Boys should urinate outside to stimulate the compost pile; girls, your pee is too acidic
Sometimes, when I wake up in the middle of the night, and don’t want to disturb Amy and Sorenne in our small space, I’ll go pee off the back deck.
I also don’t flush the toilet when I pee, unless I’ve eaten asparagus. Cameron Diaz would approve and say I’m saving the planet.
Gardeners at a National Trust property in Cambridgeshire are urging people to relieve themselves outdoors to help gardens grow greener.
A three-metre long "pee bale" has been installed at Wimpole Hall.
Head gardener Philip Whaites is urging his male colleagues to pee on the straw bale to activate the composting process on the estate's compost heap.
He said the "pee bale" is only in use out of visitor hours, since "we don't want to scare the public".
"There are obvious logistical benefits to limiting it to male members of the team, but also male pee is preferable to women's, as the male stuff is apparently less acidic."
"Adding a little pee just helps get it all going; it's totally safe and a bit of fun too."
As David Wilcox sang some 30 years ago,
Do it in the country they like it just fine
Do it in the city it’s a $20 fine
Hot hot papa
Bakery source of 9 U.K. E. coli O157 illnesses; 6 more suspected
By bakery, the Brits mean deli-style, with cold-cuts, meat pies, and more of the traditional sources of E coli O157 other than bread.
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Nine adults who bought food from a bakery in Gateshead have been confirmed as having the O157 strain of the infection, with a further six people currently undergoing tests.
The Health Protection Agency (HPA) said two people were receiving hospital treatment, with the remainder recovering at home.
1,500 UK holidaymakers hit by food bug at six First Choice resorts
From the things-not-to-say-when-1,500-customers-have-barfed file:
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"Holiday Villages are all large properties and the reported level of illness is very low considering the large population."
The Mirror reports this morning that families staying at six of the most popular First Choice Holiday Villages have been hit by a deluge of gastric illnesses over the last three years.
Claims are being processed from people who stayed at the Spanish bases in the Costa del Sol and Majorca and also in Turkey, Egypt, Mexico and the Dominican Republic. At Sarigerme in Turkey more than 700 were taken ill this summer.
Yesterday First Choice told the Mirror that it is axing its Holiday Village resorts in Mexico and the Dominican Republic from next month. The three bugs mainly to blame are salmonella, often caused by food not being cooked or stored properly; campylobacter, from contamination and cryptosporidium, often the result of feces in water.
11 sick with E. coli O157 linked to meats from UK bakery
Health officials on Tyneside are investigating seven confirmed and four possible cases of E.coli O157 infection in adults from the Gateshead area.
The Health Protection Agency (HPA) said six of those infected bought cooked meats or sandwiches from Myers bakery in Felling.
The owners have agreed to close the bakery pending further investigations.
9 outbreaks, 2 dead, 130 ill from same Salmonella across UK
The Telegraph reports this morning that around 130 people have fallen ill with the same strain of Salmonella linked to poultry and eggs since August across England and Wales
Five outbreaks have been linked to oriental restaurants, three to other restaurants and one was in a care home.
Two people with the infection died in the care home, which has not been named by officials, but post mortem results have proved inconclusive about the cause of death.
Three other people have been treated in hospital, a report from the Health Protection Agency said.
Rats, mice and cockroaches, oh my - UK KFC needs to clean up
KFC may be dabbling with marketing food safety (see the lid from a bucket of chicken), but marketing has to be backed up with data. And having a lousy restaurant inspection report will turn anyone’s stomach, no matter how many checkmarks are on things.
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Kentucky Fried Chicken (KFC) is being prosecuted after environmental health inspectors reported finding cockroaches, mice and flies at one of its busiest UK restaurants.
Officials from Westminster Council said that a cockroach scurried across a counter when they visited the fast food outlet in Leicester Square, central London.
They claimed a mouse was seen running across the floor and flies buzzed around their heads at the Coventry Street premises, Press Association reports.
In total, KFC faced 13 charges brought under food hygiene regulations following an inspection on August 15 last year. It has pleaded not guilty to all charges.
I'm bona fide. I'm the paterfamilias. I have a residency card and can leave the U.S. and get back in
Or something like that from George Clooney in the 2000 movie and Courtlynn favorite, O Brother Where Art Thou.
As far as the U.S. government is concerned, I am indeed somewhat more bona fide, having received my permanent residency (below), so let the food safety world tour begin.
First stop – the motherland, U.K., in early January. Amy has a conference in Manchester, so thought we’d see some of my relatives in Newport, some friends in Cardiff, and visit the statue of my now confirmed great-great-great-great grandfather, William ‘The Tipton Slasher’ Perry, bare-knuckle boxing champ of England in 1850 and 1856, in Birmingham.
But we've never had E. coli - petting zoo visitor freefall
Staff at the Stonebridge City Farm want to reassure potential visitors that the farm has never been affected by E. coli as the number of visitors continues to decline in the wake of a petting zoo outbreak that sickened 93 children.
Mark Barry, funding development worker at the farm in St Ann's, said,
"We've been quite severely affected by E.coli scare stories, but luckily, the last week has been excellent. We're E.coli free, like most city farms, and that message needs getting across."
Does that mean no illness or death has ever been connected to the farm? Does that mean the owners are routinely screening the animals for dangerous E. coli and have test results they can share with the public to bolster confidence?
The story also says that only one in 50 of all E. coli cases are linked to petting farms.
Such statistics may be factually correct but get sorta lost when 93 kids become unnecessarily sick from a leisure activity. People need to eat – they don’t need to kiss turtles and they don’t need to visit petting zoos.
All UK E. coli petting zoo kids released from hospital - illness toll remains 93
The final two children who remained in hospital following the E.coli outbreak at a Surrey farm have finally been allowed home, more than a month after the site was shut down by health officials.
The Health Protection Agency (HPA) said on Tuesday that the total number of E.coli cases linked to Godstone Farm still stood at 93, adding that "all children have been discharged from hospital."
Twin brothers Aaron and Todd Furnell, from Paddock Wood in Kent (right) underwent dialysis at St Thomas's Hospital in London after falling ill with the O157 strain of the infection following a visit to Godstone Farm.
Two-year old Aaron Furnell spent six weeks in hospital; he still has to be fed food through a tube.
The site closed on September 12, two weeks after the first case of E.coli was reported there.
A third out of 102 samples taken from animals were found to contain E.coli 0157, and the chief executive of the HPA, Justin McCracken, admitted the agency should have acted quicker in shutting the farm.
An independent investigation has been commissioned and will be led by George Griffin, professor of infectious diseases and medicine at St George’s, University of London, and chair of the advisory committee on dangerous pathogens.
Families affected will be asked if they want to have their say during the probe, which will look at how Godstone Farm was being operated, according to the standards and guidance set for open farms, and the response to the outbreak from all relevant parties.
Legal action is also being planned by some parents of children who were left seriously ill.
A spokesman for Godstone Farm said a decision on when the site will re-open could be made later this week.
A second resident has died of Salmonella at UK care home
An elderly woman who was admitted to Sunderland Royal Hospital after eight cases of Samonella were confirmed at Millum House Care Home in Roker, Sunderland, has died.
A post-mortem examination to establish the cause of her death is to be carried out.
The news follows the death of great-grandmother Myra Robinson, 72, who died in hospital last Saturday following the outbreak.
The remaining patients, who include three members of staff at the three-storey home, have recovered.
Health chiefs are investigating, but the cause of the outbreak still remains unclear.
The Fat Duck Cookbook has no suggestions on how to avoid norovirus and barfing on expensive food
A review of Heston Blumenthal’s, The Fat Duck Cookbook, appeared in this morning’s edition of the U.K. Independent newspaper.
Among the highlights:
“Heston Blumenthal's The Fat Duck Cookbook is presumably intended as a souvenir for those who have laid out £130 on the Tasting Menu at Blumenthal's Fat Duck restaurant in Bray. At least it will give them a lasting memory of the meal. From several Fat Duck customers, I have heard complaints that they were far from replete after the experience. Though it is called a cookbook, scarcely anyone will ever cook from this volume. Many dishes call for specialist equipment and recondite ingredients. A dessert called Lime Grove requires liquid nitrogen, a Dewar flask, malic acid and high methoxyl confectioner's pectin. Even the simpler dishes call for more time and application than anyone but an extreme culinary obsessive will want to spend. “
No mention in the review or the book about how to control the spread of norovirus in an upscale restaurant. Fortunately, the U.K. Health Protection Agency has published some suggestions.
UK child with E. coli infection dies
The BBC has just reported that a child from Devon has died after being infected with E. coli.
The Health Protection Agency (HPA) has refused to release any details about the child, thought to be a toddler.
But the agency would say that no clear source for the infection has been found and that no other cases have been linked to the infection.
The HPA has also confirmed that it does not think the child's death is connected to an outbreak which centred on a petting farm in Surrey.
Cross-contamination is a huge risk, at home and in food service; 65% of UK chickens contain campylobacter
Food safety is not simple.
And because food safety is hard, it’s important to reduce the number of pathogens entering a home or food service kitchen.
The Food Standards Agency today published the findings of a new survey testing for campylobacter and salmonella in chicken on sale in the U.K.
The survey showed that campylobacter was present in 65% of the samples of chicken tested. Salmonella was in 6% of samples, 0.5% of these samples contained S. enteritidis and S. typhimurium.
Andrew Wadge, Director of Food Safety at the Food Standards Agency, said,
"The continuing low levels of salmonella are encouraging, but it is disappointing that the levels of campylobacter remain high. It is obvious more needs to be done to get these levels down and we need to continue working with poultry producers and retailers to make this happen. Other countries like New Zealand and Denmark have managed to do so, we need to emulate that progress in the UK."
FSA is to be commended for undertaking the retail survey, but should be slapped on the wrist for terrible risk communication, once again asserting that, “cooking chicken properly all the way through will kill the bug, so consumers can avoid the risk of illness.
