Hockey and triathalons - don't swim in the Oklahoma River
I miss hockey. The closest ice is two hours away. I used to play 4-5 times a week, coached a whole bunch of girls teams, and now I’m in Kansas, watching TV, and I’m fat.
Maybe my friend Steve will guilt me into getting back into shape. But Steve doesn’t have a six-month-old, and Ben does, and he understands the laziness.
Amy spent 6 years doing her PhD at the University of Michigan so figures she’s a Detroit Red Wings fan. Last year, she watched more of the Detroit- Pittsburgh final than I did while we were in Quebec. Detroit just eliminated Chicago in overtime, and I’m still crushed that Carolina lost in 4 games.
If I’m going to work on fitness, it won’t be the triathalon.
More than 100 athletes who swam in the Oklahoma River during a triathlon earlier this month have returned health questionnaires from state officials investigating an outbreak of gastrointestinal illness among participants in the event.
Laurence Burnsed of the Oklahoma Health Department says several athletes who were sickened have also provided stool samples to aid the investigation.
The Boathouse International Triathlon, including a 1.5 kilometer swim in the downtown river, was held May 16-17. The cause of the illness remains under investigation.
BTW, those old farts in the pic, upper right, haven't won the faculty tournament since I left in 2005.
Despite E. coli cases, Oklahoma restaurant kept serving customers; not so in North Bay
A Harvey’s restaurant in North Bay, Ontario, Canada, remains closed as the number of confirmed and suspected sick with E. coli O157:H7 climbed to 159 today.
The public health folks in North Bay must be going nuts, but they, along with the operators of Harvey’s, have put public health first and closed the restaurant until more is known.
Locust Grove, Oklahoma, was also hammered by an E. coli outbreak, E. coli O111, linked to dining at the Country Cottage restaurant in August.. One person died, 72 were hospitalized and 241 others got sick before the outbreak was contained.
Today it was revealed that State Health Department officials allowed the Country Cottage to stay open temporarily — even after confirming six of eight initial food poisoning victims had eaten its food, internal documents show. That decision may have resulted in additional people getting sick.
Health Department officials admitted last week there is no set threshold in such cases for closing a restaurant suspected of being the source of an outbreak.
There are no guidelines. Epidemiological investigations are full of uncertainty. So is most of what is known about foodborne illness. But after the Salmonella-in-tomatoes-jalapenos outbreak this summer, public health officials are seemingly reluctant to go public. Industry has attempted to take matters into their own hands – which they should have been doing anyway – and is increasingly challenging public health investigations with its own test results, and unfortunately overstating the value of their own tests.
Listeria in Maple Leaf deli meats, Salmonella in produce, E. coli in Ontario and Oklahoma. There are no guidelines on when to go public. Federal agencies like the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and the Canadian Food Inspection Agency must come clean with the public and industry and articulate the basis for public notification, or even restaurant closures, during outbreaks of foodborne illness. Until then local health units are left cleaning up the mess.
E. coli O111 can kill
Reporter Julie Schmit says in today’s USA Today that 20-month-old Braylee Beaver, was one of 314 people sickened in August by E. coli O111 in Locust Grove, Oklahoma. A 26-year-old died in the outbreak.
Braylee’s father, Jake Beaver, said after her 12-day hospital stay (family hoto from USA Today, right),
"I didn't know E. coli could do this. I just thought people got a little sick."
Dana and Rick Boner of Monroe, Iowa, also thought their daughter, Kayla, had a regular bug last year when she fell ill on her 14th birthday. Kayla died 11 days later because of an E. coli O111 infection — the cause of which was never determined — her mother says.
"I didn't even know there were any other strains but O157. … I want people to know there are other strains. How could my child be the only person who got this?"
From 1990 to 2007, O111 was linked to 10 reported illness outbreaks in the U.S., the CDC says. Four of the 10 were linked to food. Before the Oklahoma outbreak, in which one person died, the biggest O111 outbreak happened in New York in 2004. Unpasteurized apple cider was blamed for 212 illnesses.
E. coli O111 is a Shiga toxin-producing E. coli, or STEC. It is one of a handful of non-O157 STECs that have caused 22 reported illness outbreaks in the U.S. from 1990 to 2007, the CDC says. Food caused 10 of the outbreaks. …
The CDC estimates that more than 25,000 non-O157 STEC infections occur each year in the U.S. — about a third the number of O157:H7 infections.
In 1995, E. coli O111 sickened 173 people and killed a four-year-old girl in Australia, after eating contaminated mettwurst, an uncooked, semi-dry fermented sausage.
Search for E. coli O111 source continues in Oklahoma; 1 dead, 175 sick
The Oklahoma State Department of Health (OSDH) reported Saturday Aug. 30/08 that at least 176 persons have become ill as a result of the E. coli O111 outbreak in northeastern Oklahoma. Cases include 128 adults and 48 children. Federal and state health officials say E. coli O111 is a rare type not normally associated with an outbreak this large.
OSDH disease investigators, along with staff from Tulsa Health Department and area local county health departments, have interviewed more than 450 persons in an effort to identify the source of the outbreak. Interviews continue this weekend.
While the source has not yet been identified, health officials continue to focus on the Country Cottage restaurant in Locust Grove, OK, after interviews with cases indicated most had eaten there during the time period Aug. 15 through Aug. 23.
The restaurant is closed while the investigation continues. Not all persons who ate at the restaurant have become ill. No other restaurant or food service outlet in the area has been linked to the outbreak.
OSDH laboratory analysis of water samples taken from a private well on the restaurant property is continuing, however, health officials believe it is unlikely that any well water contamination is the source of the outbreak.
One person has died in the outbreak.
Suspected E. coli claims Oklahoma newlywed; dozens sickened
The Tulsa World reports that Chad Ingle married the love of his life June 21.
He died just nine weeks later, on Sunday, of what is suspected to be E. coli poisoning. He was 26.
His sister, Laura Claypool, said Ingle ate a meal Sunday Aug. 17 at the Country Cottage in Locust Grove, a popular family-owned buffet-style restaurant.
Ingle fell ill Wednesday night with severe stomach pain and diarrhea and went to Integris Mayes County Medical Center. On Thursday, he began to pass blood.
An ambulance took him to St. Francis Hospital in Tulsa on Friday. He underwent a colonoscopy, and doctors concluded that he had acute colitis, Claypool said.
Ingle felt better Friday evening and urged his parents to return home. But his condition grew worse, and his mother-in-law called Ingle's parents Saturday morning to return to St. Francis.
"By the time Mom and Dad got there, they had called a code blue," Claypool said. Ingle was placed on kidney dialysis, but he died Sunday, she said.
The Oklahoma State Department of Health said it is investigating an outbreak of severe diarrheal illness among residents of several northeastern Oklahoma communities. At least 17 cases have been hospitalized and 40 or more potential cases are under investigation. One person has died.
One dead, 11 sickened in Oklahoma E. coli outbreak
The Tulsa World is reporting that one person died and 11 others are suffering from illnesses, possibly related to E. coli, and remain hospitalized.
Leslea Bennett-Webb, communications director for the Oklahoma Department of Health, confirmed at least 10 people were taken to the hospital after eating at a restaurant in Locust Grove, and that between 12 to 20 more people in Beggs, Pryor and Bixby were treated at various Northeast Oklahoma hospitals with similar symptoms this past week.
The story says these illnesses are a very severe and bloody form of diarrhea.
