system by such writers as Michael Pollan ("The Omnivore's Dilemma") and Eric Schlosser ("Fast Food Nation") can give the impression that the U.S. food supply is spiraling out of control. But is Americans' food, in fact, more dangerous that it was in the day of home-cooked meals? People who have studied the numbers aren't convinced. …

“In the mid-1990s, the CDC began bolstering its surveillance of food-borne illness. One result was the ability to measure whether food was becoming more or less safe. Between 1998 and 2004, illnesses reported by CDC that were caused by E. Coli, listeria, campylobacter and a few other bacteria decreased by 25 to 30 percent, perhaps because of improvements in the handling of meat and eggs. Since about 2004, however, the rate of these illnesses has basically remained steady.”

John Glenn Morris, director of the Emerging Pathogens Institute at the University of Florida at Gainesville, said,

"It's an ongoing problem, and consumers need to use reasonable caution in terms of food preparation. But it's not a 'go screaming down the hall the world is coming to an end' kind of thing."

Based on its evolutionary tree, scientists think that O157:H7 probably has existed for hundreds or even thousands of years. But it hadn't been noticed in our food supply until 1982, when a small-town doctor in Oregon reported to the CDC that he'd seen a group of patients with bloody diarrhea. Another group got sick with the same symptoms in Michigan a little later. All had eaten hamburgers at McDonald's, said Michael Doyle, director of the Food Safety Center at the University of Georgia (left, exactly as shown).

McDonald's hired Doyle to help fix the problem, and he told company officials that one way to be sure to kill O157:H7 was by heating their hamburgers to at least 155 degrees. McDonald's officials grumbled that they would lose customers, but they did what he told them, Doyle says. At the time, FDA guidelines recommended heating to 140 degrees.

Most other hamburger chains kept cooking at lower temperatures in order to produce juicier burgers that attracted customers who didn't like the "hockey pucks" being served at McDonald's. That continued until 1993, when Jack-in-the-Box reaped the consequences of looking the other way -- crippling lawsuits, bankruptcy, $160 million in losses.

But the O157:H7 seems to be out of the barn -- and into the pasture. … studies have shown that "natural," grass-fed cattle are now also likely to carry it. In the Earthbound Farm case, genetic fingerprinting indicated that the spinach had been contaminated with bacteria carried by cattle that ranged on land nearby.

Centralization doesn't necessarily mean less-safe food. A well-run centralized industry is arguably easier to police and control than a more decentralized one. For example, a handful of companies produce most of the 12 million tons of tomato paste that makes its way into pizza and spaghetti sauces, ketchup, salsas and other products. This industry's record is very clean, in terms of contamination.

The second movie in the Twilight series, New Moon, hit theatres last month and though ashamed to admit it, I went to see it. A friend asked me to go to the midnight screening, so I entered the tween-packed theatre (2 hours past my bedtime) and begrudgingly watched the hyped film into the wee hours of the morning. I would have rather just slept.

But Twilight tweens are crazy in love with Edward Cullen, the vampire played by actor Robert Pattinson. So in love, that some fans kiss the cardboard cut-outs of the vampire, requiring a UK cinema to ban the potentially disease spreading act.

This Is Staffordshire Online reports,

[The Reel Cinema] has banned fans from kissing the cardboard cutout of a film's lead actor – because they might catch swine flu.

Teenage girls had been planting kisses on, or hugging, the cutout of Brit heartthrob Robert Pattinson, but the fun is now over after a warning was slapped across Robert's face.

It reads: "Please help reduce the spread of germs by refraining from giving Edward, or any other character for that matter, a kiss or hug."

New Moon fan, James Meek, said,

"I understand why the cinema has put the sign up but we had a little bit of a chuckle at it. It's a bit silly."

barfblogger and second-year Kansas State veterinary student Michelle Mazur stars in a Dec. 3/09 story from the American Veterinary Medical Association which calls “barfblog.com one of the sickest (and funniest) sites about food safety.”

Mazur said she stumbled into her job after a food microbiology class she took as an undergrad at Kansas State. She started as a news puller for barfblog.com and now she’s been writing for the blog for about a year, covering issues related to her veterinary-school studies like Brucellosis, her summer job on Plum Island Animal Disease Center, the dangers of salmonella on pet turtles, and even about therapy animals.

“The world has really opened up for me, writing for barfblog.com. Just pulling news for Doug f