14 sick with Salmonella in Colorado; beef recalled
King Soopers, Inc., a Denver, Colo., establishment, is recalling approximately 466,236 pounds of ground beef products that may be linked to an outbreak of salmonellosis, the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) announced today.
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As a result of an ongoing investigation into an outbreak of Salmonella Typhimurium DT104 associated with ground beef products, the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment (CDPHE) notified FSIS of the problem. Epidemiological investigations and a case control study conducted by CDPHE and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) determined that there is an association between the fresh ground beef products and 14 illnesses reported in Colorado. The illnesses were linked through the epidemiological investigation by their less common pulsed-field gel electrophoresis (PFGE) pattern found in PulseNet, a national network of public health and food regulatory agency laboratories coordinated by the CDC.
FSIS would like to remind consumers of the importance of following food safety guidelines when handling and preparing raw meat. Ground beef should be cooked to a safe minimum internal temperature of 160° Fahrenheit.
I would like to remind FSIS that it ain’t so easy to handle contaminated ground beef and not spread it around a home or food service kitchen.
Six children infected with E. coli in Colorado
The Mountain Mail reports that local and state medical officials Tuesday confirmed six children in Chaffee County have been infected with Escherichia coli in the incident that began earlier in July.
With the incubation period for the bacteria nearing its end, Chaffee County Public Health Nurse Susan Ellis said Tuesday no new cases have been reported since about July 14.
She said 30 people will have been tested by Friday as investigators continue to seek the source of contamination.
Ellis said DNA from stool samples is being examined at the state laboratory in Denver. DNA samples from two of the children, she said, were identified as matching.
Urban Hens promotes chicken poop for kids' gardens in Colorado
A public health student at Kansas State passed along this story from 9NEWS.com about Urban Hens, a Boulder, Colorado-based group that is working with the Children, Youth and Environments Center for Research Design at CU and a private grant to supposedly help teach sustainability to children by placing chickens near neighborhood and school gardens.
Wynn Martens, the co-founder of Urban Hens, said,
"How can you be truly sustaining and that is by reusing the waste in any system and keeping it inside the system instead of continuing to consume and throw it off. People become interested for different reasons. Some people are concerned with the humane treatment of the chickens. Other people are interested in the nutritional value. Other people really are interested in the educational component, so we want to support all those."
The children go to the Blossom Pre-School across the alley from Shawnee Gardens. Their curriculum will include responsibilities such as feeding and partly taking care of the chickens. Many of their lunch and dinner scraps will go to the chickens. The chickens' waste meanwhile will help fertilize the Shawnee Gardens garden. That garden's products will be eaten by both parties as will the eggs the chickens lay.
Wow. I thought American maternity leave policies were sorta barbaric – six weeks versus a year in Canada – but to make pre-schoolers clean up chicken shit, compost it and then make them eat the food with chicken poop. Hey, maybe I got it wrong, but there is nothing mentioned about microbial food safety in this situation, no details in the story or on the websites as to what constitutes proper composting.
Food porn over food safety. It'll be a public health person who gets to clean up the mess.
Cookie dough? Cookie dough contaminated with E. coli O157:H7?
In yet another example of different jurisdictions having different opinions about when to go public, the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment sent out a press release last night urging Coloradans not to eat raw Nestle Toll House cookie dough because of possible contamination with E. coli O157:H7.
If the link is proven, cookie dough would join a long list of foods like produce, pet food, peanut butter and pot pies that consumers really have very little control over; it's up to the producers and processors. Which makes various consumer education programs like FightBac sorta backwards. Consumers have a role in food safety, but not with this stuff.
Colorado state health officials, the CDC and several other state health departments are investigating an outbreak of E. coli O157:H7 infections.
To date, 66 cases from 28 states have been identified. Preliminary evidence from the multi-state investigation suggests that Nestle Toll House cookie dough may be the source of the outbreak, although further investigation is ongoing.
Five cases have been reported in Colorado in the following counties: Denver, Douglas (2), Jefferson and Weld. Two of the people have been hospitalized, and one has developed a severe complication called hemolytic uremic syndrome. Of the four people interviewed so far by the state health department, all had consumed the raw cookie dough during the week before they became ill.
Alicia Cronquist, the foodborne disease epidemiologist at the state health department, said,
“We can’t be certain that raw cookie dough is the source of these infections, but we are concerned enough that it might be and want consumers to be aware.”
Daniel Rifkin, Wholesale Food Program manager for the Department of Public Health and Environment’s Consumer Protection Division, said,
“Nestle is currently evaluating what actions they will take regarding their product. In the meantime, it is important that consumers do not eat or use raw Nestle Toll House cookie dough for now. If you decide to use the product, ensure that the cookies are cooked thoroughly and wash your hands well after handling the raw dough. More information will be forthcoming.”
