My 15-year-old daughter is off to camp for a month on Sunday in Ontario, an annual ritual.

And, like every other year, there are outbreaks of foodborne illness at summer camps.

More than 50 campers, mostly children, have become ill from the norovirus at La Foret Conference Center and Retreat Center in the Black Forest, (Colorado, not Germany).

Ralph Townsend, the General Manager of La Foret, blamed others, saying two different groups became ill after staying at the conference center, but that the spread of the virus could have been prevented if the facility was notified in time, adding,

“We are a leasing facility and the first group did not follow the protocol, so when we were notified late about the illnesses, we were never notified immediately, and that made the situation worse.”

Susan Wheelan, a spokeswoman for the El Paso County Health Department, said it appears all safety procedures have been followed successfully, and the source of the illness has not been determined.
 

I rarely golf anymore. Same thing happened when I had young kids before. Although Amy insists it’s no problem for me to disappear for 6 hours to hit a little white ball, it just doesn’t seem cool. And it’s boring. I miss hockey.

But me and Chapman have witnessed some terrible food safety at golf courses over the years.

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

His sidekick piped up, "Me too."

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

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

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

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

The Cook County Department of Public Health continues to investigate an outbreak of Salmonella enteritidis at the Skokie Country Club in Glencoe, IL. Currently, there are 29 laboratory-confirmed cases including seven hospitalizations associated with this outbreak.

CCDPH officials continue to follow-up on more than 50 additional reports of gastrointestinal illness from individuals who ate at the country club.

A Toronto meat packing plant was caught changing the "best before" dates on packages of ham about a month before it had to recall peppercorn salami when samples tested positive for listeria.

The Canadian Food Inspection Agency and Siena Foods warned the public against consuming its cooked ham and some dried meat products after samples tested positive for Listeria monocytogenes in March.

The Toronto Star subsequently requested documents under the Access to Information Act and discovered the relabeling scheme. One inspector found the company was incorrectly extending the shelf life of Black Forest ham from 56 days to 78 days by putting the wrong date on "best before" labels on about 5,500 cartons.

A corrective action report issued Oct. 30, 2009 noted someone at the plant told an inspector the product was stored at 1C, which they felt "can extend the shelf life."

Why CFIA couldn’t inform the public about the shoddy practices remains unknown. I thought CFIA was there to ensure public health.

Siena Foods Ltd. has since closed after filing for bankruptcy.

A new study from the University of Aberdeen finds that two thirds of visitors to the U.K. countryside have never heard of E. coli O157.

Does that matter? Does someone need to know specifically about E. coli O157 or do they need to know to wash their hands after playing with road apples or cow patties.

In the study by researchers from the Universities of Aberdeen and Bangor two thirds of rural residents and country visitors who had heard of E. coli O157 said they acted to reduce their risk of the potentially deadly infection.

However, most described how they reduced risk by cooking meat properly, and very few gave examples of reducing risk around farm animals and in the countryside.

Over 2000 tourists, residents and famers from north Wales and the Grampian region — which has one of the world's highest rates of the infection — took part in the survey.

Dr Colette Jones from the University of Aberdeen’s School of Geosciences said:

“‘In light of last year’s E. coli O157 outbreak on the open farm in Surrey it is important to recognise that rural visitors are not as well informed as they might be. They read the signs about washing hands but may not take it seriously enough if they are not fully aware of the danger. In this project we are aiming to determine the level of understanding of the infection among farmers, locals and visitors to rural areas, and thereby identify how cases of E. coli O157 could be better prevented.”

So those ‘Employees must wash hands’ signs may not work?

Jon Stewart figured that out in 2002.

“If you think the 10 commandments being posted in a school is going to change behavior of children, then you think “Employees Must Wash Hands” is keeping the piss out of your happy meals. It's not.”

And in honor of Road Apples, here’s the rarely played Tragically Hip song, Born in the Water, from the 1991 recording about Katie’s hometown of Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario, which at one point decided it would be a good idea to ban French.
 

Gerba and crew's reusable bag study released via press release last week is garnering quite a bit of attention, including some coverage on the blogs and mainstream media. The discussion is getting predictably political focusing a lot on a potential ban on plastic bags in California (folks especially focusing on funding from the chem/bag industry; who cares). Doug covered this a bit last week, but HuffPo blogger Mark Gold takes a stab at the study in a from-the-obvious-file post:

The American Chemistry Council has been making hay with its earth-shattering findings that unwashed reusable bags can be contaminated with a variety of bacterial pathogens, including Salmonella (um, yes, if you inoculate bags with them – the researchers artificially added Salmonella in one of their experiments, never actually recovered it from a shoppers bag – ben). Bag bacteria counts are especially high when you allow meat and chicken to incubate in the trunk of a car where temperatures can get nice and toasty. I wonder how much the ACC paid for this ground-breaking research to point out the obvious.

The study, when and if it is published will provide some nice baseline results on what people say they do, demonstrates the effect of washing, and doesn’t like some try to point out really say that plastic bags are any safer (there was no comparison) but there are a couple of things missing that could really have been useful. Two big questions still need to be answered:

- Generic E. coli is floating around in bags, recoverable in the Gerba study in 12 % of those tested, but can it be (or is it likely) to be transferred to any ready-to-eat foods, or somehow to food contact surfaces in the home?

- What effect does drying have on the bags, if at any? According to Gerba et al., washing works, no one reports doing it;  but what about flipping them inside out and drying bags for a few days after use?

The most astute point comes at the end of an AP wire story this morning about how various states are letting anyone sell anything food-wise.

Ken Ruegsegger of New Glarus, Wis., bottles about 20 kinds of pickled fruits and vegetables such as peppers and carrots. He already invested in a commercial kitchen that meets licensing requirements and is charging $4 to $7 for his products to try to make back the money.

Unlicensed competitors can now make the same product in uninspected kitchens and sell it for half the price, he said.

"That could cost me thousands of dollars per year," he said. "And I'm inspected four times a year. These people could be making it in their kitchens with cats walking around. It's not fair."

Why should people who play by the rules suddenly be penalized by letting anyone who makes some claim to local, natural or organic sell whatever they want for political expediency.

The story says that at Wisconsin farmers markets, vendors no longer need licenses to sell pickles, jams and other canned foods, while small farmers in Maine can sell slaughtered chickens without worrying about inspections.

Federal and state laws require that most food sold to the public be made in licensed facilities open to government inspectors. But as more people become interested in buying local food, a few states have created exemptions for amateur chefs who sell homemade goods at farmers markets and on small farms.

Robert Harrington, director of the Casper-Natrona County Health Department in Casper, Wyo., said,

"The two major failures in food production are temperature control and personal hygiene. If someone says they shouldn't have to follow regulations because they're making food in their home, I'd say, 'Why is your home so safe that it doesn't need that level of oversight and control?"

I’ll still go to the biggest supermarket I can find. And when I do shop at the market, vendors can expect a lot of microbiologically-based questions.
 

Foodies wanting to know how clean their favorite restaurant is must file public records requests in Wicomico County.

For several years, the health department has sought to change that by posting details of restaurant inspections online. But budget cuts, combined with opposition from restaurant owners, have made that an elusive goal, said Stuart White, supervisor of community health in the environmental health division.