“Taking simple measures in the home can reduce the risk of food poisoning. If food is prepared, handled, and cooked properly, avoiding cross-contamination with other food, then food bugs will not have a chance to spread and cause harm.”
Food safety is not simple. Piping hot is not an end-point cooking temperature.
The video below accompanying a terrific N.Y. Times feature on E. coli O157:H7 in ground beef demonstrates how easy it is to cross-contaminate, and they don’t even use a thermometer to ensure delicious 160F hamburgers.
E. coli petting zoo delusion in the UK
This is how delusional some folks are about E. coli O157 in the U.K.
The Exmouth Herald reports that Nigel Lee, who runs the World of Country Life, has slammed the hype surrounding an E.coli scare as ridiculous after being told he can reopen all attractions following an investigation.
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The U.K. Health Protection Agency recommended Lee close the animal portion of his attraction three weeks ago after three children who contracted the O157 strain of E. coli had potential links to the farm.
Of 30 samples collected from sheep, goats, chickens, rabbits, pigs and an empty calf pen, E. coli was detected in eight representing a mixed group of sheep, goats, chickens and also contained a rabbit.
A further positive result was found in a sample from a pig pen. Following the examination, the HPA advised the attractions could be re-opened.
Mr Lee was pissed with the HPA after they issued an incorrect media statement three weeks ago which implied the site was completely closed, stating,
"All the hype just got ridiculous. It was just the petting farm and deer train ride that was closed.”
Apparently Lee thinks sick kids is hype, and what about the 8 out of 30 positive samples?
Below is a table of petting zoo outbreaks, largely adopted from a list Bill Marler collected.
UK girl 'infected by E coli at farm six months before alert
Any time there’s an outbreak of foodborne illness, and someone says, “We’ve always done things this way and never had a problem,” there is an immediate cloud of suspicion hanging over that producer or retailer.
It’s probably the worst thing someone facing a food safety crisis can say.
The Brits are particularly pissed that Godstone Farm in Surrey, a petting zoo which appears to be the source of 87 E. coli O157 illnesses, including 12 kids in hospital, stayed open as long as it did.
It’s going to get worse.
According to the Times this morning, a five-year-old girl who suffered kidney failure in March is thought to have been made ill by E coli contracted at the same farm.
Holly Nethercoat (right) was kept in an isolation unit at Great Ormond Street hospital, London for two weeks after a visit to Godstone farm in Surrey.
The story says that despite the likelihood Holly contracted the bug at the farm, it was not informed. It is not mandatory to report E coli cases to the Health Protection Agency.
The agency refused to say whether it had been told of Holly’s case. However, Jackie Flaherty, owner of Godstone farm, said:
“We absolutely haven’t heard of any cases before August.”
Great Ormond Street said “good public health practice” meant the case should have been reported to the local health protection unit but it refused to say whether it had done so in Holly’s case because of patient confidentiality.
Mark Nethercoat, Holly’s father, said,
“My daughter went to hell and back, and I can only conclude it was because something was grossly wrong with both the farm and the Health Protection Agency.”
Deli clerk refuses to sell UK mom-to-be cheddar cheese, says pregnant women shouldn't eat cheddar; wrong
From the a-little-knowledge-is-dangerous category, a UK deli clerk at a Sainsbury’s supermarket refused to sell a pregnant woman a piece of cheddar cheese until she lied and promised she wouldn’t eat the cheese.
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Janet Lehain wrote in a letter of complaint to Sainsbury's that the female clerk at the Clapham, Beds store was "patronising" and said, “how lucky my generation are to have such information available as this was not the case 'in her day'."
Sainsbury's said the worker was wrong, adding,
"It isn't policy to refuse a sale on grounds goods may be unsuitable for pregnant women."
Whatever the policy is, Sainsbury’s could at least get the information correct: there are certain soft cheeses that should be avoided by pregnant women because of the potential to support growth of listeria. Amy has written extensively about this.
Me, I view the grocery store and the restaurant as my laboratory. I watch and ask questions of people, especially front-line staff. The head of food safety back at corporate HQ may know the correct food safety answer, but are they providing support to front-line staff, the people customers are most likely to interact with? That’s why we do food safety infosheets, a tool to provide continuous updates to employees, and that’s why we do secret shopper experiments.
The key findings after sending trained shoppers to a bunch of stores in southern Ontario in 2004?
“Although many grocery store employees appeared confident in their food safety knowledge, when asked for storage and handling advice, many were unaware of the proper methods within their department and were willing to offer incorrect advice. This advice often conflicted with the food handling information posted throughout the grocery store.”
Any organization is only as good as its weakest link. There’s already enough bad food safety information out there.
Secret shopper: Grocery store employee food handling practices from a customer’s perspective
01.aug.05,
Food Protection Trends
Lisa Mathiasen and Doug Powell
http://www.foodsafety.ksu.edu/en/article-details.php?a=3&c=11&sc=82&id=840
Food safety is critical along the entire agri-food chain, but it should be emphasized particularly in grocery stores because this may be the last opportunity to prevent food from becoming contaminated before it is purchased.
The responsibility for safe food handling has increased for the newer North American supermarkets, which offer a variety of additional food services and products. This research reports on food handling trends discovered by observing the food handling practices of grocery store employees and by inquiring about specific food safety-related topics in supermarkets across southern Ontario.
Ten researchers, trained to portray customers, visited 13 randomly selected supermarkets in Southern Ontario, three times. Observations and information were evaluated against the content of supermarket training programs and current literature. The triangulation of results was used to establish and confirm the observed trends.
During the store visits, a number of poor food handling practices were observed including improper glove use; cross contamination between raw and ready-to-eat meats and poultry; improper food storage; and poor personal hygiene. In addition, although many grocery store employees appeared confident in their food safety knowledge, when asked for storage and handling advice, many were unaware of the proper methods within their department and were willing to offer incorrect advice. This advice often conflicted with the food handling information posted throughout the grocery store.
This research highlights the need for more interactive training specific to individual departments within a supermarket, and will help in the improvement of training resources for grocery store food handlers.
Fat Duck still spinning but sorry for making 529 diners sick 7 months ago
I don’t know who does public relations for the Fat Duck restaurant but they should be fired.
Seven months after sickening 529 customers with norovirus, Fat Duck chef Heston Blumenthal today said,
"I am relieved to be able to finally offer my fullest apologies to all those who were affected by the outbreak at the Fat Duck. It was extremely frustrating to not be allowed to personally apologise to my guests until now.
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"It was devastating to me and my whole team, as it was to many of our guests and I wish to invite them all to return to the Fat Duck at their convenience."
Wow. Saying sorry is not an expression of guilt. It is an expression of empathy. Like, that really sucks you and 528 other people are barfing. I barfed once and it felt awful. Hope you feel better.
Some spokesthingy for the restaurant said,
"The Fat Duck, its insurers, experts and legal advisers only received a copy of this report a few hours before its publication and have only now had time to consider its contents. This meant that until all these parties had had the opportunity to review it and take expert advice it wasn't appropriate or indeed possible to comment in detail on its contents or respond fully to our customers.”
Of course, that didn’t stop Blumenthal from issuing his own delusional statement on Sept. 10, 2009, as soon as the Health Protection Agency report was released:
“We are glad that the report has finally been published and draws a conclusion to the closure of the Fat Duck and more importantly that the norovirus has been identified as the cause and not due to any lapse in our strict food preparation processes. We were affected by this virus during a national outbreak of what is an extremely common and highly contagious virus. The restaurant has been open as normal since March 12 and I would like to reassure our guests that they can continue to visit us with total confidence.”
All apologies aside, the report clearly stated that the norovirus outbreak – linked to the consumption of raw oysters -- continued for at least six weeks because of "ongoing transmission at the restaurant” through "continuous contamination of foods prepared in the restaurant or by person-to-person spread between staff and diners or a mixture of both." The report also identified poor reporting and sick staff showing up and working as factors in making the outbreak far worse than it should have been.
Saying sorry is nice but never enough. The Fat Duck should be judged on its food safety actions.
UK toddler out of hospital after petting zoo kidney failure; 5th farm closes
Todd Furnell (right), a two-year-old boy who suffered kidney failure following an E.coli outbreak at a petting farm was discharged from hospital after two weeks. Unfortunately his brother was still on a drip and too unwell to be released.
The Health Protection Agency said yesterday that a fifth farm has partially closed after identifying a further five cases of E. coli O157 in people who had visited Big Sheep and Little Cow Farm.
Sick kids from petting zoo climbs to 79; parent vows never to visit farm again
Gemma Weaver, 24, of Bramley Close, has vowed to "never forgive the farm" after her three-year-old son, Alfie (right), suffered kidney failure following a visit to Godstone Farm.
“We are taking legal advice at the moment. I will never, ever be setting foot in a farm with my children again. Not just Godstone Farm but any farm."
Mrs Weaver said she still hadn't heard from (farm manager) Mr Oatway, who added,
“We will definitely be opening again. There are still ongoing investigations but we are sure we will open again."
Three more cases of E.coli linked to a children's petting farm have been confirmed - taking the number of people affected to 79.
UK child's face smeared with fox poop after playing in sandbox at garden center
I have some great memories of my kids growing up, playing in the sandbox, covered in runny snot and saying, Dad, is this cat poop?
Cats view sandboxes as giant litterboxes.
Foxes too.
This Is Gloucestershire reports,
Two-year-old Jasmine Westgate was playing in the sandpit at Highfield Garden World in Whitminster when she put her hands in a pile of fox mess.
Jasmine's father Bruce said,
"It was absolutely vile. Jasmine didn't know what she was doing and ended up with fox mess all over her face. She ingested some of it too which could have had harmful consequences. There are potentially life-ruining diseases linked with coming into contact with animal faeces. The sandpit shouldn't have been left in such a state. It obviously hadn't been cleaned properly by staff.”
