Food Poisoning, Foodborne Illness Information and Research : International Food Safety Network : BarfBlog

Susan Schoenfeld, the Vermont Health Department’s deputy epidemiologist, said state and UVM health officials were looking into the possibility that some of the students sickened by the virus got sick shortly after eating a meal at the University Marche, a dining center inside the school’s Living & Learning Center.

“Several of the students who had just eaten a meal at the dining hall became ill,” she said. “We’ve told the university we can’t rule out the possibility that food was related to the outbreak, in addition to person-to-person transmission.”

To date, about 60 students have reported becoming sick with gastroenteritis symptoms over the past few days, but the outbreak now appears to be in decline. Only four new cases of the illness were reported Thursday, according to a UVM memo to the campus community.

The memo also discussed the possible connection of the dining hall to the outbreak and said there was no way to confirm if food in the eatery caused anyone to become sick. The memo said it was possible someone who was sick possibly contaminated otherwise high-quality food.”

High quality? OK, so I’m sure the providers of food to UVM students are concerned about the things that make people barf, and wouldn’t be taken in by some trendy, local, natural thing, at least without asking basic questions about microbial food safety such as irrigation water quality, soil amendments and employee handwashing. 

But I asked the same questions of Organic To Go and have heard nothing.
 

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As the number of norovirus illnesses reached 330 at the University of Southern California and 212 at Georgetown University in Washington, D.C., the Georgetown Voice reports both schools serve meals prepared by the Organic-to-Go food distributor, although Georgetown officials do not believe there is a connection. (Note: a PR person from Organic-to-Go says USC stopped serving what she calls grab-and-go food from Organic-to-Go in Aug. 2008 -- dp)

Georgetown officials were also cited as saying today that:

* Georgetown cleaning crews and temporary contract crews have been working through the weekend to keep public areas clean.  Thousands of wipes and sixty hand sanitizer stations have been placed around campus.

* DC Department of Public Health is conducting an epidemiological study to determine the cause of the outbreak.  The results of the study should be released in the next few days.  Food samples from Leo’s have been tested.  The cause of the outbreak is still unknown, but the study should provide some insight.

* The University does not know when Leo’s employees will stop serving all food to students, but there are no plans to continue this practice indefinitely.

At USC, the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health confirmed norovirus was the source of the USC outbreak. Officials said restrooms and common areas of residence halls have been thoroughly cleaned in response to the outbreak and USC officials have provided sanitation measures to university-owned housing and fraternity and sorority row.

Here’s an old infosheet on norovirus, in Spanish.

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I used to steal toilet paper.

As an undergraduate 25 years ago, and once my girlfriend showed me how to get at the theft-proof rolls in the university centre, the supplies of toilet paper in our household became one less student expense.

My hockey bag is still filled with those little soaps and shampoos from hotel rooms around the globe.

I was the kind of student -- and apparently I'm not alone -- University of Guelph administrators in Canada were worried about when they said that residence students should provide their own handwashing soap.

In 2005, the university switched to sanitizers instead of soap and paper towels in the residence washrooms because soap dispensers, paper towels and garbage cans went missing.

That was before a 2006 norovirus outbreak sickened over 150 students, primarily in one university residence.

The university subsequently returned soap and paper towels to all residences to help control the outbreak.

Students at Georgetown University are now being implored to wash their hands after a norovoirus outbreak linked to the school’s dining hall caused 175 students to vomit their way to the hospital. Said one university official, “Handwashing is going to be our mantra for a very long time around here.”

That’s great. A little late, but better than before. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that up to 25 per cent of the 76 million annual cases of foodborne illness in the U.S. could be eliminated with proper handwashing.

That's a lot fewer sick people.

But, as Jon Stewart quipped in 2002, “If you think the 10 commandments being posted in a school is going to change behavior of children, then you think ‘Employees Must Wash Hands’ is keeping the piss out of your happy meals. It's not.”

So why don't more people wash their hands?

While some practice a Howard Hughes-like paranoia, study after study shows that many are lazy when it comes to handwashing. The proclamations to practice proper handwashing, on restroom posters, in daycare facilities, in media scare stories, will always fail to register with those who are impervious to risk -- that bad things happen to someone else, not me.

But as the Guelph example demonstrates, anything that can even slightly encourage proper handwashing and hygiene in general needs to be encouraged -- and that means ready availability of soap, water and paper towels.

Once available, the facilities have to actually be used, whether in the workplace, the home, the university residence, or, the farm.

The steps in proper handwashing, as concluded from the preponderance of available evidence, are:

• wet hands with water;
• use enough soap to build a good lather;
• scrub hands vigorously, creating friction and reaching all areas of the fingers and hands for at least 10 seconds to loosen pathogens on the fingers and hands;
• rinse hands with thorough amounts of water while continuing to rub hands; and,
• dry hands with paper towel.

Water temperature is not a critical factor -- water hot enough to kill dangerous bacteria and viruses would scald hands -- so use whatever is comfortable.

The friction from rubbing hands with paper towels helps remove additional bacteria and viruses.
The next time you visit a bathroom that is missing soap, water or paper towels, let someone in charge know. And next time you see someone skip out on the suds in the bathroom, look at them and say, “Dude, wash your hands!”

Don’t eat poop.
 

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Molly Redden of the Georgetown Voice in Washington, D.C. does an excellent job going beyond the soundbites of talking health-heads to capture the impact of foodborne illness, in the case on a bunch of university students who dined at Leo O’Donovan Cafeteria or Leo’s.

At least 96 students were treated by the Georgetown University Hospital or the Student Health Center for gastroenteritis from Tuesday night and Wednesday. …

Neil McGroarty (NHS `12), arrived at the emergency room at around 10:30 p.m., only hours after eating a roast beef sandwich from Grab N’ Go. He said within hours of arriving at the Hospital, the emergency room was backed up to the point that students who weren’t receiving medical attention began vomiting in the waiting room.

“I know that some people in the waiting room had been there for three hours. There was a boy yelling ‘help me, help me!’ but there were no doctors,” Kathrin Verestoun (SFS `11), who accompanied her roommate to the emergency room, said. “They ran out of rooms and set up stretchers in the hall. Some people were so dehydrated that they couldn’t find their veins for IVs. They were just bleeding. [My roommate] bled all over her stretcher.” …

A Food Establishment Inspection Report obtained by the Voice through a Freedom of Information Act request reveals that in June, the D.C. Bureau of Community Hygiene determined that Leo’s’ handwashing facilities were not up to code, although this was “corrected on-site.” According to the report, sinks used for handwashing in the service area lacked handsoap. …

The actual number of students who have fallen ill may be far higher than reported. Interviews have revealed that many students who fell ill did not get medical help, like Katie O’Niell (COL `11), who began to vomit about three hours after eating a burrito at Leo’s.

“I didn’t feel like I could make it any further than from my bed to the bathroom,” she said.

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