Don't drink infected pig blood
Reuters reported yesterday that new information from the World Health Organization suggested pigs sickened with H1N1 swine flu should not be consumed, despite earlier insistence that fully cooked pork is perfectly safe.
The story states,
"The WHO comments appear more cautious than those from the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) and World Organisation for Animal Health (OIE), which said import bans are not required to safeguard public health because the disease is not food-borne and has not been identified in dead animal tissue.
The WHO however said it was possible for flu viruses to survive the freezing process and be present in thawed meat, as well as in blood."
Well, who in their right mind drinks raw pig blood thinking it won't possibly make them sick?
I didn't find any statements on the WHO website that mentioned the ability of viruses to survive freezing--or its pertinence to the consumption of fully cooked pork--but I discovered that the WHO, FAO, and OIE have reissued their joint statement from April 30 today to address misunderstanding of the consumption of meat from H1N1 infected pigs. The statement reads, in part,
"Authorities and consumers should ensure that meat from sick pigs or pigs found dead are not processed or used for human consumption under any circumstances."
Sick or dead animals should never be slaughtered, regardless of the cause of illness or death. This reduces the risk for cross-contamination. The statement reassures,
"Heat treatments commonly used in cooking meat (e.g. 70°C/160°F core temperature) will readily inactivate any viruses potentially present in raw meat products.
Pork and pork products, handled in accordance with good hygienic practices recommended by the WHO, Codex Alimentarius Commission and the OIE, will not be a source of infection."
But I shouldn't be spelling this stuff out--the WHO should. And they should address the bit about viruses surviving freezing and how that impacts food handlers.
Authorities should communicate the risks and how they're being managed (or can be managed) in a way the public can understand and the media can't mess up. It's their responsibility to a concerned public.
White Castle pulls pulled pork pig ad
Maybe it was the swine flu, maybe it was the bad Flashdance welder-by-day-peeler-by-night references, maybe it was the BBQ sauce, but an advertisement for White Castle’s new pulled pork sliders has disappeared, only to reappear through the magic of YouTube.
Flu in Canadian swine
Someone finally found the H1N1 swine flu in pigs.
After I bashed them for allotting resources for hog surveillance when little evidence for such a need existed, the United Nation’s Food and Agriculture Organization is now applauding Canada for spotting the flu in a herd of Alberta swine.
However, a person—not other swine—sickened the pigs.
healthzone.ca reports that a carpenter at an Alberta hog farm went to work on April 14 after a visit to Mexico and may have brought the H1N1 flu with him. Within a couple weeks, about a tenth of the 2,200-hog operation showed signs of the flu.
The affected hogs were quarantined and all are recovering or have already recovered. Only one other person who has had contact with the pigs shares signs of illness.
Across Canada, however, canada.com reports that another 15 cases of H1N1 flu were confirmed last week, bringing the country’s total to 34. One case was a student at Beairsto Elementary School, which responded by closing for a week.
Additionally, the story reports,
“The federal government will launch a public awareness campaign Friday to inform Canadians about the swine flu as the number of cases in Canada climbed to 34 and the number of worldwide cases surpassed 270.”
I hope these messages for the public contain more information than “you can’t get the flu from food,” which is about all I’ve heard so far.
In a press release in the US, the director of science and technology for the National Pork Producers Council, Dr. Jennifer Greiner, was quoted as saying,
"People cannot get the flu from eating or handling pork. The flu is a respiratory illness, it's not a food-borne illness."
Then can someone please explain to their country how to manage these respiratory risks?
Let’s talk more about what the risks are than what they aren’t.
Swine flu outbreak affecting pork industry
The Associated Press reported yesterday in USA Today that Mexican authorities believe as many as 149 people have died from the current outbreak of swine flu.
Also in USA Today, Matt Krantz reported that,
“Shares of pork producers Smithfield Foods (SFD), Tyson Foods (TSN) and Bob Evans Farms (BOBE) dropped 12.4%, 8.9% and 6.4% respectively as investors wondered if consumers might cut back on pork consumption due to confusion about how the virus spreads.”
Currently, there is no evidence that swine in the US or Canada are infected. Even if some infected hogs surface, the World Health Organization and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have stated that well-cooked pork cannot transmit swine flu. However, that doesn’t stop consumers from being concerned.
