Foodborne illness? There's an app for that. Using new methods and messages to communicate about food safety
With the expansion and ease-of-use of non-traditional, Internet-based communication tools such as Facebook, Twitter, Wikipedia, YouTube and blogs, individuals are discussing high-profile food risks .jpeg)
through various mediums. Because up to 60 per cent of adults use on online social networking site, an opportunity exists to utilize these communities to engage individuals around foodborne risks by providing information and establishing relationships tailored to specific audiences. The rapid dialogue between individuals with common food safety interests can impact belief formation and affect food decisions. Using case studies of recent outbreaks and observational studies, a catalogue of mediums and audience strategies will be presented.
Ben Chapman somehow received his PhD from the University of Guelph in 2009 under the supervision of Doug Powell. He is now an Assistant Professor and Food Safety Specialist in the Department of 4-H Youth Development and Family & Consumer Sciences at North Carolina State University, and part of NC Cooperative Extension. He will be speaking during Randy Phebus’ food science class on Friday, Nov. 13, 2009, from 12:30-1:20 in Weber 123 at Kansas State University. This talk is open to the public so any and all can attend.
For further information or to arrange a chat, contact
Dr. Douglas Powell
associate professor, food safety
dept. diagnostic medicine/pathobiology
Kansas State University
Manhattan, KS
66506
cell: 785-317-0560
fax: 785-532-4039
dpowell@ksu.edu
bites.ksu.edu
barfblog.com
Top 5 food-safety questions journalists should be asking
The editor of Nieman Watch at the Nieman Foundation for Journalism at Harvard University tracked me down in Florida a couple of weeks ago -- it's not hard, I'm always plugged in, zing -- and asked me to pen the following, which he greatly improved with some editing. Below, Powell's take on the top-5 food-safety questions journalists should be asking.
Food safety is not a trivial issue. The World Health Organization (WHO) reports that up to 30 per cent of individuals in developed countries acquire illnesses from the food and water they consume annually. Active disease surveillance by U.S., Canadian and Australian authorities suggests this estimate is accurate.
WHO has identified five factors of food handling that contribute to these illnesses: improper cooking procedures; temperature abuse during storage; lack of hygiene and sanitation by food handlers; cross-contamination between raw and fresh ready-to-eat foods; and acquiring food from unsafe sources.
There has been some excellent media coverage of microbial food safety issues since the 1993 E. coli O157:H7 outbreak linked to Jack-in-the-Box that killed four and sickened over 600; there has also been some terribly misleading coverage.
Reporters interested in covering this important story should be asking these five questions:
1. Will more government involvement mean fewer sick people?
While the Internet and the mainstream media were all excited about the potential passage of new food safety legislation by the U.S. House in early August -- it passed -- I was hanging out with some food safety dudes at Publix supermarkets HQ in Lakeland, Florida. And I saw far more in Lakeland that would impact daily food safety than anything the politicians, bureaucrats and hangers-on were talking about.
When it comes to the safety of the food supply, I generally ignore the chatter from Washington, as well as the Internet commentaries and conspiracy theories. If a legislative proposal does emerge, such as the creation of a single food inspection agency, or the bill that passed the House – and just the House – I ask, Will it actually make food safer? Will fewer people get sick?
As the Government Accountability Office pointed out in a report a year ago, “The burden for food safety in most … countries lies primarily with food producers, rather than with inspectors, although inspectors play an active role in overseeing compliance. This principle applies to both domestic and imported products.”
Publix, with over 1,000 supermarkets, its own processing plants, and thousands of food products moving through its shelves, can’t afford the luxury of chatter. After a visit to headquarters in Lakeland, Fla., I went to the local Publix in St. Petersburg Beach to verify what I’d heard at HQ. Sure, the bosses know food safety, but do the front-line staff?
I ordered some shaved smoked turkey breast from the deli, and the sealable bag the meat was delivered in bore the following message:
“The Publix Deli is committed to the highest quality fresh cold cuts & cheeses; Therefore we recommend all cold cuts are best if used within three days of purchase; And all cheese items are best if used within four days of purchase.”
This was the first time I’d seen a retailer provide information to consumers on the accurate shelf-life of sliced deli meats. It didn’t require Congressional hearings; it didn’t require some hopelessly-flawed consumer education campaign; it required the company’s food safety officials to say, this is important, let’s do it.
Same thing with fresh fruits and vegetables -- the leading cause of foodborne illness in the U.S. for the past decade.
Late last month, U.S. regulators announced plans to strengthen safety protocols for fresh fruits and vegetables -- except those plans are simply extensions of plans published by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration in 1998. Plans and guidelines don’t make food safe: people do.
It’s nice that food safety is once again a priority in Washington and that politicians are trying to set a tone. But chatting doesn’t mean fewer sick people -- actions do.
Journalists can hold politicians, producers and industry accountable. There are lots of plans and proposals, but will any of them translate into fewer sick people?
2. Is local/natural/sustainable/organic/raw food really any better than other types of food?
A U.S. government extension agent with a PhD and at a prominent university e-mailed the other day to ask if I had any data on foodborne illness from farmers’ markets because she was preparing for a presentation and was, “trying to make the case that there are very few cases of foodborne illness from local foods relative to our globally based food system.”
But the idea that food grown and consumed locally is somehow safer than other food, either because it contacts fewer hands or any outbreaks would be contained, is the product of wishful thinking.
Barry Estabrook of Gourmet magazine recently invoked the local-is-pure fantasy, writing: “There is no doubt that our food-safety system is broken. But with the vast majority of disease outbreaks coming from industrial-scale operations, legislators should have fixed the problems there instead of targeting small, local businesses that were never part of the problem in the first place.”
