Doug Powell appears on National Public Radio
Yesterday Doug appeared on NPR Science Friday. The topic was the recent outbreak of Salmonella that has now officially sickened 228 persons in 23 states.
A podcast of the episode is now available online, and can be heard at this location.
Flat pop does not help sick kids: study
As I wrote in Nov. 2005, I'm convinced my mother tried to kill me through foodborne illness.
Not intentionally, of course. But twice a year, on average while growing up, I'd spend a couple of days on the couch, passing liquid out of both ends, while mom comforted me with flat ginger ale, crushed ice (we even had one of those kitchen necessities -- an ice crusher, in groovy pink, suitable for early 1970s suburbia) and soothing words like, "It's just the flu honey, you'll feel better soon."
Now, British researchers who searched the scientific data for evidence that flat soda pop -- a home remedy for diarrhea and vomiting passed down from generation to generation -- prevents dehydration in children with gastroenteritis have reached a conclusion: No.
According to their report in this month's issue of Archives of Disease in Childhood, biochemical analyses "clearly show" various carbonated drinks contain low levels of sodium and potassium, and far more sugar than oral rehydration solutions. Cola contained up to seven times the amount of glucose the World Health Organization recommends for oral rehydration.
"Carbonated drinks, flat or otherwise, including cola, provide inadequate fluid and electrolyte replacement and cannot be recommended."
Train quarantined south of Timmins, Ontario
A VIA train bound for Toronto with more than 260 passengers aboard has been stopped north of Timmins after one person died and five other people became ill with flu-like symptoms.
Ontario Provincial Police emergency workers with full protective gear were called to the train and about 10 people have been taken to hospital in Timmins. The rest of the passengers on the train have been quarantined.
The train originated in Jasper, Alberta.
And in a good use of technology, the Toronto Star says,
Are you on the train or know someone who is? Call us a 1-800-268-9756.
From the celebrity illness file: R2D2 actor Kenny Baker falls ill on flight
Flick Direct is reporting today that Kenny Baker, best known for his role as R2-D2 in Star Wars was fell ill on a flight from the US to England on Thursday and was rushed to hospital immediately after landing at the airport. Flick Direct goes on to say that a family member said that he was recovering last night and expected to be home in a few days. "Kenny's conscious and talking, hopefully hell be absolutely fine", said one relative. Kenny played R2-D2 in all 6 of the Star Wars films.
Woman says chicken foot from parade made her child sick
WAFB 9News is reporting that a five-year-old boy had to be hospitalized after playing with one of the throws his mom says he caught at the notoriously risqué Spanish Town Mardi Gras parade this weekend.
Mom Tracy Bamburg told 9NEWS that among all the beads, cups, and doubloons was a real chicken foot, which also happened to be raw.
"We were all touching it, squeezing it, and playing with it." Then, the next morning, reality hit. "My stomach was hurting very, very, very, very bad," the little boy says. "He woke up with 103 fever and vomiting," his mother says.
Spanish Town parade organizer Bruce Childers said throwing raw chicken parts from the floats in this parade is not acceptable and that if the crew members who did this are caught, they will be banned indefinitely from riding in the parade.
Turtles still make people sick -- 103 since last May
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control reports today that a salmonella outbreak that sickened and resulted in the hospitalization of children in 33 states has been traced back to the illegal sale of tiny pet turtles.
At least 103 cases have been reported since May 2007, and many of those infected were children under the age of 10, the CDC said.
In October 2007, the North Carolina Division of Public Health (NCDPH) notified CDC of human infections caused by Salmonella serotype Paratyphi B L (+) tartrate (+) (Salmonella Paratyphi B var. Java) in several states. Salmonella Paratyphi B var. Java is a nontyphoidal strain of Salmonella that causes gastroenteritis.