"I think it would promote better practices. You'd want a better grade if it would be posted," White said.

A growing number of health departments across the U.S. are initiating programs aimed at improving the transparency of restaurant inspections, said Robert Pestronk, executive director of the National Association of County and City Health Officials. He said many health departments are putting information online, and others are placing scores -- in the form of letter grades, numerical scores or color-coded decals -- in plain sight at restaurants.

"It really makes the public part of the inspection work force," he said.

A study in June's Journal of Food Protection suggests cross-contamination violations -- which can lead to illnesses -- may be more widespread than previously thought, and they may occur more frequently during peak hours.

Researchers from North Carolina State University used video cameras to monitor 47 food handlers at eight volunteering kitchens and found that the workers committed an average of one cross-contamination violation an hour.

"It really changes how we think about training," said Ben Chapman, the lead author of the study and assistant professor and food safety specialist in the Department of 4-H Youth Development and Family & Consumer Sciences at NCSU. Researchers from Kansas State University and the University of Guelph in Ontario co-wrote the study.
 

To entertain Sorenne today, we stopped by the Hallmark store at the Manhattan Mall. In addition to her favorite Webkinz, we found miniature (living) frogs in little glass cubes. Sorenne was fascinated with what she called, “fish.”

Accompanying the display was a clearly posted warning about handling reptiles. Although frogs are amphibians, I was delighted to see the information. I asked the store staff if I could take a picture. They were taken aback by the request but didn’t mind. The poster from the CDC highlights what Doug has often said in the past: “Do not nuzzle or kiss your pet reptile.” Other tips include:

- Always wash your hands thoroughly after you handle your pet reptile, its food and anything it has touched.
- Keep your pet reptile in a habitat designed for it; don’t let it roam around the home.
- Keep your pet reptile and its equipment out of the kitchen or any area where food is prepared.
- Keep reptiles out of homes where there are children under 1 year of age or people with weakened immune systems. Children under 5 should handle reptiles only with adult/parental guidance. And, they should always remember to wash their hands afterwards.

We didn't buy a frog today, but I'm sure that request will come in time.

Now that Katie is back from New Zealand, baking has resumed with a flurry.

Yesterday was Amy’s birthday, so it was champagne and Smurf-inspired colored cupcakes.

No one or thing was harmed during the preparation.
 

No one seems to be talking but health officials are investigating an outbreak of salmonella poisoning at the Skokie Country Club in Glencoe, Illinois.

There have been seven laboratory-confirmed cases of the bacteria originating from the north suburban country club since June 10, and the club voluntarily closed its kitchen on Thursday.
 

Traducido por Gonzalo Erdozain

Resumen del folleto informativo mas reciente:

- Un empleado estuvo en contacto directo con pollitos infectados.

- Preparadores de alimentos pueden transmitir Salmonela de su materia fecal sin saberlo y sin tener síntoma alguno.

- Lavarse las manos después de haber tocado aves, pollitos o reptiles, y luego de haber estado en contacto con materia fecal animal.

Los folletos informativos son creados semanalmente y puestos en restaurantes, tiendas y granjas, y son usados para entrenar y educar a través del mundo. Si usted quiere proponer un tema o mandar fotos para los folletos, contacte a Ben Chapman a benjamin_chapman@ncsu.edu.
Puede seguir las historias de los folletos informativos y barfblog en twitter
@benjaminchapman y @barfblog.

Kellogg's has recalled four cereal products due to an off odor and flavor linked to white foil packaging. Twenty customers have reported a waxy smell associated with the cereal; five of those individuals had nausea and diarhea. 

According to Kellogg's:

Consumers should not eat the recalled products because they do not meet our quality standards.  A few consumers have experienced temporary symptoms, including nausea and diarrhea.  Consumers with concerns should consult their health care provider.

Recalled products include:

Kellogg's® Apple Jacks®
UPC 3800039136
17 ounce package with Better if Used Before Dates between APR 10 2011 and JUN 22 2011

UPC 3800039132 3
8.7 ounce packages with Better if Used Before Dates between JUN 03 2011 and JUN 22 2011

Kellogg's® Corn Pops®
UPC 3800039109
12.5 ounce packages with Better if Used Before Dates between MAR 26 2011 and JUN 22 2011

UPC 3800039111
17.2 ounce packages with Better if Used Before Dates between MAR 26 2011 and JUN 22 2011

UPC 3800039116
9.2 ounce packages with Better if Used Before Dates between APR 05 2011 and JUN 22 2011

Kellogg's® Froot Loops®
UPC 3800039118
12.2 ounce packages with Better if Used Before Dates between MAR 26 2011 and JUN 22 2011

UPC 3800039120
17 ounce packages with Better if Used Before Dates between MAR 26 2011 and JUN 22 2011

UPC 3800039125
8.7 ounce packages with Better if Used Before Dates between MAR 26 2011 and JUN 22 2011

Kellogg's®Honey Smacks®
UPC 3800039103
15.3 ounce packages with Better if Used Before Dates between MAR 26 2011 and JUN 22 2011

Only products with the letters "KN" following the Better If Used Before Date are included in the recall.

Wales has some money issues.

But bacteriologist Professor Hugh Pennington, who chaired a public inquiry into the South Wales Valleys E. coli O157 outbreak in 2005, which claimed the life of five-year-old Mason Jones, will tell the National Assembly’s health committee this week that public health needs to be spared from expected budget cuts.

He is asking for councils to be given enough money to spare experienced environmental health officers.

Pennington said earlier in the week,

“My immediate concern is that in the implementation of financial reductions by the shedding of staff, policy will be driven by human resource departments rather than the need to retain experience and institutional memory.”

That’s a common theme I’ve heard over the years in trying to figure out why all these foodborne illness outbreaks keep happening, especially in processed foods which should have the poop processed out of them: companies just lack people who know what they’re doing when it comes to food safety.

But I have to take issue with the good professor when he says the 2000 E. coli O157:H7 outbreak in the water supply of Walkerton, Ontario (that’s in Canada) which sickened 2,300 and killed seven was caused because of lax water supply safety checks due to budget cuts.

In his health committee paper Prof Pennington said the event in Canada “provides evidence that rather than maintaining the systems that protected the population from E. coli O157, the Canadian approach to managing budget cuts contributed to the regulatory failures that led to this massive outbreak.”

Budgetary issues may have been a contributing factor, but more money doesn’t mean people will do what they’re supposed to do

The Walkerton Commission of Inquiry, led by Mr. Justice Dennis O’Connor, concluded:

• Seven people died, and more than 2,300 became ill. Some people, particularly children, may endure lasting effects.

• The contaminants, largely E. coli O157:H7 and Campylobacter jejuni, entered the Walkerton system through Well 5 on or shortly after May 12, 2000.

• The primary, if not the only, source of the contamination was manure that had been spread on a farm near Well 5. The owner of this farm followed proper practices and should not be faulted.

• The outbreak would have been prevented by the use of continuous chlorine residual and turbidity monitors at Well 5.

• The failure to use continuous monitors at Well 5 resulted from short-comings in the approvals and inspections programs of the Ministry of the Environment (MOE). The Walkerton Public Utilities Commission (PUC) operators lacked the training and expertise necessary to identify either the vulnerability of Well 5 to surface contamination or the resulting need for continuous chlorine residual and turbidity monitors.