But whenever you hear someone say there’s “no doubt” in this field, you should be filled with doubt. Foodborne illnesses are vastly underreported. Someone has to get sick enough to go to a doctor, the doctor has to be bright enough to order the right test, the state has to have the known foodborne illnesses listed as reportable diseases, and so on. For every known case of foodborne illness, there are an estimated 10 to 300 other cases, depending on the severity of the bug. Most foodborne illness is never detected. It’s almost never the last meal someone ate, or whatever other mythologies are out there. A stool sample linked with some epidemiology or food testing is required to make associations with specific foods.
Maybe the vast majority of foodborne outbreaks come from industrial-scale operations because the vast majority of food and meals is consumed from industrial-scale operations. To accurately compare local and other food, a database would have to somehow be constructed so that a comparison of illnesses on a per capita meal or even ingredient basis could be made.
Then there are the whoppers that are repeated daily, somewhere, like this one by raw milk advocate Sally Fallon, who said, “Raw milk is like a magic food for children. … Without the green grass, you're missing a lot of vitamins. Also, it's much safer. When cows are eating green grass, you don't find pathogens in their milk.”
With such statements, public advocacy becomes public health risk.
The natural reservoir for E. coli O157:H7 and other verotoxigenic E. coli is the intestines of all ruminants, including cattle -- grass or grain-fed -- sheep, goats, deer and the like. The final report of the fall 2006 spinach outbreak identifies nearby grass-fed beef cattle as the likely source of the E. coli O157:H7 that sickened 200 and killed four.
A table of raw dairy outbreaks is available at http://www.foodsafety.ksu.edu/articles/384/RawMilkOutbreakTable.pdf. Kids are often the ones that get sick.
And be wary of claims that food is local.
3. Is that food safety advice really accurate?
Everyone eats, so everyone’s an expert when it comes to food. Food, Inc. may be a popular movie among the foodies, but has some terrible food safety advice. Microorganisms that make people sick exist in whatever kind of food production and distribution system we smart humans come up with. But government, industry and academic advice can often be of limited use -- or wrong. Do people really need to wash their hands for 20 seconds -- or will 10 seconds suffice? It will. Does the water have to be warm? No. Are paper towels better than blow driers at removing pathogens? Yes, it’s the friction that counts. Food safety types argue about these things all the time. If someone says, “food safety is simple, just follow this advice,” don’t believe it. Question everything.
4. With all of the attention, resources and talk, why hasn't there been a reduction in the estimated incidence of foodborne illnesses in the past five years?
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control reported in April 2008 that foodborne illness remains a significant public health issue in the U.S., with Salmonella infections increasingly problematic: “Although significant declines in the incidence of certain foodborne pathogens have occurred since 1996, these declines all occurred before 2004,” the CDC reported.
“Outbreaks caused by contaminated peanut butter, frozen pot pies, and a puffed vegetable snack in 2007 underscore the need to prevent contamination of commercially produced products. The outbreak associated with turtle exposure highlights the importance of animals as a nonfood source of human infections. To reduce the incidence of Salmonella infections, concerted efforts are needed throughout the food supply chain, from farm to processing plant to kitchen.”
The CDC data show existing efforts to reduce foodborne illness have stalled. Signs stating “Employees must wash hands” may not be the most effective way to compel good food safety behavior. New messages using new media should be explored to really create a culture that values microbiologically safe food.
5. Why don’t producers, processors, and retailers market microbial food safety directly to consumers?
There’s lots of marketing of food safety, but it is done indirectly. One of the reasons people buy organic/natural/local/whatever is they perceive such food to be safer -- in the absence of any microbiological data. Grocery stores say all food is safe, yet the weekly outbreaks of foodborne illness -- the ones that consumers hear about -- suggest otherwise. The best farms, processors, retailers and restaurants should brag about their microbial food safety efforts and accomplishments. With so many sick people each year, there’s an attentive audience out there.
Dr. Douglas Powell is an associate professor of food safety at Kansas State University. He also runs barfblog.com, a blog about food safety.
Do Master Gardeners know food safety?
This is why we go to Florida in summer. The heat and humidity – especially this year – is ridiculous in Kansas and the closest beach may as well be Florida.
.jpg)
Amy, Sorenne and I wandered the grounds earlier this evening to view the overgrowth, eat a few fresh blackberries, let the dogs tear around the yard and for me to once again observe how much I suck at gardening. I’m better at taking care of the seven-month-old.
Maybe I need to call one of them there U.S. Department of Agriculture Master Gardeners, a cadre of volunteers who provide free gardening tips and have a wealth of science-based research to answer questions
USDA Secretary Tom Vilsack, said the other day,
“Growing fruits and vegetables in your own garden not only promotes a healthier lifestyle, but helps communities develop a safe, nutritious and sustainable source of food."
Safety is one of those words that gets thrown around a lot, like sustainable. I didn’t see anything about microbial food safety in this release, nor have I seen any evidence that local is safer, more nutritious or more sustainable. It’s a fun hobby. But as Vilsack should know, farming isn’t a hobby, it’s a skill. Society needs professional farmers. And parents.
Backyard bacteria and consumers: use a thermometer
I’m really proud of the folks who contribute to barfblog and bites.ksu.edu.
This morning, I wrote all the contributors from yesterday and said, I’m really proud, or good job, or something like that. The mixture of food safety content and personal experience on barfblog.com was excellent yesterday.
.jpg)
Debora MacKenzie at New Scientist magazine seems to have noticed as well, and writes in a blog piece this evening,
Doug Powell food safety expert at Kansas State University and editor of the excellent barfblog says that the only way to ensure the safety of ground burgers is to use a tip-sensitive digital thermometer to make sure the whole patty has reached the 71 ˚C (160 ˚F) needed to kill E. coli.
