Eater reports that 60-year-old East Austin barbecue legend Sam's BBQ, Willie's Bar-B-Que and La Morenita all had their business licenses revoked as a result of Operation Meat Locker. Austin police had been working with HEB for the past three months to bust meat thieves — it's a "growing crime" in Central Texas.

Apparently thieves shove meat down their pants to sneak it out of grocery stores and "walk long distances or ride the bus" in order to sell it to restaurants.

Shockingly, investigators discovered "food safety was not a priority."

Officers posing as meat thieves approached 25 restaurants with the stolen meat, and only the three listed above went for it. Five arrests have been made. The restaurants can apply to have their permits reinstated but must remain closed until that happens.
 

WFAA reports that at least four people, including three children, become seriously ill after drinking raw milk, according to state health officials.

Mary Chiles, a 57-year-old resident of Dallas, was quoted as saying, "They said it would be a while before I got my strength back.”

Chiles said she tried the milk after a health-conscious friend told her the all-natural, unpasteurized beverage might improve her health.

State investigators have now blocked Lavon Farms in Plano, where Chiles purchased her carton, from selling raw milk until tests are complete.

Owner Todd Moore told News 8 the farm sold thousands of gallons of raw milk and never received complaints of any illness.

It wasn’t clear from initial media reports when the illnesses occurred.
 

Sometime in Jan. 2010, someone in Texas got really sick with listeria.

By mid-May, 2010, five were sick and two were dead – all from the same strain of listeria. By Oct. 20, 2010, five were sick and five had died from the same strain of listeria. Most of the listeriosis patients were elderly with serious underlying health problems, and many were hospitalized before and during the onset of their infection.

Health types said six of the 10 cases were conclusively linked to chopped celery sold by Sangar Fresh Cut Produce of San Antonio, so yesterday, the Texas Department of State Health Services ordered Sangar to stop processing food and recall all products shipped from the plant since January. The order was issued after laboratory tests of chopped celery from the plant indicated the presence of Listeria monocytogenes.

Sangar President Kenneth Sanquist Jr. took issue with the state, adding in a statement,

“The state's claim that some of our produce now fails to meet health standards directly contradicts independent testing that was conducted on the same products. This independent testing shows our produce to be absolutely safe, and we are aggressively fighting the state's erroneous findings.”

DSHS inspectors say that in the Sanger plant, they found a condensation leak above a food product area, soil on a preparation table and hand washing issues.

The recalled products – primarily cut fresh produce in sealed packages – were distributed to restaurants and institutional entities, such as hospitals and schools, and are not believed to be sold in grocery stores.

For a glimpse of the Sanger plant, see the video below from Aug. 13, 2010, when Sanquist told KENS5 TV in San Antonio there should be tougher standards in the fresh-cut industry, adding,

"All we're saying is everyone should have that standard. There is an entire process that we have to follow on a daily basis, if you miss a step or two steps or try to take a short cut...children could get very sick."

Sanquist said many businesses only require their produce company have a recall program in place and that's simply not enough prevention.
 

A bunch of us went to the Riley County Fair Sunday morning (that’s in Manhattan, Kansas) so we could wander around the animals without too many people around.

We’ve done this before, but now there are a couple of public health students interested in doing some formal work to decrease the risk of dangerous bugs passing from animals to humans, or humans to animals, so we introduced them to the petting zoo/fair concept, and the hygiene measures available.

KWTX.com reports that Derek Scott “Bubba” Kirby, 3, of Goldthwaite, Texas (above, right), has been fighting for his life for several weeks at Dell Children’s Medical Center in Austin, will be transferred Monday or Tuesday to Texas Children’s Hospital in Houston where he can receive more specialized care.

The story says that Bubba contracted E. coli from the floor of a rodeo arena after he ended up with a mouthful of dirt when he was thrown from a sheep during a mutton-busting event and then developed serious complications that caused his kidneys to shut down and led to a stroke.



In 1999, 159 people, mainly children, were sickened with E. coli O157:H7 traced to goat and sheep at the 1999 Western Fair in London, Ontario (that’s in Canada). Scott Weese, a clinical studies professor at the University of Guelph (that’s also in Canada) and colleagues reported in the July 2007 edition of Clinical Infectious Diseases that in a study of 36 petting zoos in Ontario between May and October of 2006, they observed infrequent hand washing, food sold and consumed near the animals, and children being allowed to drink bottles or suck on pacifiers in the petting area..

Weese noted that risk can be significantly reduced by locating hand-washing stations at the exit of a petting zoo, posting signs promoting good hygiene and educating people about the risks of bringing food, beverages or items that may end up in a child’s mouth into the zoo.

Such measures echo recommendations issued in 2001 by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Unfortunately these reports and recommendations do not offer advice on how to ensure that fair operators are actually doing what they are supposed to be doing.

In 2003, U.S. researchers, in a study of livestock at 29 county and 3 large state agricultural fairs, found E. coli O157:H7 in 13.8 per cent of beef cattle, 5.9 per cent of dairy cattle, 3.6 per cent of pigs, 5.2 per cent of sheep, and 2.8 per cent of goats. Over seven percent of pest fly pools also tested positive for E. coli O157:H7.

The bad bugs are there and handwashing may not be enough to get rid of them.

The E. coli O157:H7 that sickened 82 people in 2002 at the Lane County Fair in Oregon appears to have spread through the air inside the goat and sheep expo hall. In a case-controlled study, health investigators found that the percentage of sick people who washed their hands after leaving the Lane County animal barns -- 31 percent -- was only slightly lower than the percentage of healthy people who washed their hands -- 36 percent. In other words those who washed their hands were at almost the same risk of contracting E. coli, O157:H7. One child sickened at the fair, 23-month-old Carson Walter of Eugene, spent a month at Doernbecher Children's Hospital before coming home.

So, how best to motivate fair managers to provide petting zoos that are microbiologically safe? Should the urban public be allowed to interact with livestock at all? Should petting zoos be inspected, as restaurants are, and the results displayed? We’ll be looking, and hoping that Bubba improves. Bubba has his own Facebook page at http://www.facebook.com/pages/BUBBAS-ANGELS/141182275896304.

A table of petting outbreaks is available at http://bites.ksu.edu/petting-zoos-outbreaks-1988-2009.