Summer fun at Plum
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There aren't too many jobs out there where employees are required to go through a decontamination shower each day before going home, along with a 30 minute ferry ride. Yet that is just what I got to do during my summer at Plum Island Animal Disease Center. The K-State College of Veterinary Medicine published a short write-up about it in their Sept issue of Lifelines.
Michelle Mazur and Stephan Gibson, both class of 2012, spent the summer working at Plum Island Animal Disease Center (PIADC). The opportunity was made available through a cooperative effort between the Oak Ridge Institute for Science and Education, United States Department of Agriculture and Department of Homeland Security. Each student spent 12 weeks working in the facility in Plum Island, N.Y., on an assigned project.
Michelle worked in veterinary pathology on a study investigating the pathogenesis of foot-and-mouth disease (FMD) in persistently infected animals, while Stephan assessed the usefulness of a lymphocyte blastogenesis assay for measuring the T-cell response of cattle to FMD vaccine trials.
Both students gained valuable laboratory experience as well as experience in working in a biocontainment laboratory. PIADC is classified as a biolevel 3 facility, and it is the only place in the U.S. where scientists can conduct research and diagnostic work on FMD.
In addition to working on their respective projects, Stephan and Michelle also had the opportunity to attend a two-week intensive Foreign Animal Disease Diagnostician course. They heard a series of lectures describing the pathogenesis and characteristics of 20 different foreign animal diseases, and observed clinical cases and necropsies of each disease.
The FMD project opened my eyes to all the possibilities for vets in foreign animal diseases. Here's hoping the NBAF will break ground soon to open the job market a bit more.
Handwashing and sanitation: try to make the message meaningful
While Amy, Sorenne and I observed some sort of cross between The Hills and Real Housewives of Somewhere at a poolside party in Scottsdale, Arizona, some 2,300 Kansas State students were graduating this afternoon.
Hand sanitizers were apparently on the agenda as those who convocated were offered hand sanitizer before receiving their degree. The optional offering was apparently designed to ease flu fears. Seems reasonable enough, but do such offerings actually amplify rather than assuage concerns about swine flu, er, H1N1, or any other communicable disease?
If any of the thousands of family and friends who visited Kansas State today had wandered into the student union to use the washroom, they would have seen the sign pictured below. Megan discovered this about a week ago, and three of us read the sign and thought the disinfectant referred to some special kind of handwashing soap. Maybe we’re just handwashing geeks.
So Megan went on an investigative trek that finally led to AFFLAB Antimicrobial Lotion Soap. The company website does not list factual information about their soaps and the germ killing power it may have. In general, antimicrobial and antibacterial soaps do aid in the “eradication of germs” and washing hands properly helps as well. However, if no such soaps are available, non-antimicrobial or non-antibiotic soaps will also clean your hands. During handwashing, the act of rubbing hands vigorously together with soap, creating lather, then rinsing them, is what removes germs (or, for the science nerds, transient flora).
Then Amy looked over my shoulder and said, “the disinfectant is the stuff used to wash the bathroom floors.”
Oops.
I do not know the purpose of the signs, and what message the signs were intended to convey, but they failed. And as Megan said, “ugly, unattractive signs aren’t going to increase hand hygiene.”
barfblog, bites, and food safety
Foodborne illness can be an unpleasant experience or something more serious. The World Health Organization estimates up to 2 billion people get sick from food and water each year – 30 per cent of all citizens in all countries.
Dr. Douglas Powell, associate professor of food safety at Kansas State University, leads a group of individuals passionately committed to reducing the incidence of foodborne illness, through research, teaching and information. The group strives daily to be the international leader in comprehensive and compelling food safety information that impacts individual lives – and reduces the number of sick people.
The electronic publications, barfblog.com and bites.ksu.edu, are comprehensive, current and compelling sources of food safety news and analysis, and help foster a farm-to-fork culture that values microbiologically safe food.
Research
• The effectiveness of food safety messages and media in public discussions of food safety issues, such as the risks of listeria to pregnant women, legislation surrounding raw milk, public availability of restaurant inspection data, and the safety of fresh produce, are evaluated through qualitative and quantitative methods.
• Observational research methodologies are used to quantify individual food safety behaviors from farm-to-fork, to enhance handwashing compliance, thermometer use, food packaging information and interventions that can reduce the number of people that get sick from the food and water they consume.
Teaching
• A graduate program in food safety risk analysis – including food safety, language, culture and policy -- is being developed and will include distance-education.
• Courses are currently taught in Food Safety Risk Analysis, and Food Safety Reporting.
Information
• Dr. Powell is the publisher and editor of bites and barfblog, rapid, reliable and relevant sources of food safety information. Dr. Ben Chapman of North Carolina State University is the assistant editor.