Like I said, I’m proud to have a lot of smart folks around me.
Waste not, want not: food safety, discarding food, and tough times
Whenever I think of leftover pizza, I recall my teenage years listening to Rolling Stones on vinyl at George’s apartment, I wonder whatever happened to that stray puppy one of the visitors brought home until the fleas were discovered, and I wonder how long the pizza would be good. I’ve probably eaten pieces of pizza that spent the night on the turntable.
.jpg)
So when Susan Reef, president of US Food Safety Corp., says eating pizza that has spent a few hours at room temperature is a no-no, I sorta scoff (low water activity, no epidemiological history of outbreaks from morning-after pizza consumption, she probably doesn’t like the Stones).
Kim Painter reports in USA Today tomorrow that if Maribel Alonso, a food safety specialist at the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Meat and Poultry Hotline, brings home a broken egg, she discards it.
Doug Powell, a food safety person at Kansas State University, says he would cook with the egg, probably into a batch of pancakes, adding,
"It's just messy, but if it's been kept cold, it should be OK.”
(Messy means, be careful of cross-contamination).
Doug dreams about flaming turtles
I’ve taken to going to sleep about 10 p.m. and getting up about 4 a.m. That means Amy stays up later, feeds Sorenne a couple of more times, and apparently gets to listen to me babble in my sleep.
This is nothing new. I’ve given entire lectures in my sleep – and I’m just talking about with Amy, not classrooms.
I’ve written about the trauma of only having turtles as pets while growing up. And the recent story in the Baltimore Sun and the terrible response about how those tiny turtles are OK as long as little kids don’t put the entire turtle in their mouths apparently triggered some sort of response.
"I'm supposed to kill 6 of those f***ing flaming turtles"
Amy says she laughed, Doug started laughing, then said, "See, I'm wasting my resources when I'm not doing what I'm supposed to."
Amy, who likes to ask questions when I talk in my sleep, says,
"What are you supposed to be doing?"
"Keeping those f***ing new zealanders in line."
This probably had to do with the e-mails I was sending to New Zealanders Katie and Gary before I went to sleep. Or not.
bites
bites ... it'll be here sooner than I think, but never quite fast enough
FSnet funding, format and future
I’m a writer.
And writers write.
I may be a scientist, and my group has produced some decent stuf, but really, I’m just a writer.
And writers write.
Some people shouldn’t write, like Bono of the ridiculously overrated band, U2. Bono is a terrible writer. It’s on display in last Sunday’s N.Y. Times at
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/11/opinion/11bono.html?ref=opinion
I started FSnet, the food safety news, shortly after the Jack-in-the-Box outbreak in Jan. 1993. Sure, Al Gore hadn’t invented the Internet yet, but those of us in universities had access, and I started distributing food safety stories.
It all seems sorta quaint now, what with Google alerts and blogs and RSS feeds, but my goal was straightforward: during the Jack-in-the-Box outbreak, a number of spokesthingies said, they didn’t know E. coli O157:H7 was a risk, they didn’t know that Washington State had raised its recommended final cooking temperature for ground beef, they didn’t know what was going on.
So FSnet was conceived and made widely available so that no one could legitimately say, they didn’t know.
But times have changed. You’ve probably all missed my annual PBS-like funding plea. I’m grateful for the donations, but I can sense the funding model needs to change. Last year, Seattle lawyer Bill Marler stepped up – and I’m quite grateful -- and covered the funding shortfall, but I don’t expect that to happen every year.
So, this is what I’m planning to do.
Over the next few weeks, a new web site, bites.ksu.edu will consolidate the existing food safety information resources of the International Food Safety Network – news listservs, blogs, infosheets, videos and others – and we’ll strive to become the pre-eminent daily international electronic food safety publication or portal with text, audio, video, blogs, and RSS feeds. And we’re going to sell advertizing. The bites.ksu.edu not-for-profit environment will additionally:
• provide research, educational and journalistic opportunities for secondary, undergraduate and graduate students in the multi-media electronic environment of bites.ksu.edu;
• develop, implement and evaluate a variety of food safety messages using various mediums to impact the safe-food behavior of individuals from farm-to-fork;
• provide an infrastructure to produce a series of multilingual public service announcements to further stimulate public interest in food safety and security and to raise awareness about specific emerging issues, especially during a crisis;
• host a dynamic and cross-cultural team of secondary, undergraduate and graduate students to create multilingual and multicultural food safety and security information, including weekly food safety info/tip sheets, podcasts and flash-based Internet animations and videos through bites.ksu.edu;
• provide training through a graduate emphasis in food safety, language, culture and policy (with distance education option); and,
• create employment and training opportunities for secondary, undergraduate and graduate students in conjunction with an international internship program to place students with regulatory authorities and industries who promote a food safety culture.
Should I keep the International Food Safety Network name? It’s a bit ponderous and creates confusion with the posers at the University of Guelph. bites is easier to deal with. What else should I keep or eliminate? I’m going to collapse the four listserves – FSnet, Agnet, AnimalNet and FunctinalFood Net into one daily e-publication. For those who want instant news, it will be provided through RSS feeds in the following categories. For those who can wait, a daily e-publication will be distributed, in html and text format.
The draft categories available for RSS feeds are:
E. coli
Salmonella
Listeria
Norovirus
Hepatitis A
other food safety microorganisms
restaurant inspection
handwashing
thermometers
raw – milk, juice, food
infosheets
Yuck
Food safety communication
Food safety policy
Food allergies
animal disease
plant disease
genetic engineering
functional food
pesticides
new science
I’m open to suggestions. If you feel I’m too much of an asshole to deal with, e-mail Ben at his new North Carolina State gig, benjamin_chapman@ncsu.edu, or Amy at ahubbell@ksu.edu.