• The scope of the outbreak would very likely have been substantially reduced if the Walkerton PUC operators had measured chlorine residuals at Well 5 daily, as they should have, during the critical period when contamination was entering the system.

• For years, the PUC operators engaged in a host of improper operating practices, including failing to use adequate doses of chlorine, failing to monitor chlorine residuals daily, making false entries about residuals in daily operating records, and misstating the locations at which microbiological samples were taken. The operators knew that these practices were unacceptable and contrary to MOE guidelines and directives.

• The MOE’s inspections program should have detected the Walkerton PUC’s improper treatment and monitoring practices and ensured that those practices were corrected.

• On Friday, May 19, 2000, and on the days following, the PUC’s general manager concealed from the Bruce-Grey-Owen Sound Health Unit and others the adverse test results from water samples taken on May 15 and the fact that Well 7 had operated without a chlorinator during that week and earlier that month. Had he disclosed either of these facts, the health unit would have issued a boil water advisory on May 19, and 300 to 400 illnesses would have been avoided.

• In responding to the outbreak, the health unit acted diligently and should not be faulted for failing to issue the boil water advisory before Sunday, May 21. However, some residents of Walkerton did not become aware of the boil water advisory on May 21. The advisory should have been more broadly disseminated.

• The provincial government’s budget reductions led to the discontinuation of government laboratory testing services for municipalities in 1996. In implementing this decision, the government should have enacted a regulation mandating that testing laboratories immediately and directly notify both the MOE and the Medical Officer of Health of adverse results. Had the government done this, the boil water advisory would have been issued by May 19 at the latest, thereby preventing hundreds of illnesses.

Yesterday, Pennington told the Assembly’s health committee the failure of some firms to comply with basic hygiene legislation is “essentially a disgrace.”

“For any business not to be doing what they are legally obliged to, which is having a HACCP plan or something like it, I think it’s essentially a disgrace. I am not yet convinced that we have got to the point where we can say that all small businesses have got a HACCP running which an environmental health officer should be satisfied with.”

Consumer Focus Wales’ Senior Director Maria Battle took a different approach, telling the committee food businesses should be legally required to display their hygiene rating on the premises.

The Food Standards Agency is currently developing the Food Hygiene Ratings Scheme, also known as ‘Scores on the Doors,’ but the scheme only allows for voluntary display. Consumers will have to visit a website to find out about poorly performing businesses.

It’s not Scores on Doors if the results are not publicly displayed. Regulatory, financial, shock and shame, all of these approaches should be explored to enhance the food safety culture of any food business.
 

The Columbian reported today that the aunt of 4-year-old Ronan Wilson (right), who died April 8 after contracting E. coli at his Hazel Dell in-home day care in Washington state, wants to know why the Clark County Department of Health did not let the public know about the outbreak until the day after Ronan died.

Savenia Falquist also questions why the day care children and their siblings continued attending school, possibly putting other children at risk, and why the health department did not at least alert health care providers about the outbreak.

When Ronan’s mother first took him to a doctor on March 29, the doctor did not think it was necessary to test for E. coli and diagnosed Ronan with the flu. Other parents of children at the day care have said they initially had difficulty getting doctors to approve a stool test, the only way to test for E. coli.

Falquist told Clark County commissioners at their monthly Board of Health meeting Wednesday that she’s trying to educate herself on the county’s policies for informing the public about communicable diseases, adding after the meeting,

“The intention is not to go after a county department that’s funded by the public. What I really want to do is rule out complacency.”

John Wiesman, the director of the health department, said the county typically only issues public health warnings when health officials can’t personally contact those potentially affected by a health threat. For example, a news release would be issued if a food services worker tested positive for hepatitis A and the county would have to warn people who ate at the worker’s restaurant.

A provider alert was not sent out about the E. coli outbreak at the day care because owners Larry and Dianne Fletch had contact information for all of the parents whose children attended the center, Wiesman said.

Wow. That’s terrible accountability. Alerts also raise awareness and provide lessons for others – oh, and may prevent people from getting sick. Maybe not directly, but it could enhance the conversations and culture surrounding food safety if others knew, oh, kids can get E. coli O157:H7 at day care.

A total of 14 people at the day care tested positive for E. coli O157:H7 bacteria. Three were hospitalized and 10 people had mild symptoms.

Children who tested positive were not allowed to go to a day care until they had two negative stool samples, 24 hours apart, Melnick said Wednesday. He said older children at the center or older siblings of children at the day care were still allowed to go to school because there aren’t the same concerns about transmitting the bacteria with older children. There aren’t diapers being changed, for example.

“The kids are older, and their hygiene is better,” Melnick said.

Any evidence to back up that statement?

I prefer peer-review before press releases.

I prefer to bike to the grocery store with my kid in the trailer and dog on the leash – and put the groceries in my knapsack. With daytime highs of 100F, that ain’t happening so much at the moment.

A new report issued today by the University of Arizona and Loma Linda University in California says those reusable grocery bags can be a breeding ground for dangerous foodborne bacteria and pose a serious risk to public health.

Maybe.

Maybe it’s Gotcha microbiology where a bug is found, but the public health significance isn’t matched up with epidemiology (where are the sick people).

Chapman has highlighted the flaws in the paucity of data that is out there, and will be going through this later tonight.

The American Chemistry Council, which underwrote the research project, may be a fine organization – and I’m all for industry sponsoring research – but why not release the results in a peer-reviewed journal?
 

Three patients died, 42 other patients and 12 staff members got sick from Clostridium perfringens in improperly stored chicken salad, so the administrator and associate administrator at Central Louisiana State Hospital have, as they politely say in the South (and smile while the knife goes in), left the facility.

The appropriately named Town Talk reports today the investigations also revealed what the Louisiana Department of Health and Hospitals termed unacceptable process and management issues.

The investigations, ordered by DHH Secretary Alan Levine, found serious deficiencies in dietary services and concerns with the overall operation of the hospital.

Levine said,

“The day of these tragic deaths, I went to Pineville with Deputy Secretary Tony Keck to personally assess what had happened. We ordered a comprehensive investigation into the patient deaths, and asked other agencies to conduct expert reviews into various issues.

“The staff at CLSH was cooperative, and I’m grateful for that. But I have seen enough evidence of unacceptable performance that I am convinced major changes are necessary. Basic policies were not followed. Staff was not properly educated. The findings across the board raise real concerns related to overall management that go beyond the food service area.”

There are now 97 people sick with salmonella in 28 Illinois counties, all related to eating at a bunch of different Subway restaurants.

A bunch of the food handlers at different Subway outlets have tested positive for salmonella, but that’s probably because they’re snacking on the same ingredients the customers get in their sandwiches.

When the outbreak was first identified, Subway pulled its lettuce, green peppers, red onions and tomatoes from restaurants and brought in new supplies. A prudent produce move.

But now the Packer reports that investigators are saying fresh produce is just a “possible” source of the salmonella outbreak.

Although federal, state and local health agencies have not named fresh vegetables as the definitive source, Melaney Arnold, an Illinois Department of Public Health spokeswoman, has said the investigation was leaning toward produce as the culprit. On June 23, Arnold characterized produce only as a possible source.
 

