Indiana

  • Posted: February 10th, 2012 - 1:42pm by Doug Powell

    Most of the 100-plus people infected with norovirus last month had eaten at a local Subway franchise.

    The Star Press reports an investigation by the Blackford County Health Department (that’s in Indiana) was unable to determine whether a customer or an employee spread the virus, also known as a stomach bug and food poisoning.

    "We don't know how it bounced in there," said Linda Briles, an environmental health specialist at the department. "We may never know. I use the term 'bounced in there,' either www.barfblog.com/blog/152553/12/01/14/eat-fresh-90-sick-norovirus-linked-indiana-subwaywith an employee or a customer, I don't know. But it bounced in and went from there."

    She said the virus could have been spread by a customer who failed to properly wash his or her hands after using the restroom. "A customer could have left it on a door knob," Briles said. "It (transmission) is fecal-oral. Or an employee could have caused it by poor hand washing."

    An outbreak investigation report from the state department of health won't be completed for several months, spokeswoman Amanda Turney said. A state epidemiologist will conduct a "hot wash" meeting today with the county health department staff to identify lessons learned from the outbreak.

    "I want to do a final hot wash before I release my report (of the investigation to the public)," Briles said. "It should be available after I get down to the state health department and have it checked by the media (relations office)."

    Briles said tests showed that more than one Subway employee was infected with the norovirus. "They were sick the same time everyone else was," Briles said. To her knowledge, the infected employees were not sick before the outbreak.

    There has been an Indiana administrative code regulating food workers with diagnosed illnesses since 2000, but it wasn't being enforced in Indiana until 2008.

    Under the code, any food employee who is diagnosed with one of the following illnesses must be excluded from the food establishment: salmonella, shiga toxin-producing E. coli, shigella, hepatitis A or norovirus.

    From company headquarters in Milford, Conn., Subway public relations manager Kevin Kane said, "Upon learning of the norovirus investigation by the Blackford County Health Department, the franchisee in Hartford City voluntarily closed the restaurant and had an independent company come in to thoroughly clean and sanitize the restaurant. This was in addition to the stringent cleaning and sanitizing procedures practiced here on a daily basis.

    Despite hiring an independent contractor to sanitize the restaurant, Subway was cited by Briles for mold, dirty floors and other violations after re-opening.

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  • Posted: January 14th, 2012 - 11:36am by Doug Powell

    The Blackford County Health Department got Subway to close this week after many people complained of flu-like symptoms that even hospitalized some. More than 90 people were affected, according to Linda Briles, the local environmental health officer.

    The Muncie Free Press reports the confirmation of norovirus came after testing of stool samples and interviews with people who dined there. Both the Blackford County Board of Health and the Indiana Board of Health participated in the investigation.

    Briles said the contamination was traced to a human, but she could not be more specific until the state offered its report. She re-inspected the restaurant and Subway reopened Friday. That was after a week of investigation.

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  • Posted: October 28th, 2011 - 4:12am by Doug Powell

    As Indiana State Police find more shocking cases of spoiled and contaminated food heading to Indiana restaurants, 13 Investigates has discovered how food distribution companies get away with it. A six-month Eyewitness News investigation reveals the people who are supposed to be protecting you from this dangerous food have been looking the other way, putting millions of families at risk.

    Hundreds of miles from Indiana, the chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Health sits in his Capitol Hill office, shaking his head.

    "Enough is enough. I want action now!" says Joseph Pitts (R-Pennsylvania).

    Pitts comments came after he watched WTHR video showing truckloads of spoiled and dangerous food heading to Indiana restaurants and grocery stores.

    The powerful Congressman says seeing graphic video of contaminated food in transport makes him angry, but he is even more aggravated that more hasn't been done to stop it.

    Last week, Trooper David Eggers stopped a truck that was speeding near the town of Kentland in northwest Indiana. Inside the truck, he found boxes full of contaminated food.

    "Fluids from chicken and beef and pork were running onto the floor, and we found fluids from beef on vegetables," Eggers told Eyewitness News.