For me, it’s more writing.
Cause writers write.
barfblog.com featured in Jan. Food Technology magazine
Amy is a merciless editor.
Sure, she looks all sugar and spice, cuddling with baby Sorenne (right, exactly as shown), but when it comes to words, Amy’s vicious.
I know Ben cries – silently, inside -- whenever he gets edits from Amy.
I tried to get Kansas State public relations to do a press release about the husband and wife barfbloggers, but they weren’t going for it.
Instead, they came out with this after we wrote a paper about our blogging experiences that was just published in the Jan. 2009 issue of Food Technology, the monthly magazine of the Institute of Food Technologists (the full paper is below).
K-State's Doug Powell, associate professor of diagnostic medicine and
pathobiology, is a co-author of the article "New Media for Communicating Food Safety.” In the article, Powell and the other researchers describe how methods of informing consumers must evolve to fit a new generation of food handlers.
"It is especially important to reach younger individuals, who at some point might handle food in a food service business and who get their information from nontraditional media like blogs," he said.
One such blog is Powell's barfblog.com, a site that receives more than 5,000 visitors daily. The site operates with the understanding that to compel audiences to change their food-handling behaviors, the messages should be rapid, reliable, relevant and repeated, Powell said. The blog is available at http://www.barfblog.com
The content combines pop culture references and current events with food-handling information to engage readers. The posts also combine food safety messages with personal experiences, which connect readers to the effects of foodborne illness on families and communities, he said.
"Up to 30 percent of all Americans will get sick from the food and water they consume each year. That's just way too many sick people," Powell said. "The site is all about providing information in a compelling manner, using pop culture and different languages, to ultimately have fewer sick people."
The other authors of the article include: Amy Hubbell, K-State assistant professor of modern languages; Casey Jacob, K-State research assistant in diagnostic medicine and pathobiology; and Benjamin Chapman, food safety extension specialist at North Carolina State University.
barfblog.foodsafety.ksu.edu/uploads/file/powell_newmedia.pdf
Handwashing help wanted - the Pedro version
Amy read the help wanted advert and apparently thought it was boring.
She wants a Napolean Dynamite theme.
.jpg)
So, work with me on handwashing, and all your wildest dreams will come true.
Reach for the Stars with Pedro.
Dude, wash your hands – researchers required
http://barfblog.foodsafety.ksu.edu/2008/12/articles/handwashing/dude-wash-your-hands-researchers-required/index.html
Handwashing compliance has been identified as a significant factor in reducing foodborne, hospital-acquired and other infectious disease. People say they wash their hands, but often don’t. Our goal is to develop evidence-based, culturally-sensitive messages using a variety of media to compel individuals to practice good handwashing in numerous settings, and to accurately evaluate the effectiveness of different approaches.
That’s a bunch of projects – and we’re looking for a bunch of people with diverse skills. Whatever your background, from microbiology to psychology, as long as you have excellent communication skills and can work both independently and collaboratively, we’re interested in chatting with you. Undergraduate or graduate students, if you’re interested – passionate – about compelling individuals to wash their hands and enhance public health, please contact Dr. Kate Stenske at kstenske@vet.ksu.edu, or Dr. Doug Powell at dpowell@ksu.edu.
Don’t eat poop – wash your hands.
Dude, wash your hands - researchers required
Handwashing compliance has been identified as a significant factor in reducing foodborne, hospital-acquired and other infectious disease. People say they wash their hands, but often don’t. Our goal is to develop evidence-based, culturally-sensitive messages using a variety of media to compel individuals to practice good handwashing in numerous settings, and to accurately evaluate the effectiveness of different approaches.
That’s a bunch of projects – and we’re looking for a bunch of people with diverse skills. Whatever your background, from microbiology to psychology, as long as you have excellent communication skills and can work both independently and collaboratively, we’re interested in chatting with you. Undergraduate or graduate students, if you’re interested – passionate – about compelling individuals to wash their hands and enhance public health, please contact Dr. Kate Stenske at kstenske@vet.ksu.edu, or Dr. Doug Powell at dpowell@ksu.edu.
Don’t eat poop – wash your hands.
.jpg)
Sorenne Laura Powell
I can hardly wait to lose the baby weight. Mine. I took sympathetic pregnancy a bit too far and really packed on the pounds.
But now that Sorenne has arrived, this morning, as Amy was going into week 42, I can begin my walk-around-with baby exercise regime. Weighing in at 9 lbs. 9 ounces, she’ll be a good workout. Mother and baby are fine.
You burnt the bird? A number of reasons to be thankful!
Michéle Samarya-Timm, a Health Educator for the Franklin Township Health Department in New Jersey, writes, Thanksgiving, and its hours of food prep, certainly creates a reason to appreciate sound food safety advice. After all, 3 hours seated at the dinner table should never be followed by 3 days seated on a porcelain throne.
Over the past few days, I’ve seen lots of advice to ensure a perfectly cooked (and foodsafe) thanksgiving turkey, but what if you’ve applied the cooking process a little too thoroughly?
Amending a list I found several years ago, here’s an updated version of Reasons to Be Thankful for Burning the Bird:
1. The useless pop-up timer was rendered useless.
2. Your tip sensitive digital thermometer will read at least 165F.
3. Salmonella won't be a concern.
4. Another valid reason for cooking stuffing outside the bird.
5. No one will overeat.
6. Post dinner sleepiness won’t be due to the tryptophan in turkey.
7. Uninvited guests will think twice next year.
8. Pets won't pester you for scraps.
9. The smoke alarm was due for a test.
10. Ash residue is a great motivation for handwashing.
11. Carving the bird will provide a good cardiovascular workout.
12. After dinner, the guys can take the bird to the yard and play football.
13. The less turkey Uncle George eats, the less likely he will be to walk around with his pants unbuttoned.
14. You'll get to the desserts quicker.
15. No arguments about throwing out turkey leftovers.
16. Next year you’ll pay closer attention to Doug Powell’s Canadian Thanksgiving food prep video.
Enjoy your holidays. And wash your hands!