So, what are pork producers and processors doing to market the safety of their products? This is a great opportunity to show off their antemortem (live hog) and postmortem (hog carcass) disease monitoring programs.
Smithfield Foods, Inc. seized the moment and told investors in a statement Sunday that, “it has found no clinical signs or symptoms of the presence of swine influenza in the company's swine herd or its employees at its joint ventures in Mexico,” and, “its joint ventures in Mexico routinely administer influenza virus vaccination to their swine herds and conduct monthly tests for the presence of swine influenza.”
Tyson Foods, which does not operate any pork processing facilities in the affected areas, only referred to the CDC statement that the flu is not affecting pigs, and stated, “Our pork products are safe.” I doubt that brings much comfort to confused consumers who are actively trying to protect themselves. Show us some real evidence that your products are safe.
I haven’t seen anything from Bob Evans Farms. Maybe they don’t even know there’s an outbreak…
Consumers demonstrate their vote of confidence in products each time they make a purchase. Producers that speak up about risks and how they’re being managed are likely to receive more votes than those that don’t.
Powell: Irish government did the right thing recalling dioxin-laden pork products
Friday we took baby Sorenne to her first pediatrician’s appointment. Everything was cool, we went and got some groceries, and on the way home a reporter from the Times of London rang me up. He wanted to chat about dioxin in feed in Ireland and had actually found a technical report me and a couple of students wrote almost a decade ago about dioxin in Belgian feed.
Indeed, I was the same person, oops, hang on a sec, removed the car seat from car, then chatted for about 20 minutes as I trugged the groceries up the hill.
The stories are running Sunday morning in London and my quotes are an excellent example of baby brain: some of the right words are there, but much of what I said comes across as gibberish. Nevertheless, the stories provide an excellent overview of the dioxin-in-Irish-feed crisis.
In the central science laboratory in York last Saturday, scientist Martin Rose stared in disbelief at his dioxin detector. He had injected a sample of Irish animal feed into the machine, and the results had gone off the scale. The level of toxic contamination was at least 5,000 times the legal limit.
Rose knew there was some urgency about the analysis. The Irish authorities had asked the laboratory team to work over the weekend to get test results in a few days; normally it would take four weeks.
At 3.40pm on Saturday last, Alan Reilly, deputy chief executive of the Food Safety Authority of Ireland (FSAI), was given the bad news. He called Brian Cowen and outlined the grim scenario. While only 8% of Irish pork was contaminated, it could not be isolated quickly.
Every minute that the taoiseach dallied, consumers were eating dioxin-laden Irish meat. How much damage that might be doing to people’s health was not known. Nevertheless, Cowen made his decision almost immediately. Aware of the damage it would do to Ireland’s pork industry, he ordered a full recall of all pork products from September 1.
“I actually can’t believe this decision is even being questioned,” said the FSAI’s Reilly. “I’m astonished by the people saying that we shouldn’t have ordered a recall. If we had left that meat on the shelves, leaving people to eat contaminated product, we would have been lambasted for being irresponsible, and in all probability we’d be out of our jobs.
Doug Powell, scientific director of the International Food Safety Network at Kansas State University, said off-the-scale readings from the feed justified the action.
“When you get those kind of numbers the response should be ‘let’s pull everything.’ If the public perceive that the authorities knew there was a risk and didn’t do anything, then they’d be crucified. From a crisis-management point of view it’s clear they did the right thing. Compare that with [the similar contamination crisis in] Belgium and we see the mess that came out of that.” …
The International Food Safety Network’s Powell believes that the government’s policy of annual testing is insufficient. “One test a year is only a snapshot. How do you know what they are doing the other 364 days?” he said. “We talk ‘farm to fork’ food safety all the time, but are the guys making the feed taking it seriously? We need to get a culture where the manufacturer is saying ‘we can’t mess this up’ rather than waiting for somebody to catch you. Everybody needs to have a culture of food safety. The marketplace can be brutal but that’s why we need to change attitudes.” …
According to Powell, the way forward is to change the culture that led to the crisis. “There will be a stigma associated with the product for a while,” he said. “The marketplace is going to demand better. Supermarkets will want to know what is going into the feed of their pigs. The producers and the processors can’t just say they have testing in place; they’ve got to prove it.”