Two heads, seven legs, mutants amongst us
About 25 years ago, my ex was working as a veterinary intern and gave me a call. She said, you have to come see this.
A calf had been born with two heads and was at the vet school in Guelph and still alive. The heads were mirror images of each other. It was sorta freaky, but then again, so is most biology.
So I wasn’t that surprised when USA Today reported yesterday that a seven-legged calf (right) had been delivered on Thursday in Colorado.
The staff at the Steamboat Veterinary Hospital said the Black Angus calf, which was delivered by Caesarean section, had two spines but one head. One leg also had two hooves.
The calf lived for only about 10 minutes.
Veterinarian Lee Meyring says the birth resulted from an incomplete splitting of the embryo into twins.
Albertsons customers face hepatitis threat
The Denver Post reports that people who have eaten store-prepared produce from an Albertsons in Littleton, Colorado, recently could face shots because a store employee has tested positive for hepatitis A.
The Tri-County Health Department said the warning applies specifically to those who have bought green onions, celery that has had the leaves trimmed, any lettuce that was not pre-bagged, any pre-cut watermelon, cantaloupe or honeydew melon.
"The employee followed good hand hygiene practices and wore gloves," said Dr. Richard L. Vogt, executive Director of Tri-County Health Department.
For more information call the health department at 303-846-2006 or Albertsons at 1-877-932-7948. Information also is available on the health department website, www.tchd.org.
One dead man, one naked man extricated from Colorado exhaust vents last week
Last Thursday morning, 49-year-old electrician Michael Goodspeed was found dead in an exhaust vent of a restaurant in Steamboat Springs, CO.
The Associated Press reports,
Goodspeed became wedged in a tapering section of the vent. The Routt County Coroner says it appears Goodspeed died of "positional asphyxiation".
Goodspeed and his coworkers were staying at the restaurant while doing work there before it officially opened. He climbed into the vent in an attempt to enter the restaurant after he was apparently locked out.
The next day, the manager of a Blackjack Pizza in Denver—about 150 miles away—discovered a younger man close to meeting the same fate.
According to the Denver Post, 21-year-old Andrew Baca was found dangling above the oven yelling, “Help me, help me,” after being stuck in a vent for five to six hours.
Firefighters were able to extricate Baca from the vent with only minor cuts and abrasions, though his clothes were removed in the rescue effort.
Police said the intruder, though lucky to be alive, was being held for investigation of burglary and criminal mischief.
The AP noted that the restaurant was closed later that day. It is unknown whether this was by order of the police force or the health department.
E. coli outbreak linked to Denver cattle show
Health officials are investigating an outbreak linked to Colorado's largest stock show after 20 people, including 17 kids, came down with E. coli O157.
Chris Urbina with Denver Public Health said a lab has confirmed 20 E. coli cases but the number is expected to grow.
The Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment said in a news release,
"While the investigation is ongoing, we suspect that these infections are linked to attending the National Western Stock Show, which was held in Denver from Jan. 10 to Jan. 25.”
Although health officials haven't pinpointed the exact cause of the E. coli, the common denominator in all the cases is the stock show, Urbina said.
Many schools and child care centers organized trips to the stock show, and many children attended with their families, so there is the potential that the number of cases could jump, health officials said.
On Wednesday, the CDPHE sent a letter to daycare centers alerting them to the outbreak and asking the staff to take special precautions.
For disease reporting or other questions please contact the CDPHE Communicable Disease program at 303-692-2700.
Don't eat (elk) poop
The same strain of E. coli O157:H7 that has sickened eight Colorado children has been found in local elk droppings, leading investigators to conclude the children acquired the E. coli from elk poop.
Illness among the children has
occurred sporadically throughout the summer and early fall, beginning in
July and most recently in late October.
"Today's lab results tell us it is very likely the children
acquired the E. coli infection from exposure to elk droppings in the
environment," said Alicia Cronquist, epidemiologist at the state
health department.
Verotoxigenic E. coli like O157:H7 occur in approximately 10 per cent of all ruminants, regardless of diet or farm conditions. They weren’t factory farmed elk.
Salmonella Saintpaul found in Colorado human and her jalapeno
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Tonight, the Laboratory Services Division of the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment has confirmed that a jalapeno pepper provided by an ill individual from Montezuma County has tested positive with the same DNA pattern of Salmonella Saintpaul-the strain that has caused a large, multistate outbreak of salmonella.The pepper was purchased at a local Wal-Mart, likely on June 24, and the individual became ill on July 4. This is the first pepper linked directly to an ill person in this outbreak.
The state health department is working with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to determine the origin of the pepper.