In 2009 the Fat Duck, Heston Blumenthal’s chic-chic restaurant in Bray, UK, was the source of a norovirus outbreak that led to over 500 illnesses. According to health official investigators, the initial source of contamination was raw oysters from a less-than-reputable harvest bed.

Investigators found that things got worse and the outbreak continued for at least six weeks (between January 6 and February 22) because of ongoing transmission at the restaurant- through continuous contamination of foods prepared by ill food workers.

In 2006, a Carrabba’s restaurant in Michigan had its own you-should-have-stayed-home-because-you-are-sick moment.  At least 364 restaurant patrons became ill with norovirus after eating meals prepared by employees who had reported to work while ill. According to the CDC’s report on this outbreak:

"Vomiting by a line cook at the work station might have contributed to transmission … Because of the open physical layout of the restaurant, no barrier impeded airborne spread of the virus from the kitchen to the main dining area."

Yummy.

According to a New York Times blog post, there’s a recent poll on that demonstrates what happens (at least self-reported) in the absence of paid sick days.

The survey found that 55 percent of respondents who said they were not eligible for paid sick days said they had at some point gone to work with a contagious illness like the flu or a viral infection, compared with 37 percent who said they received paid sick days.

Paid sick days are a touchy issue in the foodservice industry because the threat of abuse of the benefit. If I ran a restaurant I’d want to have some mechanism in place to encourage self-reporting of illness so I could get the individual away from the meals I’m trying to sell.

U.S. striker, Jozy Altidore “missed part of the USA's final training session because of an upset stomach.”

Hopefully he makes a full recovery for today’s match, which the U.S. has to win in order to be guaranteed qualification into the round of 16.
 

ConAgra is continuing with its blame-the-consumer strategy when crappy pot pies make people sick with salmonella – like the 30 confirmed ill with Salmonella Chester linked to Marie Callender‘s Cheesy Chicken & Rice frozen meal.

Teresa Paulsen, a spokeswoman for ConAgra, said the company is investigating the contamination, adding,

"At this point, we are looking at an ingredient as the cause since all tests from our production environment have been negative.”

Some of the ingredients, in particular the protein such as the chicken, are precooked before packaging. She said the package has explicit instructions on how to cook the entree in a microwave or oven.

"If it's cooked according to package instructions, any pathogen would be killed," she said.

Explicit is not the same as practical. No matter how much the Marie Callender name is supposed to fancy things up, it’s still a pot pie tweens toss in the microwave.

How effective are explicit instructions to teenagers? And why are people the critical control point in the frozen chicken thingie food safety system?

Seattle lawyer Bill Marler, who is representing an Oregon man who was hospitalized four days in May after eating one of the implicated pies, said, "You can't expect the customer to be the kill step.”

A table of frozen, not-ready-to-eat chicken thingy outbreaks is available at:
http://bites.ksu.edu/Salmonella-outbreaks-frozen-raw-chicken-entrees.

I glance through celebrity blogs to find examples of America’s best and brightest suffering from food poisoning like mere mortals.

Really.

PerezHilton.com is reporting that Carrot Top – a bad comedian turned I-don’t-know-what, and who has his picture inexplicably splashed around Las Vegas -- was briefly hospitalized yesterday for an unspecified issue.

Carrot Top said in a statement today:

"It was food poisoning and the resulting dehydration that made him drive himself to the hospital. Fluids were put into his system for a few hours, and then he was released."

Perez says, Bullshiz! If you have food poisoning, you can barely move your body to the toilet, let alone drive yourself to the hospital!
 

I call Andrew McKenzie a friend, and he calls me a reprobate.

Fair enough. He certainly dresses better.

And has more tolerance for meetings.

Business Day in New Zealand has a profile of the 62-year-old retiring Food Safety Authority chief executive with all the old stories, probably told through certain filters.

What I remember best – through the fog of good scotch – was an outstanding lamb dinner a pregnant Amy and I had with Andrew and his wife at their home overlooking Wellington in 2008, followed by an All Blacks rugby match on the tube.

Andrew McKenzie could justly claim the title of the father of modern meat inspection conferred on him by a speaker at a European conference recently.

The retiring chief executive of the Food Safety Authority was a lowly government official in the mid-80s when he had the temerity to challenge the European-imposed rules governing meat inspection.

The actions that flowed from this led to savings of many millions of dollars to the meat industry and freed up international trade.

He encountered his first silly rule as a young Agriculture Ministry meat inspector in the mid-70s. It required the inspectors who worked with meat workers on the slaughter chain to inspect the heads of all sheep to look for signs of disease.

Dr McKenzie knew this was unnecessary because there were no signs of disease on a head that couldn't already be seen in the normal inspection of the carcass, but it was demanded by Britain as a requirement of accepting our exports.

The head had to be skinned, adding huge cost to sheep processing. Three or four extra butchers had to be employed on each chain, as well as one extra meat inspector. Ten years later he was in a position to do something about it.

He convinced the meat companies to run trials. In one day 325,000 animals were killed. No signs of disease were found on the heads that were not already uncovered by inspection of the rest of the carcass.

He presented the results to the British authorities and they agreed to change the rules.

It meant the loss of up to 500 seasonal jobs, but the industry estimated its savings at $10 million-$12m a year.

He went to the European Union headquarters and argued that many of the rules didn't make sense in the New Zealand context. "They asked me to list them. Three days later I came back with 200 examples. When I flopped this on the table, they said `Ah jeez, this is a bit hard'."

The result was an "equivalency" agreement between Europe and New Zealand.
"That agrees there's a bunch of basic things you need to do to make a difference to public and animal health, but there's also others that are just good meat manufacturing and hygiene practice and they can vary," he says.

"Since then our relationship has gone along really well."

The agreement cleared the way for trade and was used as a template by the United States and Canada.

Crucial to the ongoing success of the agreement, and those that followed, has been New Zealand's reputation for integrity and honesty in international trade.
"We've been scrupulously honest and people can rely on our word," Dr McKenzie says.

"And we're pretty good thinkers – putting new ideas on the table, and taking a lot of their ideas, building on them, trialling them, modifying them and feeding them back into the system."

That they are, as Katie has just returned from a year working with NZFSA, helping develop a national restaurant inspection disclosure system.

Car time used to be the best thinking time for me. While living in Guelph and working on my MSc I’d drive semi-weekly to the greenhouse vegetable capital of North America, Leamington, Ontario (that’s in Canada) to do some on-farm food safety work with the industry. I’d throw some tunes on, rock out and try to get stuff straight in my head. On the drive I’d dream up my next activity or op-ed idea; between Tim Horton’s stops and refinement conversations (I had just got my first cell phone) some salient ideas might have developed.

Today I spent 15 hours in the car driving from Port Hope, Ontario (also in Canada) to Raleigh, NC with Dani and  21-month old Jack in the vehicle (which is now a family friendly minivan equipped with a DVD player). Elmo and The Wiggles DVDs (4 and 6 viewings today, respectively) have replaced rock-out-friendly tunes and phone conversations have been replaced by pointing out buses, cows, planes and boats to Jack.

Regardless, I still had some time to think about some stuff.