This report describes the results of the epidemiologic and laboratory investigation conducted by CDC and state and local health departments during October 2007--January 2008. The findings document an ongoing, multistate outbreak of Salmonella Paratyphi B var. Java infections, with the first reported illness onset occurring on May 4, 2007. Many of these infections have occurred in young children and have been associated with exposure to small turtles. Prohibiting the sale and distribution of small turtles likely remains the most effective public health action to prevent turtle-associated salmonellosis.
You never know what kids will do with turtles.
Maureen Dowd gets food poisoning; thanks White House
N.Y. Times columnist Maureen Dowd refers to President Bush dismissively, by his middle initial, and has been vastly less than impressed by his efforts in the Middle East.
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Nevertheless, White House aides and medical staff leaped to help Dowd when she fell ill during Bush's eight-day swing through the Middle East.
Once she arrived in Jerusalem Jan. 8, Dowd fell sick — and started second-guessing her decision to leave the campaign trail for the presidential bubble abroad. She was suffering some kind of stomach bug that left her nauseated, weak and feeling feverish.
Dowd was quoted as saying, "I'm not sure it was a New Hampshire fever or Jerusalem food poisoning." The story notes that Presidential aides, including press secretary Dana Perino, made clear early on that Dowd could see Richard Tubb, the Air Force brigadier general who oversees the White House medical office and takes care of the president at home and abroad.
But Dowd declined. With no medication, she tried to soldier on by grabbing whatever rest she could in her hotel room. Dowd finally decided to take up the White House on its offer.
A young press aide, Carlton Carroll, helped arrange for Dowd to visit Tubb at the Emirates Palace, the $3 billion luxury hotel where the president and his aides were staying. The hotel is so vast that Dowd and her escorts got lost twice in the marble and gold hallways.
Tubb gave her a few tablets of Cipro and some Pepto-Bismol and told her to check back with him the next day. She turned down Tubb's offer of an IV (so there was no chance of an "accidental" poisoning, she joked).
On Sunday, when the entourage flew from Bahrain to the United Arab Emirates, Dowd was supposed to be flying on the press charter, without access to Tubb. But the White House made room for her aboard Air Force One, where she visited the doctor once again in his office near the president's.
What to do if food has made you poop or barf
An employee at the Kansas State College of Veterinary Medicine brought me a present the other day: a bag of salad that apparently had a big wad of mud in it. Or was it poop? Smelled like mud.
She wasnt sickened by the food, but if you think a specific food has made you sick, here's what to do:
• go to the doctor if necessary;
• keep the food, in the fridge or freezer if necessary; and,
• contact your local health department.
Bill Marler's got some more specific guidelines here.
Raw milk sickens the unsuspecting -- again
In May, 1943, Edsel Bryant Ford, son of auto magnate Henry Ford, died at the age of 49 in Detroit, of what some claimed was a broken heart.
Medical authorities, however, decreed that Ford died of undulant fever, apparently brought on by drinking unpasteurized milk from the Ford dairy herd, at the behest of his father's mistaken belief that all things natural must be good.
It seems like every week in the U.S. there is a report of unpasteurized milk testing positive for listeria or salmonella or E. coli or campylobacter or some other dangerous bug; every month there is a report of people, largely children, sickened after consuming unpasteurized milk.
This month it's Kansas, where at least 87 people have been poisoned with campylobacter in two separate outbreaks -- one linked to consumption of raw milk, and the other to cheese made from raw milk.
Raw milk drinkers believe the pasteurized milk found on grocery store shelves lack the essential enzymes and nutrients necessary to absorb calcium -- yet research shows this is simply not the case. The only things lacking in pasteurized milk are the bacteria that make people -- especially kids -- seriously ill.
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control reports that in 1938, before widespread adoption of milk pasteurization, an estimated 25 per cent of all foodborne and waterborne outbreaks of disease were associated with milk.
By 2001, the percentage of such outbreaks associated with milk was estimated at less than 1 per cent. From 1998 to 2005, a total of 45 outbreaks of foodborne illness were reported to CDC in which unpasteurized milk (or cheese suspected to have been made from unpasteurized milk) was implicated. These outbreaks accounted for 1,007 illnesses, 104 hospitalizations, and two deaths.