Staff at Highfield Garden World, which offers a range of activities for children, said the sandpit was now out of use until further notice.
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Managing director Joan Greenway said,
"We would like to apologise to the Westgates for what happened.”
First lawsuit filed in E. coli O157 outbreak linked to UK petting zoo
Solicitor Jill Greenfield said she was instructed by relatives of the "seriously ill" youngster to pursue a negligence claim against Godstone Farm in Surrey.
But she would not disclose her clients' names or the age of the child involved.
"We need to establish what went wrong and who if anyone is at fault. I would hope that the farm representatives and the Health Protection Agency (HPA) will agree to meet with me as soon as possible in order that I can establish the facts as quickly as possible.
"I have contacted both the farm and the HPA today suggesting a meeting this week and I wait to hear."
The HPA said eight children remained in hospital and 67 cases of E.coli have been linked to Godstone farm.
Animals test positive for E. coli O157 on Godstone Farm in Surrey, now linked to illness in 67 kids
The BBC is reporting that lambs, pigs, goats, cattle, ponies and rabbit droppings at a Surrey farm at the centre of an E.coli outbreak have tested positive , with a whopping 33 of 102 samples likely to contain the O157 strain of the infection.
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The Health Protection Agency (HPA) said the total number of E.coli cases linked to Godstone Farm had risen to 67.
Eight children remain in hospital in a "stable or improving condition."
64 UK kids now sick from Godstone petting zoo; 3 other farms closed; is telling people to wash their hands really enough?
With 64 kids now stricken with E. coli O157 related to visits at the Godstone farm in Surrey, the responses from the folks who run petting zoos could be a little more sympathetic, a little more reflective.
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Instead, as reported by the Guardian tonight (tomorrow in the U.K.), Geoff Ford, who runs Docker Park farm in Lancashire, where children can feed pygmy goats (see 1999 Ontario Western Fair outbreak, below) by hand and stroke rabbits, said any ban would affect "children's environmental education” stating,
"It's going to get hyped up out of all proportion. It does away with children's environmental education. It's important that children realise what a chicken is, what a calf is – often they come here and ask 'is that a horse?'… We have run our farm for 20 years with no problems. But there is only so much you can do if people don't listen. The farm at the source of the outbreak in Surrey had big signs all over the place telling people to wash their hands, but some people don't give a damn."
The U.K. Department of Health responded today by announcing that the advisory committee on dangerous pathogens would be reviewing the current guidance on open farms and will advise on the need for additional precautions "in the light of the current outbreaks of E coli O157."
A Department of Health spokesman told the Telegraph,
“The risk of infection from E-coli O157 through petting farm animals can be prevented by following everyday good hand hygiene measures.”
All of these statements have serious problems.
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• 64 kids sick with E. coli O157 is not hysteria, it sucks;
• anyone who says, “we have run our farm for 20 years with no problems” is unwilling to learn and a hazard to public health;
• telling people to wash their hands is insufficient – proper handwashing requires access to proper tools;
• even with proper tools, signs are not enough, as we showed with our recent handwashing compliance study at a university residence when everyone was barfing and awareness was high; and,
• the best handwashing may not be enough -- the E. coli O157:H7 that sickened 82 people in 2002 at the Lane County Fair in Oregon appears to have spread through the air inside the goat and sheep expo hall.
Scott Weese, a clinical studies professor at the University of Guelph (Canada) and colleagues reported in the July 2007 edition of Clinical Infectious Diseases that in a study of 36 petting zoos in Ontario between May and October of 2006, they observed infrequent hand washing, food sold and consumed near the animals, and children being allowed to drink bottles or suck on pacifiers in the petting area.
He observed similar failures yesterday.
So after 159 people, mainly children, were thought to be sickened with E. coli O157:H7 traced to a goat and a sheep at the 1999 Western Fair in London, Ontario, and eight years after all Canadian fairs were urged to adopt 46 recommendations to enhance petting zoo safety, many are still doing a lousy job.
Bill Marler has compiled a list of outbreaks related to petting zoos. We’ve previously reported at least 29 petting zoo related outbreaks in North America alone.
These petting zoo experiences raise questions: how best to motivate fair managers to provide petting zoos that are microbiologically safe? Should the urban public be allowed to interact with livestock at all? Should petting zoos be inspected, as restaurants are, and the results displayed?
If 64 sick kids is hysteria, conversation is useless and regulation required.
57 kids sick in UK from petting zoos; one owner says risk is overblown; lawsuits pending; problems in Vancouver and Ontario too
With 57 children sick with E. coli O157 linked to petting farms in the U.K., and 10 still in hospital, farm owners said they would oppose a ban on small children visiting the attractions, and one of the owners said the risk is being greatly overblown.
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The U.K. government has rightly decided to ignore such statements and is preparing to upgrade E. coli O157 to a "notifiable disease" – on a par with infections like smallpox and measles – to speed up detecting outbreaks.
With a half-dozen foodborne illness outbreaks of E. coli and Salmonella throughout the U.K. being reported in the past week, yes, maybe they should be notifiable disease(s).
Maybe I’m losing something in translation.
Hugh Pennington, emeritus professor of bacteriology at the University of Aberdeen and Groundhog Day enthusiast has seen all this before.
Pennington told The Times E coli O157 was prevalent in cows, sheep and goats, with research showing about one in 10 cows carried the bug and 40% of herds. He called for the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) guidelines on petting farms to be reviewed and a minimum age introduced.
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“There will have to be a look at the guidelines to see if they need tightening and a review of whether they are being properly followed.”
This is the problem: there are plenty of guidelines out there to manage all sorts of risks, food-related or otherwise, but do people really do what they say they do? Or do they really think, it's no biggie.
In the wake of the outbreak, the U.K. has closed four such petting farms, either linked directly to the outbreak or, their standards sucked.
My friend Scott Weese, a veterinarian researcher at the University of Guelph and host of the Worms and Germs blog, wrote earlier today that:
Considering all of the outbreaks that have been attributed to petting zoos, including an outbreak in the UK this month that has sickened dozens and another in Vancouver has affected at least 13 people, you would think that people who operate petting zoos would start to get the clue. Unfortunately, that's clearly not the case.
My family and I went to the Fergus (Ontario) Fall Fair today. Apart from the petting zoos, it was a great day, but the potential for ending up in hospital with a life-threatening infection shouldn't have to be a concern for fair attendees.
This fair has two petting zoos. One is in association with a pony ride. We went there first and while my kids were looking at the animals, I noticed there was a table and a sign saying to use a hand sanitizer after touching the animals, but there were not actually any hand sanitizers present. I asked the attendant and he immediately started looking. They eventually found some but we gave up after waiting a few minutes and went to the other petting zoo location because a handwashing station was present there. Despite a large crowd around the first petting zoo, I didn't see anyone following our actions so presumably almost no one washed their hands after petting the animals. The good thing about this first petting zoo was they had a clean facility, appropriate animals and no major problems apart from the forgotten sanitizers.
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Petting zoo number 2 was not as good. There were numerous problems, some of them very major.
* Inappropriate animals #1: As we walked in, someone held out a baby chick and tried to give it two my 2-yr-old daughter to handle. Standard guidelines are that children under 5 should not handle young poultry, so these animals are inappropriate for any petting zoo.
* Inappropriate animals #2: The next thing we passed was a young calf. Calves are also considered a high-risk animal and should not be present in petting zoos.
* Inappropriate animals #3: The calf had diarrhea (see the diarrhea staining and hair loss probably associated with prolonged diarrhea in picture). It's very likely that this calf was shedding one or more infectious agents in its diarrhea, such as Cryptosporidium.
* Food for sale: Food was being sold and consumed inside the tent where the petting zoo was. This is inappropriate.
Petting zoos can be great events for kids. They can also be sources of large and serious outbreaks.
Hopefully nothing bad will come from this and we won't hear reports of illness in petting zoo participants. But, as I've said before, hope is not a proper infection control program.
Anyone having a petting zoo must know the issues, risks and proper measures. Reading the Compendium of measures to prevent disease associated with animals in public settings would be a good start.
A leading personal injury lawyer, Jill Greenfield, a partner at Field Fisher Waterhouse in the U.K., told The Independent that she has received instruction from a family involved and expects a class action. In 2001, she represented Tom Dowling, who was awarded damages of £2.6m after he contracted E. coli as a four-year-old during a school trip to a north London farm in 1997, which resulted in his becoming quadriplegic and brain damaged. His was the third case of E. coli at the farm within a few months.
Tenth Hole Tea Rooms source of Salmonella for 47 in Portsmouth, UK
The BBC reports that 47 people who visited a cafe in Portsmouth have been confirmed as suffering from salmonella infection.
NHS Portsmouth, the Health Protection Agency and Portsmouth City Council are investigating the cases associated with the Tenth Hole Tea Rooms in Southsea.
All became ill in August and four went needed hospital care, but there have been no new cases since 1 September.
The tea rooms have co-operated with the probe and implemented preventative measures, the city council said.
Paul Edmondson-Jones, director of public health for both NHS Portsmouth and the city council, said,
"While an initial investigation was begun by the council on 25 August, it was stepped up to other agencies on 1 September when the scale of the incident became apparent. It was only in the last couple of days that we have been able to accurately confirm the Tenth Hole as the source of the outbreak, which is now over."
UK boy, 3, catches swine flu and E.coli; father disgusted kids' lives put at risk at petting zoo
Harry Dolby, three (right, photo from Telegraph) has become the latest victim of E.coli at a petting farm after being recetly hospitalised with swine flu.
He visited Godstone Farm with his mother Louise and friends on September 4, after the initial E. coli cases came to light.
Speaking from his bedside at Queen Mary's Hospital in Sidcup, Kent, Harry's father, Lee Dolby, said he was ''disgusted'' at the failure of the farm and the HPA to act promptly.