    WTHR was there to see the contaminated load up close. Eyewitness News cameras captured blood on the floor of the delivery truck – so much blood that it was flowing out onto the street below.

    "These boxes are soaked through from blood," complained Newton County environmental health officer Jill Johnson as she inspected the load. "There's raw meat together with vegetables – all moisture damaged – and the potential for cross contamination is very great," she said.

     

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  • Posted: September 22nd, 2011 - 2:43pm by Doug Powell

    So much for the cold-chain.

    13 Investigates – the voice of Indiana – found beef, pork, chicken, eggs, milk, and produce being transported in hot trucks that do not have proper refrigeration.

    "If it's happening here in Indiana," it's happening in Texas and North Carolina and California," said Capt. Wayne Andrews, who oversees Indiana State Police's Motor Carrier Enforcement Division. "This is not just an Indiana problem and we need to do more to address it."

    "It's just not working properly and it had approximately a 94.7 degree reading at the time of the traffic stop," explained ISP Trooper Ashley Hart, standing next to a hot truck she pulled over along Interstate 65 near Lafayette. The truck was carrying raw meat, eggs and produce from a warehouse in Chicago to restaurants in Indianapolis.

    "It's absolutely disgusting," she added.

    13 Investigates first exposed the problem in July as state police partnered with local health departments to keep spoiled food from hot trucks off Hoosier dinner plates. Since then, the danger has not gone away.

    "The problem is growing," said Andrews, whose motor carrier inspectors have found more hot trucks than they ever expected.

    Last week, on a 92-degree day, state police stopped a food truck heading northbound on Interstate 69 near Muncie. The truck's refrigeration unit was broken and inside, eggs, pork, shrimp, and fish were found to be 66 degrees. Food safety inspectors from the Delaware County Health Department say that is both dangerous and illegal.

    Indiana's effort to crack down on hot trucks is about to get some national exposure. After seeing WTHR's investigation, NBC's TODAY Show has decided to highlight this problem as a national issue. TODAY sent a crew to Indiana last week and will feature a special report on hot trucks September 22 -- this Thursday morning. You can see the report on Channel 13.

     

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  • Posted: July 31st, 2011 - 8:28am by Doug Powell

    Kalei Welch, a 5-year-old girl in Hendricks County, Indiana, has died and health officials say E. coli is to blame.

    About a week ago, she came down with flu-like symptoms.

    Her parents took her to the hospital. Kalei died Thursday.

    New reports say it's believed the little girl contracted the E. coli two weeks ago at the Hendricks County Fair.

    "The petting zoo part of a fair really can be a dangerous place because they're touching the animals," said Marc Monte, a family spokesperson. "The animals sometimes have this bacteria on them. If hands are not washed or if they depend on just the sanitizer, that can be not a good thing."

    The health department is still working to determine with more certainty where Kalei picked up the bacteria. The fairgrounds are only one possibility.

    A table of past petting zoo related outbreaks is available at http://bites.ksu.edu/petting-zoos-outbreaks.
     

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  • Posted: April 16th, 2011 - 11:52am by Doug Powell

    One of the cornerstones of ethics and social responsibility, but one that is rarely discussed, is don’t make people barf.

    With an Alanis Morissette level of ironical irony, a number of Indiana State University students and employees reported having flu-like symptoms after consuming food they ate at the April 4 Ethics and Social Responsibility Conference at ISU.

    ISU food service providers are denying that contaminated food is to blame.

    Conference attendees were served box lunches of cold cut sandwiches, a fruit cup, a pickle and a bag of potato chips.

    The Indiana Statesman contacted one of the event's Scott College of Business student organizers who was instructed not to speak on the record about reports of illness linked to the conference.

    But College of Business Associate Dean Bruce McLaren said he received reports on April 5 of attendees having become ill following the conference. McLaren said he knew of multiple students and faculty who became ill. After receiving those reports, he notified Sodexo, he said.