Coverage surrounding our food safety infosheet evaluation paper last week has been pretty decent, with pick-up from Scientific American, AP and USA Today (which Doug has already mentioned) as well as a few blogs. The focus of the paper has been represented pretty well, but there have been a few things worth clarifying and addressing.

From Scientific American:

- And recent research by food safety specialist Ben Chapman of North Carolina State University found that meals prepared in commercial kitchens have been involved in up to 70 percent of food poisoning.

Our team didn’t look at tracing where contamination happens and how many meals have led to outbreaks in the study, although we reported in the intro that up to 70% of outbreaks have been traced to meals outside of the home. We grabbed that estimate from a few sources including a combination of CDC outbreak line listing summaries and Ontario, Canada outbreak statistics. 

A limitation of the data is that it is an estimate derived only from confirmed outbreaks, which are usually reported by year. We saw estimates as low as 14% (Lee, M., and D. Middleton. 2003. Enteric illness in Ontario, Canada, from 1997 to 2001. J. Food Prot. 66:953–961. ) and as high as 83% for one year. We settled on up to 70% after looking at all the papers and eliminating/combining sources with assumptions and averaging outbreaks data out over a 5-year timeframe.

Casey and Doug tackled this question in a much more succinct way in a Foodborne Pathogens and Disease paper last year (Where Does Foodborne Illness Happen—in the Home, at Foodservice, or Elsewhere—and Does It Matter?):  Current surveillance systems focus on the place where food is consumed rather than the point where food is contaminated. Rather than focusing on the location of consumption—and blaming consumers and others—analysis of the steps leading to foodborne illness should center on the causes of contamination in a complex farm-to-fork food safety system.

Colin Caywood at Marler Clark’s Food Poisoning Journal used the paper to make the point that cross-contamination in restaurant kitchens can magnify the impact of an outbreak:

With that in mind, a recent article by Nicole Norfleet caught my attention for its insight into the way that outbreaks such as Subway's can be made exponentially worse by poor food safety practices at the restaurant…. Among the risky behaviors cited were workers using aprons and other garments to dry hands, as well as using the same utensils and surfaces to prepare both raw and cooked foods.

I definitely agree with cross-contamination making things worse, but I’m not sure if the current Subway-linked outbreak, where illnesses have been associated with food at 46 outlets, making it appear to be a common supplier source is the best example. Several foodhandlers testing positive for Salmonella serotype Hvittingfoss is beginning to look like the 2009 Fat Duck outbreak.

From The AP story:

Joan McGlockton, a food policy representative for the National Restaurant Association, was cited as saying that while the study is disconcerting, the association doesn't feel it is representative of the entire restaurant industry.

Yeah, I agree and the study wasn’t built to allow for generalizations. Our aim was to evaluate the efficacy of the infosheets as a behavior-changing intervention. While we were also able to gain some data that can be used in risk assessments, it has to be used carefully with realistic assumptions, because it’s the only video data set out there. Based on the time, effort and resources committed by the company we worked with, what we saw might represent the best practices out there. But maybe it doesn’t. We’re both guessing and if the NRA has some behavior data that we can compare our findings to that would be great.

I'm back in NC and starting a couple of new projects with the NC State team (Audrey Kreske and Allison Smathers) over the next week, further measuring what people actually do when it comes to food safety. More on these as data starts rolling in.

Tomorrow’s USA Today asks, should restaurants make health inspection grades visible?

Yes.

And we’re looking at trying to make such disclosure more effective, efficient and fair.

Robert Pestronk, executive director of the National Association of County and City Health Officials, told USA Today a growing number of health departments across the U.S. are initiating programs aimed at improving the transparency of restaurant inspections, and that many health departments are putting information online, and others are placing scores — in the form of letter grades, numerical scores or color-coded decals — in plain sight at restaurants.

The story also cites a study in June's Journal of Food Protection which suggests cross-contamination violations — which can lead to illnesses — may be more widespread than previously thought, and they may occur more frequently during peak hours.

Researchers from North Carolina State University used video cameras to monitor 47 food handlers at eight volunteering kitchens and found that the workers committed an average of one cross-contamination violation an hour.

"It really changes how we think about training," says Ben Chapman, the lead author of the study and assistant professor and food safety specialist in the Department of 4-H Youth Development and Family & Consumer Sciences at NCSU. Researchers from Kansas State University and the University of Guelph in Ontario co-wrote the study.

I’m not sure what that study had to do with disclosure, but we have other projects which are directly related to disclosure.

Katie Filion, a master's student in biomedical science at Kansas State University has just returned from a year researching New Zealand's options for a national food business or restaurant hygiene grading system.

Filion said,

“No one has determined the most effective way to present inspection results to the public but a good system has several characteristics. It should have clear guidelines about what earns a good or bad grade and should communicate to diners the risk of eating at a particular restaurant."





Filion, K. and Powell, D.A. 2009. The use of restaurant inspection disclosure systems as a means of communicating food safety information. Journal of Foodservice 20: 287-297.

Abstract


The World Health Organization estimates that up to 30% of individuals in developed countries become ill from food or water each year. Up to 70% of these illnesses are estimated to be linked to food prepared at foodservice establishments. Consumer confidence in the safety of food prepared in restaurants is fragile, varying significantly from year to year, with many consumers attributing foodborne illness to foodservice. One of the key drivers of restaurant choice is consumer perception of the hygiene of a restaurant. Restaurant hygiene information is something consumers desire, and when available, may use to make dining decisions.
 

There aren’t a lot of blue foods.

There was blue string soup in that Bridget Jones movie.

Food safety police in northern Italy seized a batch of 70,000 mozzarella cheeses that turned blue once they were removed from their packaging.

The agriculture ministry announced emergency control measures on the cheese, which was made in Germany for an Italian company that sold it to discount supermarkets in the north of the country.

The cool part is that a consumer alerted authorities in Turin by sending images from her mobile phone of the soft, white cheese immediately turning blue once it came into contact with air.

Those mobile image devices are everywhere and some people know how to use them (not me). So use them when food appears shoddy.

The name of the discount chain that sold the cheese was not disclosed, because it had "managed the situation well" and immediately removed the cheese in question from its shelves, a police statement said.

Managed it well after their cheese was fingered by a consumer with a camera?

The source of last month’s outbreak of an intestinal parasite at a charity food event in Sarnia (Ontario, Canada) remains a mystery.

Public health officials questioned 286 of the more than 300 people who attended the Chef’s Challenge and found 206 became ill, said Andrew Taylor, Lambton County’s general manager of public health services.

Taylor said they also spoke with the event’s caterers and tested food samples.

“We were awaiting lab results until the end of last week and we were hoping that would be the home run,” he said, adding the results weren’t conclusive.

“The perfect investigation is where there’s illness, you identify the parasite at the source of the illness and then you link it to the food,” he said. “We have everything except the link to the food.”

Cyclospora is usually found in imported produce and contaminated irrigation water is often to blame, Taylor said.

A barfblog.com reader previously noted cyclospora is more of an environmental contamination issue than a hygiene issue. If the suspect food was something like raspberries, they are difficult to wash; basil or lettuces may be easier to wash but have a very large surface area and cyclospora is very very sticky. As with many other fresh produce outbreaks prevention on the farm is the best way to reduce risk.
 

The Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA) and Asian Food Imports are warning the public not to consume Green Cardamon described below because these products may be contaminated with Salmonella.

The following Green Cardamon packages, sold between January and March 2010 at Asian Food Imports store located at 275 Wyandotte Street West in Windsor, Ontario are affected by this alert. Green Cardamon is a product of Guatemala.

Product / Size / UPC
Green Cardamon / 100 g / 0 59011 41301 9
Green Cardamon / 200 g / 0 59011 41302 6
Green Cardamon / 400 g / 0 59011 41303 3

There have been no reported illnesses associated with the consumption of these products.
 

People like pretty pictures. That’s the conclusion of a new abstract in the journal Risk Analysis (it’s below).

But I prefer Colbert’s interpretation of risk communication on his show last night.

Understanding the positive effects of graphical risk information on comprehension: Measuring attention directed to written, tabular, and graphical risk information
17.jun.10
Risk Analysis
Chris M. R. Smerecnik, Ilse Mesters, Loes T. E. Kessels, Robert A. C. Ruiter, Nanne K. de Vries, and Hein de Vries
http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/journal/123534228/abstract
ABSTRACT
Risk communications are an integral aspect of health education and promotion. However, the commonly used textual risk information is relatively difficult to understand for the average recipient. Consequently, researchers and health promoters have started to focus on so-called decision aids, such as tables and graphs. Although tabular and graphical risk information more effectively communicate risks than textual risk information, the cognitive mechanisms responsible for this enhancement are unclear. This study aimed to examine two possible mechanisms (i.e., cognitive workload and attention). Cognitive workload (mean pupil size and peak pupil dilation) and attention directed to the risk information (viewing time, number of eye fixations, and eye fixation durations) were both measured in a between-subjects experimental design. The results suggest that graphical risk information facilitates comprehension of that information because it attracts and holds attention for a longer period of time than textual risk information. Graphs are thus a valuable asset to risk communication practice for two reasons: first, they tend to attract attention and, second, when attended to, they elicit information extraction with relatively little cognitive effort, and finally result in better comprehension.
 

The Marie Callender's brand of frozen food seems to be regarded as a little more upscale.

But they can still get poop in their products.

ConAgra is recalling the always classy, Cheesy Chicken and Rice frozen meals, as announced by the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS).

That’s because 29 people in 14 U.S. states have been diagnosed with Salmonella Chester over the past couple of months.

Maybe all the sick people independently left the products out for a couple of days, let the cats poop on the counter, and didn’t shower for a week.

Because that is what USDA is saying with its paternalistic reminders for consumers to be the most skilled line of food safety defense.

Maybe consumers should don scuba gear and plug the Gulf oil spoil themselves, or if only consumers took more precautions, bad things wouldn’t happen.

While the recalled products should be safely discarded and not consumed, FSIS would also remind consumers how to safely prepare other, non-recalled frozen entrees. FSIS strongly urges consumers to always follow all cooking and preparation instructions on the label. Special attention to proper heating is important to ensure the entrees are fully cooked and all ingredients reach a safe minimum internal temperature of 165°F. Consumers should use a food thermometer to make sure the entrees reach at least 165°F.

These things are frozen products; people pop them in the microwave or cook them in any variety of ways, as we laid out in our peer-reviewed research paper last year, I’ve spoken with ConAgra, I gave a talk from New Zealand (while nude, in bed) for ConAgra’s science board, but they still want to blame consumers for frozen product.

So this multi-billion dollar company gets a bunch of sick people related to their product produced with the highest safety standards, and they tell consumers, do better.

Hopeless. And sorta gross.
 

Food porn was on the menu last night as the new season of Top Chef kicked off. That’s me watching for about 30 seconds (right, not exactly as shown).

Earlier in the day I got a press release about the Grilled Australian Lamb Burger with Brie Cheese, Cranberry Compote and Roasted Jalapeno Aioli, “America’s new favorite upscale burger” created by Anthony Jacquet, executive chef of The Whisper Lounge in L.A. (left, exactly as shown).

The burger won the “Make Australian Lamb America’s New Favorite Burger” contest, sponsored by Plate Magazine and Meat & Livestock Australia.

The cooking constructions state:

To prepare burgers, place patties on hot grill. Cook for 2 minutes and then turn a quarter turn and cook for another 2 minutes. Flip burger and cook another 2 minutes. Turn a quarter turn and cook another 2 minutes. Add brie cheese and cover with a stainless steel mixing bowl for another minute. Pull burgers off of grill and let rest. They should be medium rare.

I don’t know what medium rare is. If Australia wants to increase consumption of lamb burgers, require clear cooking instructions, like using a tip-sensitive digital thermometer to ensure the burger reaches 160F so people won’t barf and consumption of lamb doesn’t plummet.

Susan Burton of Slate Magazine required almost 2,000 words yesterday to say she likes meat – well-done – and that she hates the food thermometer.

I honed in on the modern American history of doneness, in large part because it can be tracked precisely—thanks to the meat thermometer. This early-20th-century invention brought about a giant cultural shift: the reliance on a gadget—rather than instinct, or experience—to assess our meat. The thermometer was promoted to home cooks as a tool of scientific precision. It was also an instrument of relaxation, something that freed you from worrying about misjudging the meat: "A roast thermometer makes for carefree roasting," advised the 1959 edition of Fannie Farmer's famous tome. By midcentury, temperature measurements were a common feature of cookbooks.

Our standards for doneness changed rapidly when, thanks to Claiborne, Julia Child, and others, we discovered, and began to venerate, cooking methods that originated abroad. Once American palates adjusted to the European style of underdone meat, guidelines fell even further. (Child's leg of lamb: rare at 140 in 1961; 125 in 1979.) Times writer Florence Fabricant took note of this development in a 1982 article called "A Trend Toward 'Less Well Done.' " Fabricant called overcooking "a tradition in this country" and attributed the change to the influence of "Oriental" and "French nouvelle" cuisines. She also connected the trend to the then-new vogues for crisp-tender vegetables and for raw foods, like sushi. But eating rare meat wasn't simply a matter of evolving taste. It was a means of signaling something about yourself, an ethos. When Fabricant's article was published, serving your guests rare meat showed you were sophisticated.

These days, it shows you're cool. (Look no further than the title of Bourdain's forthcoming bad-ass memoir: Medium Raw: A Bloody Valentine to the World of Food and the People Who Cook.)

Somehow, author Burton manages to simultaneously trash the precision of a meat thermometer and propagate food safety myths about so-called factory farming.

She’s so cool, she likes food well-done and doesn’t need a thermometer.

I’ll continue to stick it in.

Nikki Marcotte, a new student, tries out her translation skills on a piece from French food safety blogger, Albert Amgar.

In Conseil National de l’Alimentation’s newsletter No. 13, dated June 11, 2010, we learn about health safety: an increased effort between the three unions of the Groupement National de la Restauration.

“Given the issues with health safety and nutrition in the catering business, these three entities (the National Institutional Restaurant Services Union, the National Fast-Food and Food Union, the National Union of Themed and Commercial Restaurants, all three members of the GNR) have decided to combine forces and work together on these common problems. Three work groups have been created, each with two representatives from each syndicate, all experts in issues of ‘hygiene’, ‘nutrition’ and ‘quality’.”