Below is the abstract from the technical report we produced on the dioxin in Belgian feed crisis of 1999. The entire report is available at http://www.foodsafety.ksu.edu/en/articledetails.php?a=3&c=9&sc=64&id=316
In the spring of 1999, dioxin was introduced into the Belgian food supply, including exports, via contaminated animal fat used in animal feeds supplied to Belgian, French and Dutch farms. Hens, pigs and cattle ate the contaminated feed and high levels of dioxin were found in meat products as well as eggs. What followed was yet another European food safety scandal filled with drama and public outcry. There were government investigations, the removal and destruction of tons of eggs and meat products and huge economic losses. The case study of this incident reported here illustrates how the crisis unfolded, and evaluates how the Belgian government managed and communicated this crisis, based on publicly available documentation. The government's major error, based on the unfolding public discussion of the events, was a perceived failure to publicly acknowledge the crisis, resulting in accusations of a self-serving cover-up. The government's poor crisis management and communication strategy became the focus of intense public and media criticism and blame. Moreover, the significant issue of poor quality control in the food and feed industries was pushed to the sideline. Not only was the reputation of the food supply tarnished but public confidence in the government was damaged, leading to the resignations of two cabinet ministers and the ousting of the ruling party in a national election. This study confirms the basic components required to manage food-related stigma:
• effective and rapid surveillance systems;
• effective communication about the nature of risk;
• a credible, open and responsive regulatory system;
• demonstrable efforts to reduce levels of uncertainty and risk; and,
• evidence that actions match words.
Superbug found in Canadian pork products
[The discovery] raises questions about how the contamination occurred, how frequently it happens and whether it has implications for human health.
Just under 10 per cent of sampled pork chops and ground pork recently purchased in four provinces tested positive for methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus or MRSA, lead researcher Dr. Scott Weese reported Wednesday in a presentation to the International Conference on Emerging Infectious Diseases in Atlanta.
To date Weese's team has tested 212 meat samples bought in four different provinces. Most were pork chops but the group also tested a few pork shoulder roasts and some ground pork.
None of the pork roasts carried the bacteria but an equal percentage of pork chops and ground pork did. The rates of positive MRSA tests ranged from zero per cent in one province to 33 per cent in another. Weese didn't want to name the provinces.
What is most interesting to me are Weese's comments about what food handlers actually do:"If they do what they're supposed to do in terms of meat handling, then it should be perfectly safe. But do people do that is the question?"
What food handlers do (whether in the restaurant, packing house, slaughter house or home) is an area of uncertainty, and there isn't a whole lot of data around it. We've been conducting some research of food handler practices using observation, (T6-12, An Exploratory Study of Food-handling Practices at Church Dinners in Canada was presented at IAFP in 2007) and will be presenting some of our newest findings this summer at IAFP in Columbus, OH.
Georgia Lions Club serves Salmonella: 67 ill
A total of 67 illnesses were reported among attendees at the event, which took place from Oct. 12-14, 2007, at the Newton County Fairgrounds, and that stool cultures from 17 of the cases tested positive for Salmonella Newport.
Of those 67 reported cases, 28 individuals sought medical attention and five people were hospitalized.The report concluded that salmonella was significantly associated with four factors: attendance on Oct. 12, eating the ticketed meal prepared by the Lions Club on Oct. 12, eating the pulled pork from the meal on Oct. 12 and consumption of some "other" food item from the ticketed meal.
Covington Lions Club President Mike Free said,
"The Lions Club is just mortified that people got sick at our event. We're just glad that no one got seriously hurt. … The Lions have been cooking barbecue for 35 years and have never had this problem before and don't plan on having it again and we'll do everything in our power to make sure it doesn't happen again."
Anyone who serves, prepares or handles food, in a restaurant, nursing home, day care center, supermarket, local market or yes, even a Lion's Club BBQ, needs some basic food safety training. And health inspectors are there to provide some minimal oversight.
BTW, kudos to the local health unit for some speedy reporting on the outbreak. Other outbreaks happen all the time, and the government-types involved -- local, state/provincial, federal -- are never heard from once the initial media interest is replaced by whatever celebrity is currently in rehab.