Course announcement: Food Safety Reporting
Food safety reporting will provide students the opportunity to develop news, feature and opinion stories for a variety of media, as well as blog posts and video. Students will receive extensive feedback from several instructors and will have the opportunity to interact with food reporters at national newspapers. Individual pieces will be published through a daily e-publication. Students will have at their availability Apple computers, digital cameras, a high-definition digital recorder, microphone and tripod.
This 3-credit hour course at Kansas State University is offered through the Department of Journalism and Mass Communications, and listed as MC 690 Section C. Class meetings are scheduled for Wednesdays at 5:30 p.m.
The instructor:
Dr. Doug Powell is an associate professor of food safety in the department of diagnostic medicine/pathobiology at Kansas State University who has also worked as a journalist since 1987,when he was the editor-in-chief of the University of Guelph student newspaper, The Ontarian, in Canada. He has, and continues, to write for prominent newspapers in Canada, U.S. and Australia, including the N.Y. Times, the Globe and Mail and the National Post.
Graduate students may also take this class with the approval from Dr. Powell for 3 credit hours.
dpowell@ksu.edu
foodsafety.ksu.edu
barfblog.com
youtube.com/SafeFoodCafe
More listeria revelations: CFIA waited (at least) 5 days to issue advisory, policy on going public seems to suck
Toronto’s Globe and Mail newspaper reported Saturday that health officials in Ontario ordered hospitals and nursing homes to stop serving Maple Leaf meats five days before the public was told about a deadly source of food poisoning that has so far claimed 19 lives and left another 60 people seriously ill across Canada.
.jpg)
The CFIA launched its investigation on Aug. 6, after officials at the Ontario Ministry of Health informed it that there was an outbreak of listeriosis in the province. Many local health officials were already grappling with a spike in listeriosis cases, but they did not become aware that the outbreak spanned several provinces until July 30, when they received a directive from the ministry, telling them to urgently report any new cases.
On Aug. 14, health officials in Ontario learned during a telephone conference call with the CFIA that the agency had some test results revealing that Maple Leaf deli meats contained the foodborne bacteria known as Listeria monocytogenes.
The CFIA waited until it had the DNA fingerprint evidence establishing a definitive link before it went public – on Aug. 19, 2008.
CFIA spokesman Garfield Balsom said,
“We had lab results indicating that there was positive listeria in a product and we would issue our normal recall based on that.”
So epidemiology doesn’t count? If CFIA really does not issue public advisories unless it has a positive result, that would explain the low number outbreaks linked to fresh fruits in vegetables in Canada. Who knows how many sick people there are, and how many illnesses and deaths could have been prevented in the current listeriosis outbreak.
A positive listeria sample would have triggered an immediate recall in the U.S. So what is the CFIA policy on going public – on issuing advisories that specific foods may pose an imminent danger to the health of Canadians. CFIA won’t say what their policy is, at least not publicly, but a policy that maligns epidemiology and relies excessively on positive test results – especially when those samples appear to be delivered by stagecoach – is restrictive and reckless.
As past of that accountability, I told the Toronto Star on Thursday that Canada does not need an inquiry and does not need more inspectors, rather,
"People need to do their jobs. The CFIA is accountable to Parliament through the minister of agriculture, so either the minister, or the Prime Minister's Office, should call the head of CFIA on the carpet and say, `You've had this internal report since 2005. Issue some clear guidelines on how to communicate during an outbreak of food-borne illness. Give clear instructions to inspectors and the industry on what is expected to ensure a safe food supply ... If you can't do that, I will find someone else who can – and not some political appointment, someone with a food safety background who will do what is necessary to protect the safety of the Canadian food supply and bolster the Canadian brand in international circles.'"
Such straight talk, especially when it comes to informing the public about health risks, is largely missing in Canada, experts agree.
So while the politicians and unionists pontificate, a columnist at the University of Calgary student paper got the most rightest:
"Canadians have entrusted one single agency, the CFIA, to protect the entire Canadian food supply-- we have placed all food security in one basket.
"If the CFIA did not exist, perhaps Canadians would be better off. … The current food inspection system has failed Canadians. Maybe it is time for a change."
As an aside, a columnist with the Ottawa Citizen who fancies himself as some sort of risk guru wrote Saturday that,
“Another clue lies in the number of listeriosis deaths in past years. According to Statistics Canada, there were five in 2000. In 2001, four. In 2002, seven. In 2003, three. In 2004, one. (Data for subsequent years were unavailable.) …
“The Globe also noted the Canadian regulatory standard is weaker than that of the United States, which allows no listeria content at all in ready-to-eat foods. But the Globe did not report that, according to the Centers for Disease Control, roughly 2,500 Americans become seriously ill with listeriosis each year and 500 die.
“Thus the listeriosis fatality rate is far smaller in Canada than the U.S. That, too, does not suggest a crisis.”
The columnist is comparing actual listeria cases in Canada with estimated cases in the U.S. And why no alarm that the most recent numbers in Canada are from 2004?
Canadian food safety bureaucrats still aren't that into you
If Canadian cattle or chickens get sick, the public is told all about it.
If Canadian people get sick, not so much.
.gif)
That’s what I wrote in Dec. 2006 in a piece called, Sorry, bureaucrats just aren’t that into you.
