What’s not to like about the Polskie Okorki?

And what about those cabbage rolls?

But with lorry salt?

Polish health authorities have ordered the withdrawal from the market of more than 230,000 kilograms (500,000 pounds) of pickles, bread and other food suspected of containing industrial salt, the latest development in a scandal raising fears about food safety.

Revelations that industrial salt was sold to food producers has prompted authorities to open a criminal investigation and arrest five people. More than 600 tests have also been carried out on food samples. The industrial salt was intended for deicing roads in winter.

With much of its territory devoted to agriculture, Poland produces everything from apples and beets to eggs and meat that gets sold to Germany and other neighboring countries.

Laboratory tests so far have found that the amounts of dioxins and heavy metals in the salt are minimal and unlikely to harm human health. Nonetheless, the Chief Sanitary Inspectorate ordered the withdrawal of suspect food as a precaution, its spokesman, Jan Bondar, said Friday.

The foods include vegetables that are preserved in salts, likes pickles and sauerkraut and beets, but also sausages and breads and other baked goods.

Even if the salt used does not contain anything harmful, it still is not enriched with iodine, as the law requires for food, said the inspectorate, which is a state body responsible for food safety and other public health matters.

The food producers that used the questionable salt have been told not to let the foods leave their warehouses.

Agriculture Minister Marek Sawicki said he was worried that the scandal — which has received a lot of media coverage in Poland — is unfairly hurting the image of Poland's food.

When should the consuming public be informed a food may make them barf? Under what conditions should a food be recalled or pulled from commerce? What guidelines exist that can be publicly scrutinized and improved?

Another confusing chapter to the when to go public saga was added when Arizona-grown lettuce was pulled from some supermarkets in late Dec. after lettuce from a nearby field tested positive for salmonella.

Mike Hornick of The Packer writes that Growers Express’ decision to pull iceberg lettuce from the market after a nearby field tested positive for salmonella appears to be an unprecedented food safety step, but many peers agreed with the company’s “abundance of caution.”

Chief executive officer Jamie Strachan said on Jan. 5, “Our response is in line with what any other responsible company would do. We have a responsibility to protect public health, and it is always better to err on the side of caution.”

The Kroger retail chain publicized the withdrawal, which led to no known illnesses, New Year’s weekend, and it was picked up in many consumer media outlets.

Joe Pezzini, chief operating officer of Castroville, Calif.-based Ocean Mist Farms and a California Leafy Greens Marketing Agreement board member, said he doesn’t remember a similar case, but details set instances apart.

“What it does speak to is the really heightened precaution companies are taking regarding any possible risk of contamination. Every business in that situation is going to have to assess that for themselves. You’d really have to know the details and come to a conclusion on what the prudent reaction is.”

Hank Giclas, senior vice president for science and technology at Western Growers, Irvine, Calif., agreed.

“It’s a hard decision to make, and to make it means they’re acting in the public interesd. There must have been compelling information to withdraw the product. If you believe there may be potential for your product to be contaminated, it’s the responsible thing to withdraw or hold it.”

“We are not immediately aware of any other farms taking this precaution, but that doesn’t mean it hasn’t happened,” said Sebastian Cianci, spokesman for the Food and Drug Administration.

People who forgot to mention they had eaten sprouts may have thrown disease trackers off the trail as they sought to trace the source of the deadly strain of E. coli that sickened more than 4,300 people and killed at least 50 in Europe this year, according to a study published in the New England Journal of Medicine.

While a definitive genetic link remains elusive, three separate lines of investigation point to sprouts as the means by which the deadly O1O4:H4 strain of the bacteria was spread, researchers led by Udo Buchholz at the Robert Koch Institute in Berlin, Germany’s disease-control agency.

Buchholz and colleagues wrote, “The one dish that frequently exposed guests to sprouts was the side salad, which contained tomatoes, cucumbers, three sorts of leaf salads, and sprouts. Sprouts may have been the ingredient that visitors recalled least in such a mixed salad.”

Buchholz and colleagues conducted three studies in parallel. The first involved asking patients hospitalized with E. coli infection about their recent food consumption, and comparing that with food eaten by uninfected people. It found that “the only significant variable was sprouts.”

The second study identified 10 groups of diners who ate at a restaurant in Luebeck between May 12 and 16. It found that among 115 people who had been served sprouts, 31 fell ill, compared with none of those who had not eaten sprouts.

