For the past decade fresh produce has consistently been at the top of the list of foods linked to outbreaks. Tomatoes, melons, leafy greens, fresh herbs and berries leading to illnesses all seem to make an appearance just about annually. Even though they aren't really fresh produce, low moisture seeds and have also been in the game.

When it comes to production or minimally-processed linked outbreaks (like this, this and this) water is often fingered as a contamination factor. Either irrigation, wash or rain. barfblog friends and contributors Michelle Danyluk and Linda Harris co-authored some work pointing to wet orchards (from rain, a fairly uncommon event during almond harvest season) as a potential enabler for Salmonella migration through almond hulls and shells and into the kernel (the edible part).

In the most recent issue of Journal of Food Protection, rain enthusiast Michelle is at it again, coauthoring an investigation of the ability of rain to spread Salmonella Typhimurium from plastic mulch to a tomato plant.

Dispersal of Salmonella Typhimurium by rain splash onto tomato plants

07.mar.12

Journal of Food Protection, Volume 75, Number 3, March 2012 , pp. 472-479(8)

Cevallos-Cevallos, Juan M.; Danyluk, Michelle D.; Gu, Ganyu; Vallad, Gary E.; van Bruggen, Ariena H.C.

Abstract: Outbreaks of Salmonella enterica have increasingly been associated with tomatoes and traced back to production areas, but the spread of Salmonella from a point source onto plants has not been described. Splash dispersal by rain could be one means of dissemination. Green fluorescent protein-labeled, kanamycin-resistant Salmonella enterica sv. Typhimurium dispensed on the surface of plastic mulch, organic mulch, or soil at 108 CFU/cm2 was used as the point source in the center of a rain simulator. Tomato plants in soil with and without plastic or organic mulch were placed around the point source, and rain intensities of 60 and 110 mm/h were applied for 5, 10, 20, and 30 min. Dispersal of Salmonella followed a negative exponential model with a half distance of 3 cm at 110 mm/h. Dispersed Salmonella survived for 3 days on tomato leaflets, with a total decline of 5 log and an initial decimal reduction time of 10 h. Recovery of dispersed Salmonella from plants at the maximum observed distance ranged from 3 CFU/g of leaflet after a rain episode of 110 mm/h for 10 min on soil to 117 CFU/g of leaflet on plastic mulch. Dispersal of Salmonella on plants with and without mulch was significantly enhanced by increasing rain duration from 0 to 10 min, but dispersal was reduced when rainfall duration increased from 10 to 30 min. Salmonella may be dispersed by rain to contaminate tomato plants in the field, especially during rain events of 10 min and when plastic mulch is used.

I don't read this as "don't eat tomatoes grown on plastic mulch that were rained on for 10 min" but info like this could be important to outbreak investigators trying to link an outbreak to a cadre of causative events.

Maggots, worms, metal, plastic and even a razor were just a few of the objects that horrified callers said were in their hot dogs in complaints lodged with the U.S. Department of Agriculture between 2007 and 2009.

Stephen Rex Brown of The Local East Village filed a Freedom of Information Act request in 2009 asking USDA to give up its ‘dirty-dog logs.’ The 64 case files finally came in this week, just in time for the Labor Day holiday.

One report told of a “winged insect that resembled a dragonfly inside the package of hot dogs,” and noted that the insect’s “head, eyes, and wings are visible. Insect is black in color, over 1-inch long.”

In the vast majority of cases, U.S.D.A. investigators determined that the gross-out did not indicate a pattern of neglect at the packing plant, and simply notified the company that handled the hot dog.

But on at least one occasion, even the federal officials in charge of inspecting food became the subjects of an investigation. As one document from June 13, 2008 reveals, a Food Safety Inspection Service employee bit into a rogue hot dog at an “F.S.I.S. Unity Day” cookout in Maryland.

A spokesman for the Hot Dog and Sausage Council, speaking frankly about the matter, said foreign objects in hot dogs were a very rare occurrence, especially given the roughly 20 billion wieners made every year. According to the Council, between Memorial Day and Labor Day — known as “hot dog season” within the industry — roughly 818 hot dogs are consumed every second.

People who wash their hands with contaminated soap from bulk-soap-refillable dispensers can increase the number of disease-causing microbes on their hands and may play a role in transmission of bacteria in public settings according to research published in the May issue of the journal Applied and Environmental Microbiology.

"Hand washing with soap and water is a universally accepted practice for reducing the transmission of potentially pathogenic microorganisms. However, liquid soap can become contaminated with bacteria and poses a recognized health risk in health care settings," says Carrie Zapka from GOJO Industries in Akron Ohio, the lead researcher on the study that also included scientists from BioScience Laboratories in Bozeman, Montana and the University of Arizona, Tucson.

Bulk-soap-refillable dispensers, in which new soap is poured into a dispenser, are the predominant soap dispenser type in community settings, such as public restrooms. In contrast to sealed-soap dispensers, which are refilled by inserting a new bag or cartridge of soap, they are prone to bacterial contamination and several outbreaks linked to the use of contaminated soap have already been reported in healthcare settings.

In this study Zapka and her colleagues investigated the health risk associated with the use of bulk-soap-refillable dispensers in a community setting. They found an elementary school where all 14 of the soap dispensers were already contaminated and asked students and staff to wash their hands, measuring bacteria levels before and after handwashing. They found that Gram-negative bacteria on the hands of students and staff increased 26-fold after washing with the contaminated soap.

Zapka notes that all the participants' hands were decontaminated after testing by washing with uncontaminated soap followed by hand sanitizer. At the conclusion of the study, all the contaminated soap dispensers were replaced with dispensers using sealed-soap refills. After one year of use, not one of them was found to be contaminated.

A copy of the research article can be found online at http://aem.asm.org/cgi/content/full/77/9/2898.

A U.K. court was told yesterday that Wrexham librarian Karen Morrisroe (right, exactly as shown) spent three months in hospital – where she also picked up the hospital superbug, MRSA – and had been psychologically damaged as a result of E. coli O157 after eating a veggie burger and chips from the Llay Fish Bar in 2009.

Anthony Vines, prosecuting, told the court there were five primary cases of E. coli which could be linked to the takeaway, although there were secondary infections.

Council officers found pizza toppings at the takeaway covered in flies, a lack of handwashing materials and clothes in handbasins which were also put over frozen doner kebabs, and inadequate training.

Karen Morrisroe said her illness had resulted in “unbearable stomach pains,” being severely dehydrated, suffering kidney failure and a small seizure. Other victims included an 11-month-old baby, two three-year-old girls and a five-year-old child.




Mr Justice Griffith-Williams said he would sentence Ramazan Aslan, former operator of the Llay Fish Bar, next week after reading all background reports. But in granting him bail, he told him that he should not interpret that as meaning there would not be a prison sentence.