I’ve said the same thing for the past month as the listeria in Canadian cold-cuts outbreak became public. The latest figures show at least 18 dead and 60 confirmed or suspected ill.
The several-week delay in telling Canadians about listeria in Maple Leaf cold-cuts, coupled with the self-congratulatory and exceedingly false statements about the superiority of Canadian disease surveillance is just another episode in the arrogant and dysfunctional father-knows-best approach to providing health advice practiced by various Canadian authorities.
Dr. Phil would say the relationship between officials at the Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA) and the Canadian public is like a couple headed for divorce: they don't speak unless forced to, and when asked, it's denial, deceit and deception.
Rob Cribb of the Toronto Star reports today that a major review of Canada's food recall system three years ago identified serious problems that experts say continue to threaten public safety.
“Spotty inspections across the country, delays in warning the public about tainted food and a lack of follow-up to prevent repeat outbreaks are documented in the government report, obtained through access to information legislation.
(1).jpg)
The 2005 Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA) review predicts concerns that have emerged from the current Maple Leaf listeria outbreak that has claimed 18 lives.
"There is no clear policy on when a recall requires public warning," the report states.
Timely public disclosure of food risks re-emerged as an issue last month when it took three weeks for officials to warn the public of tainted Maple Leaf meat. …
In the aftermath of the outbreak, public health officials and politicians were quick to reassure Canadians that the country has one of the best food safety systems in the world. But behind the scenes, the review documents a history of serious internal concerns: "Most findings in this report have previously been identified by the various parties involved in food recalls."
The CFIA audit paints a picture of a sometimes-chaotic system where turf wars can impact the public's need to know about food warnings. …
Doug Powell, a Canadian food safety expert working at Kansas State University, said any warnings officials received from the review appear to have been ignored. "It's contentment with mediocrity. The bureaucrats don't seem to care very much. They all talk a good game, but they never think it will happen to them, so they just go on."
I can imagine Dr. Phil asking in his Texas drawl "How's that working out for ya’ll?"
The most frustrating part is that CFIA is staffed with individuals who are excellent public advocates and spokespeople. On issues relating to mad cow disease or avian influenza, CFIA goes out of its way to communicate with Canadians, perhaps fearing that any crisis of confidence will reduce sales and impact Canadian farms.
Yet when it comes to the 11 to 13 million foodborne illnesses in Canada each and every year, CFIA has adopted a policy of don't ask, don't tell.
Maybe Dr. Phil can get the public and CFIA into a relationship based on open communication, trust, and respect, but I doubt it. Time to move on.
Pot pies, pâté and pregnancy: The medium and the messages to create a food safety culture
Food safety culture will be the topic of a presentation by Kansas State University's Doug Powell as part of the K-State Department of Diagnostic Medicine and Pathobiology Seminar Series.
Powell, associate professor of diagnostic medicine and pathobiology and scientific director of the International Food Safety Network, will present "Pot pies, Pâté and Pregnancy: The Medium and the Messages to Create a Food Safety Culture" at 3:30 p.m. Thursday, Sept. 11, in the Practice Management Center on the fourth floor of K-State's Trotter hall. The seminar is free and open to the public.
Powell will provide an overview on the different mediums and messages his research team has experimented with to foster a food safety culture, from farm to fork.
"From pot pies, peanut butter, deli meats and pizza to peppers, tomatoes, spinach and more: food can make people sick -- a lot of people," Powell said. "The World Health Organization estimates that up to 30 percent of all citizens in developed and other countries will get sick from the food they consume each year.
"But statistics are easy to ignore," he said. "In the past month, a 26-year-old died and 206 were sickened with E. coli 0111 after eating in Locust Grove, Okla. Nineteen people have died and dozens sickened with listeria after eating deli meats in Canada. In a separate outbreak, at least seven pregnant women in Quebec have acquired listeria from cheese, leading to premature births and illness in their babies."
Powell said the challenge is to provide reliable and relevant information in a compelling manner to reduce the burden of foodborne illness.
Really, consumers can decide about irradiation
In between listeria interviews yesterday I spoke with Julie Schmit of USA Today about the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s approved of irradiation on spinach and lettuce to kill dangerous bacteria.
The steady pace of food-safety scares -- and growing consumer awareness of food-safety risks -- will improve consumer acceptance of irradiated greens, says Doug Powell of the International Food Safety Network at Kansas State University
."There's been enough outbreaks ... that the consumer demand should be there.”
Craig Wilson, food-safety chief for Costco, said that while a handful of companies have succeeded in selling irradiated ground beef since it hit the market in 2000, the idea has largely flopped.
"Mom wouldn't buy it.”
But I bet there are lots of moms, and dads, who want to increase their consumption of fresh fruits and vegetables without having their kids end up on the kidney transplant list. As I said before, irradiation is an additional tool that can enhance the safety of the food supply. But don’t let the technology be derailed by activists on the InterWebs. Let consumers decide.
Doug to People magazine: Follow the poop
"How cool are you? Saw you quoted in article about tomatoes in this week’s People magazine."I’m not as cool as the CDC’s Bob Tauxe, and cool may not be the word when talking about food safety nerds. But it was fun talking to the reporter, who thought the celebrity barf section of barfblog was particularly apt.
There’s been lots of media as the Salmonella saga continues to unwind: 1090 sick in 42 states and Canada. As part of enhanced testing at the U.S.-Mexican border, FDA found a different Salmonella in a shipment of basil. More poop in produce.
Sysco has stopped distributing fresh jalapeño peppers, food fear fatigue is settling in, farmers are losing money, government agencies are losing credibility, and, as I keep reminding journalists who want to blame someone, there are a lot of sick people out there.