• bites and barfblog are produced by a cross-cultural team of secondary, undergraduate and graduate students as well as professionals who create multilingual and multicultural food safety and security information, including weekly food safety information sheets, and multimedia resources.
• Research, educational and journalistic opportunities are available for secondary, undergraduate and graduate students through bites.ksu.edu and barfblog.com.
For further information, please 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
donteatpoop.com
youtube.com/SafeFoodCafe
or
Dr. Benjamin Chapman
Food Safety Specialist
Department of 4-H Youth Development and Family & Consumer Sciences
NC Cooperative Extension Service
North Carolina State University
Campus Box 7606 (512 Brickhaven Drive)
Raleigh, NC 27695-7606
919.515.8099 (office)
919.809.3205 (cell)
benjamin_chapman@ncsu.edu
The end of Agnet and AnimalNet
As we move to the launch of bites.ksu.edu, I am ceasing publication of Agnet and AnimalNet, effective immediately. .jpg)
It’s Earth Day, and like the compost in my backyard recycling the detritus from last night’s dinner, I’m going back to one listserv, not four. That listserv is FSnet, and will contain the relevant animal and plant disease stories. If you want access to those stories, sign up for fsnet (instructions below). Or wait and sign up for bites. It will be ready to go in about a week.
To subscribe to the html version of FSnet, send mail to:
(subscription is free)
listserv@listserv.ksu.edu
leave subject line blank
in the body of the message type:
subscribe fsnet-L firstname lastname
i.e. subscribe fsnet-L Doug Powell
FSnet funding, format and future: bites
I knew it was time to change things when new students repeatedly asked, “what’s a listserv?”
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The four listservs – FSnet, Agnet, Animalnet and FFnet – are going to be collapsed into a daily publication called bites (below, sorta as shown) by the end of the month.
The text versions of all four listservs, as well as FFnet, are going to disappear immediately, although they will still be available through the archives at foodsafety.ksu.edu.
I have to focus my activities. And the level of sponsorship has declined. However, once bites is up and rolling, new opportunities for sponsorship will be available.
The best way to receive breaking news is to subscribe to barfblog.com. RSS feeds for immediate news will be available once the bites.ksu.edu site is up and running.
Football food safety
I expect there are some Pittsburgh Steelers fans up preparing for a day of tailgating, even though the kick-off in the American Football Conference Championship game is not for another 12 hours.
Amy will be cheering for the underdog Baltimore Ravens, because back-up wide receiver and special teams specialist Yamon Figurs played ball at Kansas State.
Amy never really followed football, except for the band. I started taking her to Kansas State games, more for the spectacle than the sport, and Amy became a fan.
Those purchasing food at Heinz Field in Pittsburgh may want to be wary. Like tailgaters, perhaps people need to take their own digital, tip-sensitive thermometer.
ThePittsburghChannel.Com reports that three-quarters of all food vendors at the stadium have been cited for critical violations in the past two years.
“Inspectors cited the Steel City Grill for serving chicken, chipped beef and hot dogs as much as 40 degrees below the required temperature. …
“The Steel City Grill was cited for serving meat at lukewarm temperatures in 2007 and again in 2008.
The 2008 inspection also said the "cook does not know the proper cooking temperature for chicken."
As far as K-State football alumni in the three years I’ve been in Kansas, I prefer Zac Diles, who now plays for the Houston Texans. Unassuming, hard-hitting linebacker at Kansas State, just like I was in my own mind back in high school. We even wore the same number – #52.
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
It's official: Disease lab approved for Manhattan (Kansas)
Kansas? Why would you go to Kansas?
That’s the question I repeatedly received back in 2006 when I officially made the move. Sure, Amy was a great draw, but the lack of a hockey arena and the distance to the airport were significant detriments.
The community, both at Kansas State University and Manhattan, was fairly inviting. They’re not sure what to make of me walking around with a baby strapped to my belly, but every place has its quirks.
I just wanted to be in an environment where I could give 110 per cent, cause there’s no I in team. I just wanted to be someplace where I could do my thing.
So when the U.S. Department of Homeland Security finalized its decision today to approve a site at Kansas State University for a $450 million lab to study livestock diseases and some of the world's most dangerous biological threats, I wasn’t surprised.
DHS released its final record of the approval Monday, confirming a decision announced in December to build the National Bio and Agro-Defense Facility at the Manhattan, Kan., campus to replace an aging lab at Plum Island, N.Y.
Ralph Richardson, dean of the College of Veterinary Medicine at Kansas State (right), told USA Today today that the lab can be operated safely.
"This country is in great need of a modern laboratory for animal diseases.”