Mr Dolby spoke of his anger at the actions taken over Godstone Farm.
''As soon as the first case came to light, the place should've been closed until it had been given the all-clear. 'These are kids' lives being put at risk here. I'm just disgusted at both the farm and the HPA, which is meant to be protecting us. Both are in the wrong for keeping the farm open. They realised it would be one of the last times for the kids to be able to visit and have a treat before the school holidays finished and they returned to classes."
UK Food Safety Agency is now the sustainability agency; serve it piping hot
The U.K. Food Standards Agency has decided it is now the deciderer of sustainability. I’m not sure what that has to do with food safety, or the agency’s mission.
But, in addition to telling British consumers to cook their turkey until it is piping hot, FSA has now entered the sustainability word barf fest:”
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“… the advice is being set more firmly in the wider sustainability context and consumers are now being asked to think about the choices they make when they choose which fish to eat.”
The Food Standards Agency is now encouraging consumers to:
try to choose fish that has been produced sustainably or responsibly managed
look for assurance scheme logos
be adventurous and eat a wider variety of fish species
The Agency worked with Defra, the Department of Health, the Scottish Government and other Government departments, responding to recommendations from stakeholders such as the Royal Commission on Environmental Pollution and the Sustainable Consumption Roundtable.

That's a lot of government salaries sitting around the table. And nothing to do with food safety.
E. coli backlash as UK health type apologies for delay in closing farm
With 13 kids in hospital and 37 sick after visiting a UK farm, Health Protection Agency chief executive Justin McCracken has phoned parents of the children most seriously affected to apologise to them.
"If this information had been taken into account on 27 August, then the advice given and the steps taken on 3 September would have been introduced earlier and the farm might have been closed earlier.
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"I wanted to speak personally to the parents of those children who are most seriously ill in hospital to explain what has happened and, however inadequate under the circumstances, to apologise.
"The position they find themselves in is unbearable and it is of course worse that what has happened might have been avoidable."
The farm was closed on Saturday - although the first E.coli case was reported on 27 August.
A pair of two-year-old twins, from Paddock Wood in Kent, have suffered acute kidney failure.
Initially, the HPA said the first case came to light on 27 August.
It later emerged that the agency had received a report of two cases in the previous week.
The face of E. coli: twins who visited the UK petting zoo edition; Vancouver fair remains delusional
Two-year-old twins Aaron and Todd Furnell went to visit the farm and in this picture, from the Mirror, lie motionless on their stomachs in adjacent hospital cots.
Todd underwent a second blood transfusion yesterday - the day a 13th child was hospitalised - after the brothers had suffered acute kidney failure.
Ms Mock said: "They're much the same, but now they are eating a little bit, rather than having it done for them through a feeding tube. When Aaron isn't asleep, he seems a bit more alert, but Todd is struggling a little."
Tracy Mock is among a group of parents calling on health officials to explain why they were able to visit Godstone Farm, Godstone, near Redhill, Surrey, after the first case of E.coli was brought to manager's attention there on August 27.
Ms Mock, from Kent, and her sons visited the farm four days later.
Four young children remained seriously ill in hospital last night following the outbreak on the popular petting farm.
Twenty four adults fell ill after visiting. Yesterday the Health Protection Agency (HPA), which faced calls for a public inquiry into its handling of the outbreak, confirmed there were a total of 37 cases of E.coli infection linked to the farm, including another child who had been recently diagnosed.
Another toddler, Alfie Weaver, was being monitored by doctors at East Surrey Hospital in Redhill, where he also had blood transfusions.
The little boy was left screaming in agony when his kidneys shut down following the outbreak. He was cared for in an isolation ward but is now understood to have begun talking.
His grandfather, from Redhill, who did not want to be named, said the three-year-old has since shown signs of improvement.
"It was like a dream come true, he has been in agony for nine days," he said.
The child and his six-year-old sister were taken to Godstone Farm on the August bank holiday – several days after the first case of E.coli was reported.
His mother, Gemma Weaver, said: "We deserve answers from the farm and the Health Protection Agency about this horrific bug. This farm should have been shut down earlier in August if kids tested positive for the bug then."
In Vancouver, where another dozen kids got sick from the petting zoo, the local paper can’t decide whether it was the food or the petting zoo.
Mark Neale writes in the Belfast Telegraph this morning that those who have investigated E. coli O157 "know the risk it poses on open or petting farms. A quick scan of the literature suggests one outbreak a year can be associated with open or petting farms. E.coli, particularly the virulent 0157 variant, has always been associated with farms and farm animals. Hand-washing, alcohol gels and all manners of materials used to remove the bacteria ultimately will prove useless."
Petting zoo terrors: another UK child treated for E.coli; twins affected
Another child is being treated in hospital following an outbreak of E.coli at a farm in Surrey.
The Health Protection Agency (HPA) said there were now 13 youngsters being treated, of which four were seriously ill and six were in a stable condition.
Three are improving in hospital, with the total number of cases of E.coli 0157 linked to Godstone Farm now at 37.
The farm, near Redhill, was closed on Saturday - although the first E.coli case was reported on 27 August.
Parents upset at U.K. petting zoo and farm visit; dozen kids in hospital with E. coli
In the fall of 1998, I accompanied one of my five daughters on a kindergarten trip to the farm. After petting the animals and touring the crops --I questioned the fresh manure on the strawberries --we were assured that all the food produced was natural. We then returned for unpasteurized apple cider. .jpg)
The host served the cider in a coffee urn, heated, so my concern about it being unpasteurized was abated. I asked: "Did you serve the cider heated because you heard about other outbreaks and were concerned about liability?" She responded, "No. The stuff starts to smell when it's a few weeks old and heating removes the smell."
I’m all for farm visits, local markets, petting zoos, but I want the operators to have a clue about the dangerous bugs that make people – especially little kids – sick.
The Brits are particularly pissed that Godstone Farm in Surrey, which appears to be the source of 36 E. coli O157 illnesses, including 12 kids in hospital, stayed open as long as it did.
The Telegraph reports this morning,
As many as 18,000 people were allowed to visit the farm, where children are allowed to touch and feed animals including geese, goats and llamas, in the nine days after health protection officials became aware of a possible risk.
A total of 36 people have been taken ill with the potentially lethal bacterial infection including 12 children who are in hospital.
Four of the children are said to be in a serious condition after developing complications such as kidney failure as well as diarrhoea.
Among those being treated in hospital are Tracy Mock's two-year-old twin sons who visited the attraction on Aug 31 while her five-year-old daughter is also ill.
"If they had just shut the place down to investigate, my sons would not be in hospital on kidney dialysis machines," Miss Mock, from Kent, told the BBC.
"They are still in hospital, my partner and I are taking turns to be there with them. One has had a blood transfusion.
Neil Wilson’s six year-old nephew Tommy contracted E-coli after visiting the farm and is now in hospital in Sidcup suffering from kidney failure.
Mr Wilson said: "I can’t understand why they didn’t shut down that area of the farm until they found out exactly what the problem was.
"I just think they kept it open because it was the school holidays.”
Richard Oatway, the farm’s manager, said he had complied with everything officials had asked him to do and would not reopen until given the all-clear.
Dick, I want to ask you a few questions about verotoxigenic E. coli and ruminants.
Here’s a video about petting zoo safety we did a couple of years ago.
Pet snakes and babies don't mix: 4-month-old hospitalized with Salmonella in UK
I don’t know what it is with parents in the U.K. letting pet snakes hang out with their babies.
For the third time in recent memory, a 4-month-old baby fell seriously ill with salmonella she caught from the family’s pet snake.
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The baby girl was admitted to intensive care at St Thomas Hospital with a fever and high heart rate in August, where hospital tests revealed she was suffering from a strain known as salmonella Arizona, which is commonly associated with snakes.
She has recovered since then and an investigation by environmental health officers at Sutton Council identified the most likely source to be the family’s two royal python snakes, which can carry the infection in their gut and spread it through their droppings.
The council has now issued a hygiene warning to owners of exotic reptiles, saying it is essential for them to wash hands thoroughly after handling a reptile and keep the animal away from anywhere food is prepared.
Common sense, freshness, not enough for inspectors - UK pub fined
The owners of the Green Man Public House in Stanford, UK, were fined more than £6,000 after failing to comply with food safety laws.
One of the pub owners said,
"We were not aware that we weren't complying with the law, but feel the council could have helped us more.
"When the bloke who did the inspection came into the kitchen that morning, we had two chefs in there which left it messy and he took it to the extreme in my opinion.
"Our business has always been based on common sense. Everything that comes in here is fresh and we are always stringent with food.
"The kitchen is cleaned all the time, it's an ongoing thing. After a busy weekend, the kitchen doesn't usually get bleached until the middle of the week.”
I wouldn’t want to eat there on Monday.
Norovirus sends UK campers packing
"At night all you could hear was vomiting from every corner. I've never experienced anything like it. People were simply zipping up their tents and leaving — they just wanted to get out of there.”
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That’s the dream lede for a barfblog.com post, although probably not pleasant for some 150 campers stricken at a North Devon campsite.
"Almost every tent on the site was affected. There were so many sick children — it was an awful sight to witness.”
North Devon Council said the owners took the decision to close the campsite.
The site has a private water supply which has been closed off due to possible contamination.
Once again: No nutritional difference between organic and regular food
Organic food is not safer than conventional food. Organic food is not more sustainable than regular food. Organic food is not more nutritious than other food.
Organic is more expensive than other food, and verification of organic production practices is specious at best.
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Russ Parsons of the Los Angeles Times figured this out a few weeks ago and wrote a column that began,
"I don't believe in organics."
This morning he revisited the topic, noted that organics is an article of faith for a lot of people, highlighted some hate mail, and most surprising, revealed that mail supporting Parsons’ column was overwhelmingly positive by a ratio of 5 or 6 to 1.