"If they (FDA) go too slow, they're criticized. If they go too fast, they're criticized," says Douglas Powell, scientific director of the International Food Safety Network at Kansas State University. "The investigation is still ongoing. The time for finger-pointing isn't there yet."
Jeffrey Weiss of The Dallas Morning News was one of my favorite interviews.
As Dr. Douglas Powell, scientific director of the International Food Safety Network, puts it: "Follow the poop. … A lot of eating fresh vegetables," Dr. Powell said, "is an act of faith."
Coffee, Conagra and consumers - talking in bed
The coffee place was just opening and as I awaited my order, a load of prepared sandwiches arrived. The first thing the staff member did was insert a tip-sensitive digital thermometer into one of the sandwiches to verify that the proper temperature had been maintained. Good on ya. The guy getting my order said it was standard operating procedure, and as we chatted it emerged he was newly arrived in Wellington from Montreal. Another Canadian buddy. Or friend.Next was a talk with ConAgra’s Food Safety Council in Omaha, Nebraska. That’s ConAgra of pot pie and peanut butter fame.
Quality experts at ConAgra Foods today will hear from a lawyer who has sued the company due to food borne illnesses and from two food safety advocates as the company stresses the need to keep its products safe.
"It's part of raising the game and listening to every expert on the food safety front," said Teresa Paulsen, ConAgra spokeswoman.
ConAgra decided to bring in Bill Marler, Barb Kowalcyk, director of food safety and co-founder of the Center for FoodBorne Illness Research and Prevention, and myself to hear what we had to say.
Marler told the Omaha World-Herald he was going to talk about fostering a culture that focuses on food safety while remaining profitable in a competitive industry, and credited ConAgra Chief Executive Gary Rodkin and other company executives for inviting him to speak.
"It says a lot for the company.”
Being in Wellington, NZ, and 17 hours ahead, provided several technological hurdles, which we sorta managed to get around. Video didn’t work, so the folks in Nebraska saw my slides and heard my disembodied voice – apparently in surround sound. I was talking into a telephone (left, exactly as shown), advancing my slides, but had no audience feedback. While awkward, I could get used to this lecturing style.
By the time I spoke with the consumer advisory group for the New Zealand Food Safety Authority later that afternoon, I had the message much more focused: here’s the top-5 factors that contribute to foodborne illness, here’s the research we do to reduce the burden of each, and here’s how we use different mediums and messages to foster a food safety culture, from farm-to-fork.
It’s been good to reflect on why we do the things we do, and it’s been great traveling in Wellington with Amy. Now it’s time for a couple of days of hanging out, catching up on news if I ever get my e-mail working again, and then its off to Melbourne on Sunday.
.jpg)
Salmonella numbers up; media magic
“I don’t part my hair.”“Then get your wife to fix it.”
That’s essentially how the interview I did with CNN last Thursday went. I said lots of insightful things about fresh produce and marketing food safety and consumers, all of which the TV folks chose not to use. (the video is available at: http://www.cnn.com/video/#/video/bestoftv/2008/07/02/ldt.schiavone.failing.fda.cnn).
No worries. I’ll write it up. My stylist and partner said I did good. So she’s taking me to Australia.
After two years of me trying to take Amy to Australia, she takes me. We’re already on various planes, arriving in Wellington, New Zealand for a week beginning July 7. Then it’s of to Melbourne, Australia for a travel writing conference.
So news will be slow and random yet unrelenting as always.
Today, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control upped the number of Salmonella sickies to 943 with at least 130 hospitalizations since mid-April. And the Wall Street Journal cited Glen Nowak, a CDC spokesperson, as saying tomatoes no longer are the leading suspect, though,
"Tomatoes are one of the primary things we are looking at."
Bastards, bullshit and babies
Just doesn't seem to fit anymore.
Too many hacks and posers.
I started sending out news shortly after I began my PhD in 1993. Jack-in-the-Box had just happened, Al Gore hadn't invented the Internet yet, but I was plugged in through the various twists and turns of life, and started sharing stories -- in real time -- with my science-geek colleagues.
They seemed to like it, and research confirmed it was useful.
In 1993, food safety types were conditioned to reading about outbreak investigations when CDC's MMWR arrived in the mail six months later. That's still way faster than the Canadian government types write up any outbreak investigation.
I originally called the news distribution the Food Safety Network cause network was sorta new. Sure, it seems dated now, but at the time, we rocked. Now, it just rolls.
The whole idea of calling my lab the Food Safety Network rests with Lester Crawford. I wanted to create a group modeling Georgetown University's Center for Food and Nutrition Policy (which has since moved). Lester spent a couple of days in Guelph, and told me, whatever you do, make it bigger than yourself. No one cares about Doug Powell's lab. So give it a name. And bring in others.
So I did.
Unfortunately, due largely to my unfailing optimism, others went for the short game. In the spirit of open and honest collaboration, the University of Guelph went and trademarked Food Safety Network in Canada the day I resigned -- and didn't bother to tell anybody. Then they scooped up whatever money was left to cover the deficit in their paper clip fund.
The actions of so many have been small and petty. But there have always been a few that make it worthwhile.
Katija Blaine and Ben Chapman have both been with me in various capacities since 1999. Still are. We've traveled the various minefields of genetically engineered sweet corn and on-farm food safety programs for fresh produce, and now we're all having babies.Katija was first up on Saturday, delivering Cormac (right). Congrats to Katija and Jeff.
Ben and Dani and due in Sept.
And me -- forever trying to hang out with the cool kids -- me and Amy are due the end of November.
Got no time for posers.
Two years in Kansas; barfblog turns 1; what's next?