One of the work groups has devoted their time to food safety. What is their objective?

The goal of the work group, in regard to regulatory requirements and their recent developments, is to pool together technical skills and the scientific expertise required to validate certain methods of disease control common to various restaurant activities: time-temperature combinations/storage temperatures of foods in certain conditions, microbiological monitoring methods…

According to the Ministry of Agriculture, “Industrial and restaurant catering is comprised of commercial food services (approximately 15% of meals served) and collective food services (85% of meals served). The latter represents close to 4 billion meals.”

Collective food service professionals contribute to three different areas: education (school catering, 1 billion meals, and university catering), health and social services (hospital, nursing home and prison catering), and the workforce (business and administrative catering). Likewise, process hygiene criteria have been implemented.

The ministry also tells us that there are more than “…30,000 inspections conducted annually in the three large collective food service sectors, including nearly 13,000 in the school catering area. In particular, these checks are aimed at ensuring:
- good food preparation practices (in terms of the hygiene and handling of the equipment), transport and storage (with respect to the hygiene and handling of the equipment);
- the cold chain;
- the recommendations concerning the use of pasteurized eggs to prevent foodborne illnesses associated with salmonella.”

“More than 30,000 inspections…” of which we know nothing about, not even one annual statistic… (transparency, where are you?).

This blog, which is always ready to help food service professionals with these excellent initiatives, wishes to make a contribution with this recent publication from the barfblog team, see, “Food safety information posted in restaurant kitchens can improve meal safety.” Source: Chapman, Benjamin; Eversley, Tiffany; Fillion, Katie; MacLaurin, Tanya; Powell, Douglas. Assessment of Food Safety Practices of Food Service Food Handlers (Risk Assessment Data): Testing a Communication Intervention (Evaluation of Tools). Journal of Food Protection®, Volume 73, Number 6, June 2010, pp. 1101-1107(7).

This blog could also suggest to the Ministry of Food less opacity in these inspections so that the consumer is fully informed, and to maybe also think about the scoring system or grades on the doors of restaurants or to start slowly putting the inspection results online. Also look at the “smiley” example in Belgium (above right).
 

The New York City Health Department published its new restaurant letter-grading rules Tuesday so next month, for the first time, signs bearing A, B or C ratings will be issued to the city’s more than 24,000 restaurants to publicly announce their cleanliness.

The 8-by-10-inch placards are to be dated, and operators will be compelled to post them in windows or restaurant vestibules, making customers aware of inspectors’ ratings that were previously available only at the health department or on its Web site.

The department offered details of a fourth grading sign that diners will soon be seeing — the black-and-white “grade pending” placard. After an initial inspection, if a restaurant is given a B or C, it can publicly post those grades — or the owner can seek an administrative hearing to request an upgrade. The restaurant can then post a “grade pending” sign as an explanation to diners for the absence of a letter grade in the restaurant.

The new rules are available online at nyc.gov/health.

Dr. Thomas Farley, the health commissioner, said during a press conference Tuesday, June 15, 2010

“We hope that when people are making choices where to eat, they will eat at an A restaurant.” The restaurant industry “has often made dire predictions,” including when the city banned smoking in bars and restaurants and required calorie counts be posted at many eating places. “And none of those predictions came true.”

Like in Toronto eight years ago, where a red, yellow, green restaurant inspection disclosure system was implemented. Same thing is being said in London, Ontario, as the city contemplates a similar red, yellow, green disclosure system.

Todd Lewis, a Smoke’s Poutinerie diner, said seeing a yellow sign would make him think twice about eating at a restaurant, but he would want to know what the exact infraction is before making a final decision.

But some patrons think the signs are unnecessary and can at times be misleading.

Meagan Zettler, a regular at Yo-Yo’s Frozen Yogurt, said diners concerned about a restaurant’s infractions should check online to see if the eatery has any current health violations.

She thinks the signs can unnecessarily drive business away because they don’t list the exact health infractions.

For now, Londoners worried about a restaurant’s violations can visit http://inspection.healthunit.com to check it out.

Valid concerns, and the worst way to doom a disclosure system is to oversell the system, something the Washington-based Center for Science in the Public Interest does routinely, like when they said yesterday Los Angeles has been doing restaurant grading for over 10 years with great results—including a documented 20 percent decrease in hospitalizations due to foodborne illness.

Correlating restaurant inspection disclosure with incidence of foodborne illness is fraught with difficulties. Disclosure provides some information – and it is just a snapshot in time – but helps enhance a culture of restaurant diners that value microbiologically safe food.

Filion, K. and Powell, D.A. 2009. The use of restaurant inspection disclosure systems as a means of communicating food safety information. Journal of Foodservice 20: 287-297.



Abstract

The World Health Organization estimates that up to 30% of individuals in developed countries become ill from food or water each year. Up to 70% of these illnesses are estimated to be linked to food prepared at foodservice establishments. Consumer confidence in the safety of food prepared in restaurants is fragile, varying significantly from year to year, with many consumers attributing foodborne illness to foodservice. One of the key drivers of restaurant choice is consumer perception of the hygiene of a restaurant. Restaurant hygiene information is something consumers desire, and when available, may use to make dining decisions.
 

It’s Groundhog Day again for the Brits who once again have a report that public health types were too clueless about their jobs so a whole bunch of people became unnecessarily sick with E. coli O157.

Scotland, 1996. Wales, 2005. Now this. At least Prof. Hugh Pennington didn’t have to do the same report again.

Don’t eat poop, and if you do, make sure it’s cooked.

Raw animal feces usually are not cooked when children go play with them at petting zoos.

A report into Britain's largest outbreak of E. coli O157 at an open farm last year concluded it could have been avoided if visitors had been kept away from animal feces.

Duh.

The outbreak, which affected 93 people mostly children, was made worse by the slow reaction of health authorities before the petting farm in Surrey was closed, the investigation found.

Only 33 people would have fallen victim to the infection had authorities acted sooner, it said.

Eight of the children infected required dialysis and some have been left with permanent kidney damage. At one point during the outbreak last August and September victims were occupying all the children's acute renal support services in London.

A number of families of affected children are preparing to take legal action against the farm.

In a 250-page report, the investigation said an outbreak control team of officials from local councils, medical authorities and the Health Protection Agency (HPA) had convened "exceptionally late."

It made 43 recommendations but said it did not want to ban petting farms. It said there should be a code of practice to ensure farms kept visitors away from animal fecal matter.

In addition it said the public should be educated about the dangers of E.coli O157 and how its risks could be minimized by careful handwashing, particularly for young children.

No, no one wants to be educated, especially in British schools. But some of the government agencies and food providers could provide compelling and current, food safety information rather than the piping hot bullshit currently coming out of the U.K. Food Standards Agency and others who appear delusional about what can happen.

Again:

Eight of the children infected required dialysis and some have been left with permanent kidney damage. At one point during the outbreak last August and September victims were occupying all the children's acute renal support services in London.