    According to a statement issued April 12 by Sodexo public relations director Monica Zimmer, "Sodexo was notified about alleged foodborne illness at Indiana State University. We have reviewed our procedures and are confident they are in line with our stringent food safety standards."

    "The health department completed three inspections in the Hulman Memorial Student Union this week and found no violations. In addition, Sodexo received a food safety score of 99% during a recent inspection by a third-party auditor."

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  • Posted: April 9th, 2011 - 11:56am by Doug Powell

    Pizza King has been cited by the Delaware County Health Department for nine violations of sanitation requirements related to its vacuum-packed pizzas.

    Two of the violations relate to the lack of a hazard analysis and critical control point (HACCP) food safety plan, which is required to prevent contamination that can lead to the growth of botulism and listeria bacteria in such packaging.

    The violations occurred March 15 at 109 E. McGalliard Road, the only Pizza King site that ships vaccum-packed pizzas, which are partially baked and then frozen, to customers around the country and to other Pizza Kings, where they are sold as take-and-bake products.

    Pizza King also was cited by the health department during an inspection nearly six months ago for the lack of a HACCP plan.

    "They did in fact cite us in October (for the same violation)," said Pizza King official Jerry Riley. "They were going to, from our understanding, get back with us and show us how to do a HACCP plan, and they never did. So when we got this last one (violation), we got lined up with the federal people who inspect our commissary, and they are in the process of helping us put together the HACCP plan. So we will have it in no time at all. Keep in mind, all of the product we receive has a HACCP plan at the commissary."

    Terry Troxell, food safety coordinator for the health department, said Pizza King needs a HACCP plan not only at its commissary in Anderson but also at the store in Muncie where the vacuum-packaging, also known as "reduced oxygen packaging," actually occurs.

    "I told them I can help answer questions, but we are not in the business of making HACCP plans," Troxell said. "That's not something we do. They need to do that. We are a regulatory agency. We do inspections. They never approached me with any questions or request for assistance."

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  • Posted: October 22nd, 2009 - 3:26pm by Megan Hardigree

    The World Health Organization launched their second annual Global Handwashing Day on October 15, 2009. The purpose of the two events was to break current world record holder, Bhiddwa School Niketon of Dhaka, Bangladesh, with 1,213 participants.

    South Africa broke the current record with 1,802 Gauteng school-children participants with help from rugby hero Bryan Habana.

    But it was India that demolished the current record holder with an amazing 15,000 students from 23 schools in Chennai. The handwashing celebration was held in Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium. Students had mixed feelings about the event saying, “Our teachers insisted that we came, otherwise we would not have bothered about this” and, “we knew that we are going to be part of a record-setting event. Despite being a bit tired, we find it great to be here.”

    Congratulations, India.

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  • Posted: September 9th, 2009 - 9:21am by Doug Powell

    If the president of the newly formed Jet Airways pilots' union is to be believed, the reason for some 400 of its members falling "sick" Tuesday, perhaps, was food poisoning.

    "We are not on strike. This is an individual decision by each pilot," said Girish Kaushik, president of the National Aviators Guild, after member pilots reported sick and inconvenienced some 20,

    Asked if it was not too much of a coincidence that so many pilots reported sick at the same time, Kaushik told IANS,

    "We could all have had food poisoning. That's why we all could have become ill."

    The civil aviation ministry has taken strong exception to what it calls a "wildcat" strike.

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  • Posted: June 26th, 2009 - 1:47pm by Doug Powell

    India's security forces are planning to mix one of the world's hottest chilli powders in hand grenades to control riots and during insurgency operations in the remote northeast.

    India's defense scientists say they will replace explosives in small hand grenades with a certain variety of red chilli to immobilize a person without killing him.

    Scientists said the chilli found in the country's northeast generates so much heat it was enough to startle a person for a while when used as a weapon.

    The bhut jolokia chilli is said to generate 1,000,000 heat units on the Scoville scale -- a measure of hotness -- at least a thousand times more than a common kitchen chilli.

    The Scoville scale was named after American scientist Wilbur Scoville, the first to measure the heat component in chillies.

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