"People ask me, how can you write those sensitive songs and then that trash, and I say, sometimes I feel real sensitive and sometimes I feel real trashy."That's how I approach barfblog. Sometimes I've got information that I just have to get out there that's snarky, insightful and relevant, and sometimes I just feel real trashy.
In the first year of barfblog.com, we posted 825 entries, increased the number of unique monthly visitors from 1,000 to 40,000 per month, got picked up by the N.Y. Times, David Letterman and dozens of other new and traditional media outlets, and sold a few hundred T-shirts (it's better than door-to-door chocolate sales to fund students).
We influenced the formation of public policy in many ways but our favorite was getting mentioned in the Wales E. coli inquiry, where I used the Bill Murray Groundhog Day analogy. And I got to meet Bill Murray in Manhattan and give him a poop shirt. Showing that microwaves may be a lousy way to cook pot pies was kinda fun. Safest food in the world? Shurley you must be joking.
The Internet means, unlike Jimmy in 1978, you don't have to be here … in Manhattan (Kansas). But you can subscribe. http://barfblog.foodsafety.ksu.edu/subscribe.html
What's next? You'll find out soon enough.
And I'm still with that girl.
Which country has the safest food in the world? No one knows
It's impossible to say. The statistics don't exist to make such a claim. But that doesn't stop meatpackers, lobbyists, lawmakers and even government regulators who should know better, from repeating the claim every time there's a food-borne illness outbreak or major food recall.
So says Philip Brasher, writing today in the Des Moines Register.
Brasher says unfounded claims can undermine the credibility of the government and the industry and he cites barfblog.com and our special safest-food-in-the-world section at http://barfblog.foodsafety.ksu.edu/articles/safest-food-in-the-world/.
.jpg)
Kansas State University Professor Doug Powell wrote on a blog where he tracks food safety news,"Bland blanket statements serve only to amplify rather than mollify consumers (concerns)."
Brasher goes on to say that the problem with making these claims is that it's now impossible to compare one country's statistics to another country's, experts say. Most foodborne illnesses go unreported, so government agencies must come up with estimates of how many actually occur. How to do that varies.
Paul Frenzen, a demographer with the Agriculture Department's Economic Research who specializes in food safety, said that even a factor that would seem relatively simple to measure, such as cases of food-related diarrhea, isn't easy to track because definitions vary, and there are also cultural differences between countries as to when victims of foodborne illness go to the doctor.
Other countries offer universal health insurance, making it more likely that people will get to a doctor when they're sick.
Brasher concludes that after the nation's largest meat recall was announced earlier this year, Agriculture Secretary Ed Schafer didn't claim that U.S. food is the world's safest. Instead, he said,
"The United States enjoys one of the safest food supplies in the world."
No one is going to argue with that.
Knowing where your food comes from -- Doug Powell edition
A spate of recent scares about food -- from tainted spinach and cantaloupe to sprouts and carrot juice -- has made many consumers hyper-aware of the potential dangers of what they consume. For many, buying local seemed to offer protection against the evils of the food world.
A particularly harsh winter has put that myth to rest for many. Sooner or later, the grocery store and its shiny produce aisles full of strawberries, peppers, lettuce, oranges and kiwi beckon. Local, in this climate, has its limits.
Dr. Douglas Powell (right, not exactly as shown) says buying local is no guarantee against eating food that can make us sick."You have good producers and bad producers everywhere whether they are large or small, size doesn't matter."
Powell said he feels safe buying produce from large grocery stores that are big enough to demand high standards throughout their supply chains. Even then, problems can happen. When it comes to buying local, he asks questions, such as what kind of water is used for irrigation, how often it is tested and where the produce is grown.
The story says that Powell (left, not exactly as shown) is a Canadian who teaches at the University of Kansas and heads the Guelph-based Food Safety Network.I professorize at Kansas State University.
The International Food Safety Network is worldwide, headquartered on my couch in Manhattan (Kansas). If I'm heading some Guelph knock-off you'd think they could at least give me an e-mail address and not expropriate donations to cover shortfalls in their paper clip fund.
E-mailing Doug Powell? Don't send it to Guelph
"Take a look at the bathroom. You want to see soap, paper towels and lots of running water. If you don't see those, you've got a problem, because those are the essentials for good hand washing."
Ok, not so sage, Boring
The journos -- and many others -- often contact me through my University of Guelph e-mail address.
Don't.
I mean yes, contact me, I love the attention, but don't go through Guelph.In Feb. 2007, my previous institution, the University of Guelph, Canada, unilaterally decided not to continue a partnership with Kansas State, and eliminated access to my staff and funds that I had established in Guelph (about $750,000). An additional $135,000 the fine supporters of the Food Safety Network had provided to produce news has also magically disappeared.
And no one at Guelph will talk about it.
Now, the University of Guelph has frozen my e-mail account. They didn't tell me, it just stopped working. So if you sent an e-mail to my Guelph account -- and I was getting about 100 a day on that account -- please resend to dpowell@ksu.edu. You won't get an error message from the Guelph account, so you'll just think I'm being aloof or something and not bothering to respond. You may think that anyway. When I inquired about what had happened, since an e-mail account is fairly standard for adjunct professors and alumni, I was eventually told, and this is a direct quote from an admin-type,
"Your name (was removed) from sponsored accounts as we could not think of any reason why you needed a UofG account."
Oh well. The hacks and posers can busy themselves with e-mail account access management. I have news and research to produce. In the 68 F sun. With my family. In Kansas.
And there are some big changes coming to the daily news. If you have any suggestions, please e-mail me, at Kansas State University, dpowell@ksu.edu.
Don't eat poop.
Doug Powell discusses on-farm food safety -- 2001
This film provides a good example of bad hair and shaky camera angles. And sheep.