This afternoon, the U.K. Food Standards Authority released results of a review it commissioned which found,
no important differences in the nutrition content, or any additional health benefits, of organic food when compared with conventionally produced food.
The focus of the review was the nutritional content of foodstuffs.
Gill Fine, FSA Director of Consumer Choice and Dietary Health, said,
“Ensuring people have accurate information is absolutely essential in allowing us all to make informed choices about the food we eat. This study does not mean that people should not eat organic food. What it shows is that there is little, if any, nutritional difference between organic and conventionally produced food and that there is no evidence of additional health benefits from eating organic food.”
The FSA commissioned this research as part of its commitment to giving consumers accurate information about their food, based on the most up-to-date science.
A paper reporting the results of the review of nutritional differences has been peer-reviewed and published today by the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition.
Dr Dangour, of the LSHTM’s Nutrition and Public Health Intervention Research Unit, and the principal author of the paper, said:
“A small number of differences in nutrient content were found to exist between organically and conventionally produced crops and livestock, but these are unlikely to be of any public health relevance. Our review indicates that there is currently no evidence to support the selection of organically over conventionally produced foods on the basis of nutritional superiority.”
The Times’ Parsons got it right in his original column when he said,
farming is a complicated enterprise and there is a huge gray area between certified organic and the stereotypical heavy-duty use of chemical pesticides, herbicides and fertilizers.
Furthermore, a lot of the best farming practices of the original organic philosophy -- composting, fallowing, crop rotation, the use of nonchemical techniques for controlling most pests -- have been adopted by many nonorganic growers, even though they still reserve the right to use chemicals when they think it's best.
The complete U.K. report is available at http://www.food.gov.uk/multimedia/pdfs/organicreviewreport.pdf
How safe are free-range eggs?
Years ago - before we moved here and put a dog inside - the shed out back was a chicken coop. These were the original backyard chickens. A resurgence of small-flock rearing has led many to wonder (and make assumptions) about the safety of free-range eggs.
Joel Keehn wrote on Consumer Reports' Health blog this weekend that,
"About a year ago I took my 11-year-old daughter to the emergency room with what turned out to be salmonella poisoning. My first thought when I heard the diagnosis: Did she pick up the infection from our flock of chickens? But the public-health outreach worker at the local department of health said that was unlikely.
"While eggs are indeed a leading cause of salmonella poisoning, the bacteria that causes the infection may be more likely to breed in the cramped confines of factory farms than in free-range, backyard chicken runs like ours."
Oh? That's an interesting assumption. And Keehn doesn't provide anything to support it.
As far as I can tell, salmonella contamination of eggs from various farming methods has not been well-researched...save for one study rumored in January 2008 to have been conducted by the UK government that "showed that 23.4 per cent of farms with caged [egg-laying] hens tested positive for salmonella compared to 4.4 per cent in organic flocks and 6.5 per cent in free-range flocks."
The closest thing I could find was a report by the UK Food Standards Agency in March 2004 of testing results of 4,753 containers of six eggs each (with 16.9% from free-range production systems) that found "no statistically significant difference...between the prevalence of salmonella contamination in samples from different egg production types."
Keehn's blog post concluded by saying,
"By the way, the health department official who called me up said the most likely source of my daughter’s salmonella poisoning was our pet turtle. That critter is now gone. But I’m picking up four new hens from my neighbor down the road later this week."
I have no reason to believe their eggs will be any safer than those of caged hens. Keehn's reason is not good enough.
UK caterer closed after making 44 cops barf
Birmingham City Council said Monday the Meal Machine was closed under Food Hygiene regulations amid concerns over cleanliness and cross contamination of foods.
Earlier this month it was reported that at least 44 police officers suffered the effects of what appeared to be food poisoning, including severe diarrhoea and vomiting, as a result of packed lunches issued to the officers by … Meal Machine.
It is known a number of officers ate a chicken and stuffing sandwich supplied to them as part of a packed lunch prepared by an outside contractor.
A spokesman for Birmingham City Council’s environmental health department said the decision followed checks into processes and procedures, including “food handling, cross contamination, temperature control and general cleanliness”.
Can food safety culture be taught? UK Food Standards Agency responds to E. coli O157 report
Two days ago, the parents of 5-year-old E. coli victim Mason Jones called the Welsh government response to an inquiry into the 2005 outbreak, “a bit disappointing.”
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Today, the U.K. Food Standards Agency published its own response and, it’s a bit disappointing.
After a cursory reading, the FSA folks seem to acknowledge some of the major points raised by Prof. Pennington, but in the end promised more of the same (but gosh-darnnit, a bit tougher on enforcement).
Here are a few highlights:
This understanding of ‘food safety issues’ culture and ‘what works’ are core to the Food Hygiene Delivery Programme. This will be a particular challenge as local authorities’ regulatory services are facing declining resources, and increasing demands for their services. We must push more effectively in all appropriate national forums for food safety to be given more prominence by local political bodies and their officials. Our own project-based approach to delivering responses to this Inquiry, coupled with the restructuring of the Agency’s Food Safety Group, is designed to concentrate on a coordinated set of actions to achieve the desired outcomes in a holistic rather than piecemeal way.
Culture and holistic are nice words but the FSA says:
In May 2009 the FSA announced a new training course on social marketing and behavioural change for food enforcement officers. It aims to develop skills to acquire an insight into the behaviours of food business operators and consumers in order to successfully disseminate food safety messages.
What does disseminate mean in this context? What if the messages suck? How will this be evaluated. Is there any evidence that social marketing is effective in creating food safety behavior change? Those issues get to the essence of food safety culture, yet are glossed over with a training session – more of the same.
Food poisoning strikes Birmingham police
In 1984, the Pope visited the restored 350-year-old Jesuit mission of Ste. Marie-among-the-Hurons in Midland, Ontario. After departing, 1,600 hungry Ontario Provincial Police officers who had worked the ropes gathered for a boxed lunch. Of those 500 officers who chose ones with roast beef sandwiches, 423 came down with salmonella.
On Saturday, July 4, 2009, more than 40 police officers in Birmingham, U.K., were stricken with food poisoning after consuming a boxed lunch of a sandwich, packet of crisps, chocolate bar and piece of fruit, as they prepared to police a demonstration which passed off peacefully.
Dozens of fireman, police and ambulance staff rushed to the scene as British Transport Police shut the station at about 5pm on the advice of health agencies.
The station re-opened 50 minutes later.
Drunk on sanitation
At Dorset County Hospital, in the UK, alcohol based hand sanitizing gel is now banned at hospital entrances. The hospital’s Infection Prevention and Control Committee previously placed sanitizing gel at hospital entrances to promote hospital visitor hand hygiene. According to hospital staff, homeless people are now coming into the entrance and drinking the gel, which contains up to 70 percent alcohol.
A spokeswoman from the hospital said, “What we are trying to do is focus people on hand hygiene at the point of care so that they wash or gel their hands on entering wards or at the patient’s bedside.” She further implied the removal of the alcohol gel due to ingestion was only one of many health and safety reasons. The National Patient Safety Agency (NPSA) has advised hospitals to remove alcohol gel from hospital entrances.
Two persons have died from alcohol gel ingestion.
UK toddler's relative dies of E. coli O157
A relative of a north-east Fife toddler who contracted E. coli O157 has died of the infection.
The Courier reports that the child, who became ill around a month ago, was treated at home.
NHS Fife, whose public health department was investigating the case, confirmed that no one outside the family had contracted the illness and that a woman—an older relative of the child—had died in Ninewells.
UK family farm closes after 8 get E. coli O157
Another reminder to play safe on the farm.
An open farm in West Lancashire has been temporarily closed after eight people, including three children, were struck down with E.coli O157.
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One of the children affected is currently in hospital and is described as ‘poorly but stable’.
The eight people are from two families that both recently visited Windmill Animal Farm, on Red Cat Lane, in Burscough.
The farm is being considered as one possible source of the infection and the farmer is co-operating fully with the investigations.
U.K. targets listeria risk in old people - when will Canada?
I got an e-mail from the vice-president of communications for Maple Leaf Foods on Saturday afternoon.
She was sending me a blog that her boss, Michael McCain wrote, about his new knowledge of listeria and the role of food safety inspectors.
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I figure she’s making at least $150,000 to do her vp communicating, so, even though I was a dick, I felt OK responding,
“Thanks for forwarding this in a timely manner. I blogged about it yesterday.”
It was about 24 hours earlier.
And while McCain and Maple Leaf go about enhancing their communications reputations, even the mother country, land of the cook-your-turkey-till-it’s-piping-hot advice, has decided listeria is a problem, maybe we can’t rely on manufacturers, maybe listeria is everywhere like Michael McCain says, so maybe we better tell old people they could be at risk.
The U.K. Food Standards Agency commissioned a bunch of research and figured out that people over the age of 60 are more likely to take risks with 'use by' dates than younger people and that eating food like cold-cuts beyond its 'use by' date increases the risk of food poisoning from listeria.
A recent sharp rise in the number of people taken ill with listeria has seen more older people affected. The number of cases rose by 20% in 2007 and has doubled since 2000, this increase occurring predominantly among people over 60.
The number of cases of listeria in people over 60 years of age has doubled in the past nine years. And one in three of the people who get food poisoning caused by listeria die as a result.
Listeria is a type of food poisoning bacteria that can live and grow in a wide range of food – chilled ready-to-eat food in particular – for example pâté, cooked sliced meats, certain soft cheeses and smoked fish.
Dr Andrew Wadge, Chief Scientist at the FSA, said,
The rise in listeria food poisoning among older people is worrying. Listeria can make people very ill, and 95% of cases end up needing treatment in hospital.
'There are some really simple steps people can take to prevent getting ill in the first place: be aware that 'use by' dates indicate how long food will remain safe, and then make sure you stick to them; always follow the storage instructions on the label; and make sure your fridge is cold enough – between 0°C and 5°C is ideal.