Professor George Griffin, who led the investigation, said,

"This outbreak could very likely have been avoided if more attention had been given to preventing visitors being exposed to animal fecal matter. Once it had started, there is no doubt that even with prompt action this would have been a big outbreak. Nevertheless there was a lack of public health leadership by the Health Protection Agency and a missed opportunity to exercise decisive public health action and thereby restrict the size of the outbreak."
 

It was awesome when the Canadian women won ice hockey gold at the winter Olympics in Vancouver earlier this year – or for my World Cup obsessed South American students, the what Olympics? – and OK when the Canadian men won gold, but I still say Vancouver is a dump of a town. Always has been.

A new study reported by the Vancouver Sun found that failed handwashing audits for health-care facilities within the Vancouver Island Health Authority produced "disappointing" and "unacceptable" results, according to the head of patient safety.

Doctors were the worst, with a compliance rate of 18 per cent (same percentage seen in other studies).

The health authority improved over last year's scores of 15 per cent, but, considering the intensive handwashing campaign launched in the face of H1N1 influenza and the increasing number of outbreaks at various facilities, staff members need to do better, according to Dr. Martin Wale, executive medical director of quality and patient safety.

Sol Erdozain, the early-rising person who puts together the food safety news (left, pretty much as shown, without the lab rat) is a senior in psychology at Kansas State. She was born and raised in Paraguay (that's in South America, not Hawaii) and has been working with Powell and the barfblog gang for a couple of years.

Sol writes:

I don’t trust politicians. Maybe it’s because I’m from Paraguay and politicians there never look after the interests of the people they are supposed to represent.

This morning, reading an article from the Houston Chronicle, I was reminded of that distrust.

The article describes a bunch of policies that Republicans want to endorse or get rid of, among them only one addressing food safety;

“Protecting the right to access raw milk directly from the farmer.”

It stuck out for the wrong reasons.

What about protecting the right to be healthy? Especially for those who depend on others for protection, like children.

Recently, and not for the first time, raw milk has been linked to an outbreak of E. coli O157:H7 and sickened people. Among them young children, who are at most risk of developing complications from E. coli.

So, how about protecting their rights too?

It’s been almost 10 years since me and the ex-wife and the four kids got in the family van for our outsized family to drive to Atlanta for the annual meeting of what is now know as the International Association for Food Protection (that’s Carl Custer, right, going to deliver his Ivan Parkin lecture a few years later and trying to convince Randy Phebus to buy a decent bike)..

I was to give the Ivan Parkin lecture at the gala opening, and then would be supervising my kids as they grabbed as many freebies as possible when the trade show opened.

But we never made it.

We got to Detroit about 8 am on the Saturday morning after a 3-hour drive, and the kindly border guard said, sir, have you ever been arrested?

I sais yes, and said I have been in the U.S. about every other week for the previous three years, and she said , that’s nice, go on over there.

The dreaded secondary inspection.

I was subsequently informed after a couple of hours hanging out with my 5, 7, 10, 13-year-olds – and wife – that the U.S. had changed it’s border policy I would have to apply for a waiver to enter the U.S. and that would take six months.

But I’m supposed to talk in Atlanta tomorrow?

Six months.

The hungry family and I retreated to an IHOP in Windsor (that’s on the Canadian side of the U.S. border with Detroit), they ate syrupy stuff and I called IAFP leadership types in Atlanta.

We had been doing some consumer research at a farm market selling genetically engineered and conventional sweet corn and potatoes, and decided to start videotaping stuff, even though youtube.com didn’t exist and we weren’t sure what to do with the tapes. But we had bought a video recording device. So I suggested we tape the talk, e-mail it to Atlanta, and they could broadcast it.

There was no way I was getting across the border.

Because I like to be prepared, I hadn’t really done anything for this big-shot talk, so the ex-wife drove the three hours back to Guelph, I made up my talk, and Katija came over and taped me talking in my kitchen. That talk was broadcast as the Ivan Parkin lecture at the IAFP annual meeting the next night.

Now, it’s sorta routine. I’ve given at least 20 keynote speeches and presentations via programs such as Skype and iChat since 2000, using a combination of live video feeds and pre-recorded video, for crowds ranging in size from five to 800 people.

As reported in a campus publication this week,

According to Powell, there are many advantages to using this form of technology in delivering speeches, such as eliminating the costs and stresses of travel and increasing a professor's overall availability. Although, it does come with additional challenges, he said, such as the ever-present possibility of disrupted Internet feed and a lack of feedback from the audience.

"I actually find it forces me to be more creative," he said. "If you're giving a talk in person, you can tell when people are sort of zoning out or falling asleep and you can modify it. You don't get that on video because you're talking to a camera."

Powell said to help spice up the video feed he often integrates action segments into his pre-recorded speeches, for example, utilizing cooking as a form of demonstration.

Apparently Republican Minnesota governor Tim Pawlenty agrees with me, which is somewhat creepy. Pawlenty was on The Daily Show last week, and while poorly declining his presidential aspirations, said some decent stuff about education:

“For example, higher education. … Do you really think in 20 years someone’s going to put on their backpack, drive a half-hour to the University of Minnesota from the suburbs, haul their keester across campus, to sit and listen to some boring person drone on about Econ 101 or Spanish 101?

Is there another way to deliver the service other than a one-size fits all monopoly that says show up at 9 a.m on Wednesday. for Econ 101, Can’t I just pull that down on my iphone or ipad whenever the heck I feel like it and wherever I feel like it, and instead of paying thousands of dollars, can I pay $199 for iCollege instead of $0.99 for iTunes.

Pawlenty says this stuff about 5 minutes into the clip. Bricks and mortar just isn’t necessary for a lot of so-called education.

Canada is so complacent that when a leading hospital provides terrible food safety advice, no one notices.

Although Canada’s track record with ridiculous things said involving listeria is hard to match.

There’s a recall of some pre-cooked meat products going on right now. No one is apparently sick, but this is how Canada’s version of state-sponsored jazz reported the event:

CBC News says a Winnipeg food processor is recalling its pre-cooked meat products after an Alberta customer raised concerns about possible contamination with listeria bacteria.

Smith's Quality Meats, which sells in provinces from British Columbia to Ontario, has voluntarily pulled a wide variety of its products from shelves.

I’m not sure customer is the best word. Maybe the customer walked into the store with those magic I-can-see-listeria goggles.

Smith's spokesman Andy Van Patter said,

"The discovery was made on one product at one location in Alberta through testing performed by our customer. There [is] no indication that other products are affected."

Oh, Smith’s supplied the meat to someone and they tested it and got a listeria positive. Got it.

CTV News reported that people with weak immune systems, pregnant women and the elderly are most at risk from listeriosis.

Unless you’re a medical professional at Toronto’s Sick Kids Hospital, where there is no risk of listeria to pregnant women or the elderly as long as food is bought from reputable sources. Their words, not mine.
 

A report in the U.K. Times says that celebrity chef Heston Blumenthal was just 19 years old when the way he thought about food was changed for ever. Food writer Harold McGee had just published a book at a time when people thought that science had very little to do with cooking, setting Blumenthal on what was to become his mission in life - using science to create his now famous culinary masterpieces.

A little more science may have informed chef that poop happens to oyster beds, it’s a good thing to check out suppliers, and people who are sick shouldn’t be serving food – that’s how to make over 500 people sick, like your restaurant did in 2009.