Because not all cases of foodborne illness are recognized and reported, the actual number of illnesses associated with unpasteurized milk likely is greater.
A table of the outbreaks is available at http://www.foodsafety.ksu.edu/articles/384/RawMilkOutbreakTable.pdf
Yes, lots of foods make people sick. And people should be free to choose what they ingest.
The 19th century English utilitarian philosopher, John Stuart Mill, noted that choice has limits, stating, "if it [in this case the consumption of raw unpasteurized milk] only directly affects the person undertaking the action, then society has no right to intervene, even if it feels the actor is harming himself."
Excused from Mill’s libertarian principle are those people who are incapable of self-government – children.
Science can be used to enhance what nature provided. Further, society has a responsibility to the many -- philosopher Mill also articulated how the needs of the many outweighed the needs of the one — to use knowledge to minimize harm.
Adults, do whatever you think works to ensure a natural and healthy lifestyle, but please, don't impose your dietary regimes on those incapable of protecting themselves: your kids.
Dr. Douglas Powell is scientific director of the International Food Safety Network at Kansas State University
Raw milk: Live free or die
That's the state slogan for New Hampshire, one which the raw milk foodies have adopted as a rallying cry, especially when confronted with cases of children sickened from raw milk.
But this is coming from the "vitriolic barfblog" as labeled by one advocate of all things raw.
Sure, we may be vitriolic but always point back to the microbial food safety issue and we can always cite the best available evidence.
Sally Squires of the Washington Post writes this morning that,
"From 1998 to 2005, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention tied 45 outbreaks of food-borne disease to raw milk or to cheese made with unpasteurized milk. More than 1,000 people became ill, 104 were hospitalized and two died, according to the CDC."
In July, scientists from the U.S. Department of Agriculture reported test results for raw milk collected from 861 farms in 21 states. Nearly a quarter contained bacteria linked to human illness, including 5 percent with listeria, 3 percent with salmonella and 4 percent with types of E. coli that can cause diarrhea and other gastrointestinal illnesses. Less than 1 percent of samples had the most dangerous form of E. coli, 0157:H7.
"There are definitely measurable levels [of unhealthy bacteria] and they are probably more prevalent than what we are seeing," said Jeffrey Karns, a microbiologist at the USDA's Environmental Microbial Safety Laboratory in Beltsville, who led the study."
That doesn't bother Sally Fallon, president of the Weston A. Price Foundation, a District-based organization that has been leading the charge to make raw milk available to consumers.
"We're not talking about raw milk from a typical conventional dairy," she says. "That milk could pose a danger. But milk from cows fed on pastures actually have their own antimicrobial components that keep it safe."
"People say that small farms have happy cows that don't have pathogens," Karns says, but he adds that there is no evidence to support that contention.
To concur. Sally Fallon and the foundation she represents engage in scientific cherry picking, selectively citing science and ignoring the outbreak side of the equation. E. coli O157:H7 is a natural resident of approximately 10 per cent of all ruminants -- the spinach outbreak of 2006 should have put that notion that natural is by default, better, to rest.
Back in New Hampshire, raw milk advocates are vying for looser regulations on its sale to keep up with growing demand.
But as Brae Surgeoner and I have written,
"Raw milk producers want to afford consumers more options and choice is good. But as the 19th-century English utilitarian philosopher John Stuart Mill noted, absolute choice has limits, stating, "If it (in this case the consumption of raw unpasteurized milk) only directly affects the person undertaking the action, then society has no right to intervene, even if it feels the actor is harming himself." Excused from Mill's libertarian principle are those people who are incapable of self-government — children.
Science can be used to enhance what nature provided. Further, society has a responsibility to the many — philosopher Mill also articulated how the needs of the many outweighed the needs of the one — to use knowledge to minimize harm. Adults, do whatever you think works to ensure a natural and healthy lifestyle, but please don't impose your dietary regimes on those incapable of protecting themselves: your kids."