'These are the three messages that our new campaign is focusing on and Food Safety Week is a good time to be raising awareness of them."
VP communications thingy: stop sending me e-mails that you or any of your underlings – and I know how many people at Maple Leaf subscribe to bites.ksu.edu and barfblog.com – know was repetition and maybe work on an information strategy so that the genius dieticians in Canadian old-folks homes stop serving unheated cold-cuts to their patients. That’s how 22 people died last year.
UK: Dead mouse in loaf of bread
North Antrim Magistrates Court heard how a man purchased a Hyndman's malt loaf from a supermarket in the Ballymoney area before Christmas 2007.
When he unwrapped the loaf he discovered the small lifeless mammal embedded in the base of the bread (right, photo from BBC).
The judge fined the company, D Hyndman and Son Ltd, Maghera, £1,000 plus costs for placing unsafe food on the market. …
The defence lawyer said an "onerous inspection" is held at the bakery every six weeks and that two field biologists attend each year. There are 131 bait stations in the premises at present, he said.
Sure kids can visit the farm, but should they be hugging the cows?
Yesterday I wrote about a bunch of schoolkids in Carlisle , U.K. that have been stricken with cryptosporidium, apparently related to so called-educational visits to nearby farms.
Teachers and school leaders said there were lots of precautions and lots of handwashing. So Shane Morris sent me a picture from the May 1, 2009 edition of the Cumberland News, (right) which documented the trip that apparently sickened the kids and included this charming picture, right, of cow-kid cuddling. Did she sanitize her cheek? And who knows what else went on.
Scott Weese of the Worms and Germs Blog wrote this morning that a recent study by Pritchard et al in the Veterinary Record reports that in samples collected from various animals on 31 different farms in U.K., verotoxigenic E. coli, like O157, was found on 61% of premises. Presence of young cattle and, surprisingly, adult pigs were identified as risk factors for finding verotoxigenic E. coli at a location. Verotoxigenic E. coli were most commonly identified in cattle (29%). It wasn’t surprising that cattle, especially young cattle, were the most common carriers based on what we know about the bacterium, but there were impressively high rates of carriage by other species, including sheep (24%), donkeys (15%), pigs (14%), horses (12%) and goats (10%).
On most farms where verotoxigenic E. coli was found, the same strain was identified in different animal species, indicating that this bacterium can spread widely on such premises. This may be because different animal species in petting zoos are mixed together, as opposed to the situation on conventional farms.
(Weese notes: the premises were evaluated following suspicion that they could have been the source of infection of people, so it’s possible that the numbers reported are higher than for the overall population of such farms.)
Weese writes,
“The risk of people acquiring an infection from animals depends more on the degree of contact and the precautions adopted than the prevalence of infection in a particular species.”
Where does cow hugging and possible face-licking rank on the risk scale?
UK schoolkids sickened after farm visit; 'an absolutely fantastic visit' says teacher
Cumbrian health chiefs have issued urgent advice about farm visits after confirming that four children were stricken by cryptosporidium, carried by cattle and lambs, and were investigating an unspecified number of other possible cases.
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The infections came after a number of recent farm visits, health officials say.
Pauline Little, an assistant head at the school, which sent 59 children on the visit, said,
“It was an absolutely fantastic visit. The farm was immaculate. Children were given the chance to milk a cow and stroke baby goats. They were given hand gel to clean their hands afterwards. And when we got back to school, we did more about washing hands than we would normally.”
The Health Protection Agency (HPA) North West yesterday advised parents and children how best to reduce the risk of infection during and following farm visits.
* Parents and teachers should check the hygiene facilities at the farm to ensure there are good hand-washing facilities with hot water, soap and paper towels.
* Children and their supervisors should always wash hands carefully after touching animals and other farm objects, especially before eating or drinking.
*Children must not eat or drink or put their fingers in their mouths whilst close to animals and before washing their hands.
Prof. Hugh Pennington of the U.K. has gone so far as to say that children under five (who are more vulnerable because of their still-developing immune systems) should be banned from visiting livestock farms because of the serious risk of acquiring E. coli O157:H7 infection from farm animals. Such a ban already exists in Sweden.
There is much to learn from interacting with animals, farms, and the world. The challenge is to do so in a microbiologically safe manner.
UK urine spray man gets nine years
An Algerian-born chemist who contaminated food and wine in Gloucestershire supermarkets with his own urine and faeces has been sent to prison for nine years.
The BBC reports that Sahnoun Daifallah, 42, of Bibury Road, Gloucester, (right, sorta as shown from the BBC) was found guilty of four counts of contaminating goods at four businesses in May 2008.
The court heard shoppers and staff in both stores saw Daifallah with a black laptop computer with a vapour coming from the bag being sprayed on the shelves.
The cost of damaged products and lost business due to resulting store closures was estimated at £700,000.
UK veterinarians want to tackle disease, not play Diversity Day
Farmers Weekly Interactive reports that while farmers fight for their livelihoods, the entire UK Animal Health workforce of about 1700 staff will have to undergo workplace training, which includes learning how to play the drums and playing games.
One vet spoke of management’s attempt at Diversity Day (from The Office, right and below) by saying,
"… we wasted an entire day playing games, mucking about and banging drums.I am appalled that taxpayers are being asked to foot the bill for this when we are supposed to be fighting disease.”
A spokeswoman for Animal Health said,
"As well as strategy, aspects of the day focus on effective teamwork and how it can help Animal Health deliver better outcomes in the future.
"This was done in a fun and interesting way which involved staff doing activities together.”
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UK Subway worker filmed putting lettuce leaves up his nose in sandwich shop... before putting them back on display
A sandwich bar worker was sacked after footage of him stuffing lettuce leaves up his nose - before he put them back in their serving tray - was posted on YouTube.
Except I can’t find the video, so there’s just this crappy picture (if someone has it, please send along the url).
The Daily Mail reports that Richard Shannon, who also put salad leaves in his mouth before spitting them out, was arrested after a 'disgusted' customer recognised the 22-year-old on the Internet.
Shannon was arrested after the irate woman went to a branch of Subway in Brownhills, West Midlands, and hurled a chair at him, Walsall Magistrates' Court heard today.
The defendant admitted a single charge of contaminating or interfering with goods with intent to cause economic loss, alarm or injury.
He claimed the incident, filmed by a friend on a mobile phone early last year, had been a prank and that the lettuce, which went back into a tray used to make customers' sandwiches, had been discarded.
Man sprays feces, urine into pub; maybe he should have just asked for a refund
An Algerian-born chemist has been found guilty in a British court of contaminating food and wine by using his own urine and feces.
The court had heard man sprayed the mixture in the Air Balloon Pub, in Birdlip, near Cheltenham on 14 May, 2008.
He then moved on to the Waterstones bookstore in Cirencester, Tesco in Quedgley and Morrisons in Abbeydale.
The court also heard shoppers and staff in both stores saw the man with a black lap top computer with a vapor coming from the bag being sprayed on the shelves. He is likely to be deported.
Sesame, sunflower seeds possibly linked to UK salmonella outbreak
The Independent reports that Tesco, Waitrose and well-known health food shops have withdrawn tens of thousands of packets of edible seeds in one of the biggest product recalls in a decade after a survey found "unacceptable" levels of salmonella and E. coli.
One-in-50 packs of ready-to-eat seeds such as sesame and sunflower was found to be contaminated.
The study's authors pointed out that although there was no direct link to the contaminated seeds, 137 people in England and Wales fell ill from six sub-types of salmonella found in the seeds during the six-month study. Many more ill people are likely to have not reported their symptoms to GPs. The Health Protection Agency and the local authority group Lacors, which conducted the study, warned food manufacturers and retailers to improve hygiene during harvesting and drying of seeds.
The study was carried out because seeds – a popular snack among health-conscious shoppers wishing to avoid high-calorie chocolate and sweets – have become associated with at least seven outbreaks of salmonella in countries such as Germany, Norway, Sweden and Australia since 2000.
To gauge levels of contamination here, environmental health officers from 317 local authorities collected 3,735 packets of ready-to-eat seeds from 3,390 supermarkets, health food shops, convenience stores and market stalls between October 2007 and March 2008. They were analysed in 32 food laboratories.
HP sauce in UK bobby assault
UK police officers were rushed to hospital after a suspicious substance was thrown through a car window. The Metropolitan Police said officers responded to reports of an "unusual smell" coming from a car with a smashed window in Enfield, north London.
They saw an unknown brown substance inside and those who came into contact with it were taken to hospital.
The officers were released when the substance was identified as HP sauce.
'Scorpion king' back after bananas bite
Daniel Amey, 30, thought he had scratched himself until he noticed his finger was swelling up.
The Telegraph reported yesterday he was rushed to hospital where doctors discovered part of a scorpion's tail in his finger.
Mr Amey (right, photo from telegraph.uk.com), who works at The Food Company said,
"I put my hand in the box and thought I had cut it but by the time I was carrying the bananas, my finger had swollen up to twice its size and it felt like it was burning. The doctor was ex-Army and he knew straight away that it was a scorpion as there was a single impact wound from the sting. He told me that if it had been the other kind of scorpion from Africa, I would have been dead within 15 minutes.”
The greengrocer returned to work the same day but says he will be more cautious when unpacking bananas.
Tenko the gecko found in broccoli, adopted by family
And I thought I was emotionally deprived ‘cause I only had a cold-blooded pet – a turtle – as a child.
Some kid in Meole Brace, near Shrewsbury, which is apparently in the U.K., found a four-inch gecko in broccoli purchased from supermarket Tesco.
Mother Paula Walsh said,
"My daughter had been cutting the broccoli for lunch when she screamed, 'Mum come quick, come quick - there's something crawling in the broccoli'. I pulled gently and out he came."
The family decided to keep the little salmonella factory and named it Tenko the gecko.