And Manhattan (Kansas) is the best place for it.
Handwashing help wanted - the Pedro version
Amy read the help wanted advert and apparently thought it was boring.
She wants a Napolean Dynamite theme.
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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.
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Top 10 food safety issues 2008 - the PR version
Researchers at Kansas State University's International Food Safety Network use blogs, YouTube videos, food safety info sheets and other means to remind people about food safety hazards. The researchers are among more than 150 K-State faculty and staff active in the food safety and animal health arenas. Since 1999, K-State has dedicated more than $70 million to related research.
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"During an outbreak, food safety is at the top of many people's minds," said Doug Powell, scientific director of the International Food Safety Network at K-State, where he is an associate professor of diagnostic medicine and pathobiology. "The real challenge is to compel everyone, from farm to fork, to practice safe food habits before an outbreak occurs. It's sort of boring, but it reduces the number of sick people."
Casey Jacob is a research assistant working with Powell. A May 2008 K-State bachelor's graduate in food science and industry, Jacob compiled a list of the top 10 food safety issues of 2008 available at http://tinyurl.com/4q4efw
Salmonella-laden tomatoes and/or peppers topped Jacob's list, highlighting the importance of being able to trace fresh produce to its source.
"Companies that can provide efficient traceability systems for their products provide an advantage to the retail food service sector during recall and outbreak situations," Jacob said.
Other top food safety issues on the list were melamine in Chinese infant formula, listeria in deli meats and soft cheeses, and E. coli O157:H7 linked to negligent butchers in the United Kingdom. Jacob said that these incidents demonstrated the importance of knowing one's food suppliers, warning vulnerable populations of food safety hazards associated with certain foods, and establishing a culture of food safety among food handlers.
The list includes signs that restaurant inspection disclosure systems are on the rise.
"The food service sector should recognize that certain diners are interested in the information provided by inspection reports and summaries," Jacob said. "This increase in transparency highlights the importance of maintaining -- or improving -- compliance with food safety regulations during inspections."
The list also recalls how patrons are using cell phone cameras to document food safety issues. In Toronto, a passerby took a photo of rats on a countertop at one of the most prominent restaurants in the city's Chinatown. Public health authorities shut the restaurant down.
"Everyone eats, and in a networked world, consumer experiences can really impact what people know about food safety," Powell said. "At the International Food Safety Network, we try to develop tools to help consumers share their wisdom with everyone in the farm-to-fork food chain and hope that leads to fewer people getting sick."
More information about the International Food Safety Network is available at http://www.foodsafety.ksu.edu/en/
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
It's delicious... It's tailgating!
In college football, the Kansas State Wildcats opened at home tonight in Manhattan with a somewhat boring 34-14 victory over San Jose State. The Cats are full of surprises, and not always good ones. When you think they have the other team in check, they give up touchdowns, like in the 4th quarter tonight. The same is true of K-State tailgating. We tailgated tonight in Cat Town with some of Doug’s lab members. First we ate brauts at the Veterinary Medicine tent, and then we found burgers at Animal Science. Angela asked me where the meat thermometers were, and I replied, “I’m sure they’re in that box with their cooking equipment.” We didn’t see one, so I proposed that maybe they had a standardized cooking procedure with pre-frozen patties and a clear cooking time charted out. Doug said that when they saw him arrive, the cooks called out, “Don’t worry. They’re done!” (We found out later that they use pre-cooked burgers; so indeed, they were done.)
We then went to a private tailgate party where the pregnant hostess, when introduced to Doug the Food Safety Professor, said, “We always try to keep things really safe here!” I didn’t look for thermometers there. By then my stomach was too full to even think about a cookie.
We’ve been thinking about tailgate publicity and reality research possibilities, like meat thermometers with Willie the Wildcat on them and final cooking temperature charts on stickers. Or tonight I thought it would be cool to have backpack coolers with cooking temps printed on them. We like slogans like, “Get‘r done,” and “Stick it in.” I also liked Andrew’s blogpost with the “Heat ‘em up, eat ‘em up” battle cry. But since we have a blog with, hopefully, a few readers, I thought I would put the question out to you. What would compel you to practice safe food handling at a tailgate? There are so many distractions, limited facilities, no running water in the parking lot, and plenty of people coming by and dipping into food unexpectedly. It’s delicious, and not just from the microorganisms' point of view. Please share your comments, questions, and ideas on tailgating safely.
Post a comment below.
[pictured is a KSU branding iron (not a thermometer) with this description: "Your sizzling hot Original Barbeque Brand Tailgate Tool can sear the pride of the K-State WIld Cats into most any food item. It's for more than just meat! Buns, tortillas, potatoes, pie crusts, let your pride run wild!"]