The third investigation traced 41 clusters of infections to a producer in Lower Saxony, who grew sprouts from seeds that came from a “supplier X,” Buchholz and colleagues wrote, without identifying either the producer or the supplier. A European Commission task force said in July that the sprouts were probably grown from fenugreek seeds imported from Egypt in 2009. The researchers still don’t know whether the seeds were contaminated before, during or after export from Egypt.

In an accompanying editorial, Martin J. Blaser, M.D. from the Departments of Medicine and Microbiology, New York University, writes the chain of transmission appears to have begun in Egypt, with fecal contamination of fenugreek seeds by either humans or farm animals during storage or transportation, perhaps as long ago as 2009. The seeds then went to a European distributor and from there to farms in several countries. During sprout germination, bacteria multiplied and moved from farm to restaurants and consumers, as Buchholz et al. extensively detail in their study. The evidence for such a series of events is compelling, even though the organism was not identified at the earliest steps, since the trail often is cold in point-source outbreaks by the time investigators are able to conduct trace-back investigations.

German outbreak of Escherichia coli O104:H4 associated with sprouts
26.oct.11
The New England Journal of Medicine
Udo Buchholz, M.D., M.P.H., Helen Bernard, M.D., Dirk Werber, D.V.M., Merle M. Böhmer, Cornelius Remschmidt, M.D., Hendrik Wilking, D.V.M., Yvonne Deleré, M.D., Matthias an der Heiden, Ph.D., Cornelia Adlhoch, D.V.M., Johannes Dreesman, Ph.D., Joachim Ehlers, D.V.M., Steen Ethelberg, Ph.D., Mirko Faber, M.D., Christina Frank, Ph.D., Gerd Fricke, Ph.D., Matthias Greiner, D.V.M., Ph.D., Michael Höhle, Ph.D., Sofie Ivarsson, M.Sc., Uwe Jark, D.V.M., Markus Kirchner, M.D., M.P.H., Judith Koch, M.D., Gérard Krause, M.D., Ph.D., Petra Luber, Ph.D., Bettina Rosner, Ph.D., M.P.H., Klaus Stark, M.D., Ph.D., and Michael Kühne, D.V.M., Ph.D.
http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa1106482?query=featured_home
Human infection with Shiga-toxin–producing Escherichia coli is a major cause of postdiarrheal hemolytic–uremic syndrome. This life-threatening disorder, which is characterized by acute renal failure, hemolytic anemia, and thrombocytopenia, typically affects children under the age of 5 years. Shiga-toxin–producing E. coli O157 is the serogroup that is most frequently isolated from patients with the hemolytic–uremic syndrome worldwide.1
In May 2011, a large outbreak of the hemolytic–uremic syndrome associated with the rare E. coliserotype O104:H4 occurred in Germany.2-5 The main epidemiologic features were that the peak of the epidemic was reached on May 21 and May 224,5 and that the vast majority of case subjects either resided or had traveled in northern Germany. Almost all patients from other European countries or from North America had recently returned from northern Germany.2,6,7 Of the affected case subjects, 90% were adults, and more than two thirds of case subjects with the hemolytic–uremic syndrome were female.4
Early studies in Hamburg suggested that infections were probably community-acquired and were not related to food consumption in a particular restaurant. A first case–control study that was conducted on May 23 and 24 suggested that raw food items, such as tomatoes, cucumbers, or leaf salad,3 were the source of infection. The consumption of sprouts, which was previously implicated in outbreaks of Shiga-toxin–producing E. coli in the United States8 and Japan,9 was mentioned by only 25% of case subjects in exploratory interviews, so consumption of sprouts was not tested analytically.
This report describes the investigations that were conducted by the federal agencies under the auspices of the German Ministry of Health and the Ministry of Food, Agriculture, and Consumer Protection, as well as by the respective state agencies, to identify the vehicle of infection of this international outbreak.

Sanith Ourn Farm of Indiantown, Florida, is recalling Fresh Hot Basil herb because it may have the potential to be contaminated with salmonella.

The recalled Fresh Hot Basil was distributed to retailers and one wholesale location in WA, OR, and RI on August 23, 2011 and August 30, 2011. Hot Basil has a 5 day shelf life.

Three hundred and ninety pounds (390 lbs) of product was shipped in 10 lb. shipping containers marked with FLT DATE of 08/23/11 and 08/30/11. Retailers may have bundled or wrapped the hot basil in small foam trays prior to placing on retail shelves.

No illnesses have been reported to date in connection with this problem.

This issue was identified through routine sampling by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.