Tesco said its suppliers had rigorous and thorough checking processes but was glad Tenko had found a good home.
Cricket bats are not stirring spoons
South Shropshire Journals reports that rat droppings, a cricket bat used to stir vats of curry sauce which was later gnawed by rats, and various holes used by the pests were found at a Chinese restaurant in Knighton.
Inspectors found evidence of rat activity at the Mandarin House Take-away at 50 Market Street when they carried out routine checks on March 5 last year.
On Friday, Chun-Hung Cheung was fined a total of £2,000 and ordered to pay £500 costs and a £15 victim surcharge after admitting five charges under the Food Hygiene (Wales) Regulations 2006.
It's tragic to be hip if the science sucks -- turkey advice
The U.K. Food Standards Agency is so tragically hip they’ve gone viral.
Except they call it ‘viral,’ encasing the word in what speakers would call “air quotes” or what Jon Stewart of the Daily Show recently called “dick fingers.” I call it bad writing.
The Agency has launched a new 'viral' marketing campaign, which raises awareness to the dangers of eating week-old turkey and gives tips to protect people in the UK from festive food poisoning. …
The new 60-second video aims to raise awareness of bad food hygiene and give some key advice on the safe handling of Christmas leftovers. The shocking but amusing film features a family that hasn’t been following the Agency’s advice on food hygiene. Diarrhoea might be the Christmas gift that keeps on giving, but do you really want to give it to your family?
The Agency advises leftovers should be:
* cooled as quickly as possible (within one to two hours) and kept in the fridge
* reheated only once, until piping hot
* eaten within two days
Who said the film was shocking? Or funny? And what does piping hot mean?
The Australians, who are just entering the hot summer weather, are more reasonable and recommend cooking to 75C (167F).
The origin of poultry cooking recommendations has been pondered many times on barfblog.com.
Currently, Health Canada suggests consumers cook turkey until the temperature of the thickest part of the breast or thigh is at least 85C (185F), though no one knows why.
A few decades ago, the USDA was also recommending that thigh meat reached 180-185F and breast meat reached 170F.
When asked why a couple years back, a manager of the U.S. Dept. of Agriculture Meat and Poultry Hotline said, "I've looked all over and I really have no idea. I think it happened sometime back in the 1980s, but I don't know what it was based on."
One of my research assistants, Casey Jacob, dug up a New York Times article from 1990 in which an assistant supervisor of the Hotline admitted that a turkey cooked until the breast meat is 160F and the dark meat is 170F was "microbiologically safe," but that the agency recommended the higher temps just to be on the safe side.
The agency now recommends that consumers cook poultry to an internal temp of 165F.
Casey tells that tale here:
“When USDA microbiologists finally got around to conducting validation studies in 2000, they figured out that a 7 log reduction in Salmonella could be achieved instantly at 158F and beyond.
“In 2006, NACMCF decided (through scientific studies, of course, not random number generation as may have been used previously) that foodborne pathogens and viruses, such as Salmonella, Campylobacter, and the avian influenza virus, were destroyed when poultry was cooked to an internal temperature of 165F.
“And thus the scientifically validated American recommendation of 165F was born.”
Here are the refs. Enjoy your Christmas dinner.
National Advisory Committee on Microbiological Criteria for Foods. 2006. Response to the questions posed by the Food Safety and Inspection Service regarding consumer guidelines for the safe cooking of poultry products. Adopted March 24, 2006. Arlington, VA.
United States Department of Agriculture, Food Safety and Inspection Service. 2005. Time-temperature tables for cooking ready-to-eat poultry products. Available at:
http://www.fsis.usda.gov/OPPDE/rdad/FSISNotices/RTE_Poultry_Tables.pdf. Accessed November 23, 2008.
Amy and I will be having lamb.
And this is the real deal, Kingston, Ontario’s very own, Tragically Hip.
Bad bird advice for the holidays
The Brits and their piping hot. The Canadians and their 185F.
No one knows where this advice comes from, yet every holiday, the soundbites are trotted out like a recurring nightmare. It’s like a song by Journey or Styx or Bryan Adams – Don’t Stop Believing, I’m Sailing Away, Summer of ’69 -- it keeps playing and it’s horrible.
The UK Food Standards Agency came out with a computer screen saver yesterday that I couldn’t get to work, and just as well – it says “cook your turkey properly until the juices run clear.”
Color is a lousy indicator: use a digital tip-sensitive thermometer and stick it in.
Nevertheless, the communication experts at the Food Standards Agency say:
“These are the three main ways to tell if poultry is cooked:
* the meat should be piping hot all the way through
* when you cut into the thickest part of the meat, none of the meat should be pink
* if juices run out when you pierce the turkey, or when you press the thigh, they should be clear.”
Piping hot reminds me of Dick van Dyke in Mary Poppins. Provide some scientific validation for these statements. And is it really so hard to recommend using a thermometer?
In Canada, where the laws of physics are somehow different, Health Canada continues to recommend cooking all the crap out of the bird until 185F. The U.S. changed its advice to 165F years ago. When asked why, Canadian government types won’t talk. It’s a secret. But then again, Canada has no Parliament. It goes away. Just keep on believing.
iPhones to help clean up barf in the UK
My iPhone is a Blackberry with an iPod nano duct-taped to the back. Amy has an iPod Touch duct-taped to her Blackberry. iPhones are only available through AT&T, and we’re happy with T-Mobile.
The Brits have a problem with vomit: people do it too often and in public, often outside the pub.
So, as reported by The Register,
Digital democracy charity MySociety has launched an iPhone app version of its successful FixMyStreet website. FixMyStreet encourages users to upload pictures of graffiti, fly tipping, dog fouling and other eyesores and hazards. It passes the information on to authorities, and claims about half the reports result in action.
On iPhone, the process has been simplified by combining the picture with GPS data to instantly report problems over the air, rather than having to visit the FixMyStreet website and pinpoint the location on a map. The relevant council will be alerted automatically.
I want an iPhone app for food safety violations so the authorities could be quickly alerted to food safety problems in restaurants, grocery stores, farms and my mom’s kitchen.
Basil from Israel linked to UK Salmonella outbreak
I sorta figured out how to cook with fresh herbs this year. Fresh basil on tomatoes, loads of sage on poultry, rosemary and garlic in everything.
But fresh herbs are, like other fresh things, fresh, and therein lies the risk – anything that comes into contact has the potential to contaminate. And Amy and I watched squirrels and snails drawn to our fresh herbs, with their squirrel and snail shit.
The UK Telegraph reports today that basil grown in Israel is thought to have been the cause of 32 cases of salmonella in people in England and Wales last year, government scientists said.
The Health Protection Agency and the Local Authorities Co-ordinators of Regulatory Services sampled 3,760 packets of fresh ready to eat herbs between May and October last year and found a small proportion were contaminated with unsafe levels of Salmonella Senftenberg which can cause diarrhoea, vomiting, abdominal pain and fever.
Jim McLauchlin, Director of the Health Protection Agency's Food, Water & Environmental Microbiology Services, said,
"Our survey found six herb types to be contaminated with ten different types of salmonella. The basil samples that were found to be contaminated with S. Senftenberg were all grown in Israel. Investigations undertaken at the time of these samples testing positive identified thirty-two human cases of S. Senftenberg in individuals throughout England and Wales, and it is likely that these cases were linked to consumption of fresh basil.”
Chocolate body spread recalled by UK regulators
All you Brits shopping at Ann Summers sex shops -- the UK’s leading adult toys & lingerie pleasure retailer -- stay away from the chocolate body spread.
The U.K. Food Standards Agency said today it found traces of melamine in the novelty chocolate spreads, which were manufactured in Zhongshan, China, and imported into the country by Scobie (Llarn) Ltd.
"We've never had to put out an alert before on (body spread) - chocolate-flavoured or otherwise," the agency said on its website.
When an employee dies, do not continue to prepare food
A Wolverhampton Magistrates Court in the U.K.banned 45-year-old Jaswinder Singh from working with food ever again after court heard he carried on cooking in a fly-infested prep room at Pappu Sweet Centre & Catering despite the sudden death of one of his workers.
District Judge Martin Brown said,
"The facts in this case are extraordinarily serious, they are about as grave as one might get in such a case."
The catalogue of horrors at the Cannock Road business also included staff smoking and spitting on the floor; a rodent infestation with a dead rat found under a pan in the kitchen; refrigerators running at more than 68F (20OC); mouldy food; and filthy conditions.
Singh, who lives in Prosser Street, Park Village, was banned from managing any food business in the future and ordered to pay £3,861 in fines and costs.
He was caught cooking next to the dead worker in August by a police officer investigating the employee's sudden death. The Pc was so disgusted, he immediately closed the premises.
Singh, unrepresented in court, has owned the business since 1996. He was also fined £2,000 for poor hygiene in 2001. He yesterday admitted 12 food hygiene charges – two of failing to have procedures to control pests.
Singh told the city's magistrates court he should get "one last chance.”
Don't kiss turtles, even in Britain
The UK Health Protection Agency reports that cases of Salmonella Arizonae have been on the increase and can be particularly harmful to infants.
The Telegraph reports that Dr Tansy Peters told the HPA's annual conference,
"Although it is comparatively rare in humans, a study of samples submitted to our laboratory for testing from January 1998 to December 2007 shows that there has been a significant increase in both numerical and percentage terms.
"That may be a reflection of the increased popularity of reptiles as pets.
"This is a very worrying trend and infants and young children with their immature immune systems and weaker gastric acids are disproportionately affected. We even find cases in breast and formula-fed infants and it is unlikely that they acquired their infection from a source other than indirectly, via the parents, from the family's pet reptile. Reptiles shed salmonella in their faeces and carry it on their skin and the public health implications of this inside the home should not be underestimated."
And if you have them in the home, don't kiss them.
Note to the mother country: Food safety is not simple
And the Brits seem to have this obsession with how food safety is simple. There is an outbreak of Salmonella Agona in the UK and Ireland that has sickened about 80 people of all ages, but predominantly young adults.
In the FSA release, the government agency says, “the source of the outbreak is not yet known” and that “when the Agency has further information or useful advice for consumers in relation to this outbreak it will publish it immediately.”
Fair enough. But FSA then feels it necessary, in some weird paternalistic way, to tell Brits that,
“In the meantime, there are simple measures you can take to reduce the risk of food poisoning … Always follow the manufacturers cooking instructions for food intended to be eaten hot and make sure it is piping hot throughout.”
What if the instructions suck, like with pot pies?
“When eating out, always make sure the hot food you have ordered is served piping hot throughout – don’t be afraid to ask for it to be re-heated."
If food safety is so simple, why are there all these sick people and no identified source? Piping hot is too subjective. And since when does anyone have to ask a Brit to be more assertive? Go to a football match.
Seriously, for the millions of dollars spent on risk communication and food safety, this is the best FSA can do?
For modern women who want the healthy organic lifestyle: celebrity chef tells how to poison yourself
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Antony Worrall Thompson, a UK celebrity chef whom Gordon Ramsey once called a Teletubby and has made barfblog for using paving stones as a kitchen counter at a public BBQ, told the August issue of Healthy and Organic Living that henbane is great in salads.In Hamlet, Claudius uses a potion containing the drug to kill the king.
Yesterday Mr Worrall Thompson, and Healthy & Organic Living, who published his culinary wisdom, issued an apology, reminding readers that henbane “is a very toxic plant and should never be eaten”.
Andrew Chevalier, a fellow of the National Institute of Medical Herbalists, said,
“It’s a close relative of deadly nightshade and is a very well recognized poisonous plant. Like most poisons it has medicinal properties. It can be used to treat patients with pain affecting the urinary tubules, such as kidney stones, and for certain gut problems. It acts as a sedative, with analgesic properties.”
Those who had followed Mr Worrall Thompson’s lead and constructed a salad of henbane should seek medical help, Mr Chevalier said. “A good portion would probably cause significant gastrointestinal diffculties and a larger dose would be fatal. If anyone has followed Mr Worrall Thompson’s advice they should dial 999 and prepare to have their stomach pumped.”
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Bunny blamed for UK cryptosporidium alert
Just a harmless little bunny rabbit, like in Monty Python and the Holy Grail (right).A spokesman for Anglian Water said,
"Following extensive investigations, we can now confirm that the source of the cryptosporidium in the water has been linked to a small rabbit, which gained access to the treatment process via a remote ancillary tank shortly before cryptosporidia were detected. More scientific work will be undertaken to understand the unusual type of cryptosporidium found in this case."
Homewoners could be set for a cash rebate of up to £30 to compensate for the loss of water, with residents forced to endure days of having to boil water for drinking and cooking.
UK government vets gagged on badger cull
In a circular email, seen by Farmers Guardian, the Defra agency has told all its staff that a major announcement from Defra on TB policy, including the decision on badger culling, is expected ‘within the next few weeks’.The message, sent by Animal Health field services director Andy Foxcroft, says it is ‘essential that all members of Animal Health are seen to support Government policy’ whatever decision is made, stating, “I appreciate that this maybe challenging, given the strong views some of our customers groups hold about the issues. However, I know that you will appreciate that it is critical. Therefore, all Animal Health staff who come into contact with customers, either by telephone or in person, will be expected to not express any disagreement with the Defra position on TB strategy at any stage."
A former state vet, who asked to remain anonymous, said old colleagues were ‘surprised’ by the email that smacked of ‘paranoia.’
An Animal Health spokeswoman said the agency had "taken the opportunity to remind our staff of the need to support" Defra policy, whatever decision is made in order ‘to ensure there is no confusion."
"Farmers need one clear message on the position on bTB."
UK celebrity chef told to clean up BBQ
Inspectors from South Oxfordshire district council objected to a counter that was made from unsealed paving stones, a potential breeding ground for germs, and a missing floor tile near the barbecue.Vanessa Ong, the environmental health officer, said surfaces must be made from materials that are "smooth, washable, corrosion resistant and non-toxic" and floors must be maintained in a sound condition and be easy to clean and disinfect.
Worrall Thompson said the paving stone counter was purely decorative and had since been sealed, adding
"Everything had been done properly before we opened. They came round when it wasn't in operation and then they put this on their website. I'm a little incensed and I will be having words with the council."
Why are UK butchers -- and inspectors -- apparently so lousy?
The Yorkshire Post reports today that a butcher's shop at the centre of one of Yorkshire's most serious food poisoning outbreaks was found to be "filthy" by inspectors two years before it was shut down.
About 60 people were struck down by E-coli O157 during an outbreak in Leeds in 2006 that led to an investigation into Todd's Pork and Beef Butchers in Armley and its stall at Kirkgate Market.Papers released under the Freedom of Information Act reveal that Todd's was warned several times about poor hygiene standards and practices.
Hilary Cobley, whose late husband Neil was struck down by poisoning as he was due to undergo chemotherapy, was quoted as saying the outbreak was "no accident", adding,
"I don't think this happened overnight. When they shut the shop you could see the muck on the floor. It is a shame that they can't make them pay the fine."
In the name of science: women wanted to eat chocolate for a year
The trial, at the University of East Anglia in Norwich, eastern England, will test whether a natural compound found in cocoa, the main ingredient of chocolate, could cut the risk of heart disease among women with diabetes.A Belgian confectionist has created the special chocolate bar containing high levels of flavonoids -- a plant compound that has been shown to reduce heart risk factors -- to be used in the experiment. Soy, another natural source of flavonoids, has also been added to the bar.
Participants, who must be postmenopausal women under the age of 70, will have their risk of heart disease tested on five occasions during the year to see whether change occurs.
Mystery meat
French, Italian, Belgium, and Dutch markets are listed as targets in the briefing documents sent to food safety departments across Sussex. Farmers' markets and town markets will also be visited for samples.Inspectors across Sussex will take hundreds of samples of biltong, continental sausages such as salamis, pepperoni and mettwurst and cured meat like proscuitto during the next 12 months.
Apart from specialist meats, egg mixes from restaurants and takeaways as well as packaged nuts will be tested.
Don't sleep with dogs, warns chief vet
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Ben and I had arrived in Manhattan (Kansas) a couple of days earlier, and our first official function was to serve as the entertainment at a meeting of the Canadian Studies club at Kansas State University. They wanted to see what real hosers were like, and Ben and I wanted free sandwiches, so it worked out well. Amy said something about being a French professor and I said French food sucked.
At some point we got talking about dogs and food safety, and Amy mentioned that she let her dog sleep on her bed (below) and I said that was a microbiological nightmare.
Or something like that.
Fred Landeg, the U.K.'s acting Chief Veterinary Officer, said today dogs should not be allowed to sleep in their owners’ beds or even in the same room in case they pass on diseases, such as campylobacter and salmonella as well as exotic diseases.
"As a veterinary surgeon I would never advise people to keep dogs in their bedroom."
I was being dramatic when I first met Amy. Our dogs sleep in the bedroom but not on the bed.
Dr. Dude, wash your hands
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Andrew Pike, chief executive of South East Essex Primary Care Trust, said,"We would encourage people using health services to question any healthcare worker, whether in hospital or the community, if they have washed their hands."
Handwashing public service announcements from the International Food Safety Network are available at:
http://barfblog.foodsafety.ksu.edu/2008/03/articles/handwashing/handwashing-public-service-announcements/
Thieves beware: Englishman will defend farm with "chickenshit"
Local cops have said that they will prosecute Watson-Webb if he uses the catapult to defend his property against arsonists and robbers, but he says,"I'm not out to kill anyone or even hurt them. I just want to keep yobs off my land. … This is a serious issue. People all over Britain are sick and tired of feeling like prisoners in their own homes and seeing yobs get away with it."
We haven't had a problem for 22 years so why train staff?
Environmental health officers visited, and found cooked duck stored in cardboard boxes where raw poultry had been, dirty chopping boards and no cleaning or drying equipment for the hand basin near the staff toilets.Directors of the Cantonese restaurant pleaded guilty to eight offences under food hygiene laws at Tameside magistrates' court Dec. 28/07, and were fined £14,000.
A major shareholder was cited as saying he didn't ensure staff had sufficient hygiene training because he had been trading 22 years without a problem.
Fancy food does not mean safe food -- really
Proving once again that fancy food does not mean safe food, Your Local Guardian reports that of the 539 establishments rated in Merton, U.K. this year under the Scores on the Doors rating scheme, supported by the Food Standards Agency, 94 were given a one-star or "poor" rating and 31 were given a no star or "very poor" rating, making a total of 125.The rating ranges from no stars for the worst levels of compliance, through to five stars for the very best standards of food safety management. A two star rating is defined as largely compliant with national requirements.
Jeff Ward, general manager of Cannizaro House Hotel, which received no stars, said"We are the only four-star hotel in the area and have two rosettes from the AA. I was shocked by the rating. We have spent £20,000 on the kitchen since then and will be inviting the inspectors back to reassess us now."
Steve Barr, Secretary of London Scottish Golf Club, which received no stars, said, "We think the rating was unfair because we were in the process of changing our steward and caterers. We are very confident we will get a much better rating next time."
Fancy food does not mean safe food -- Kosher edition
The rating ranges from no stars for the worst levels of compliance, through to five stars for the very best standards of food safety management. A two star rating is defined as largely compliant with national requirements.Kashrut representatives variously expressed surprise and disappointment at the findings, but maintained that hygiene standards were high within the kosher market.
Uh huh.
53 sick with Giardia in Ilkley, U.K.
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Health officials urged people suffering symptoms of giardia lamblia to stay away from swimming pools as the number of infected people climbed to 53.The Ilkley Gazette reports that the investigations continue to focus on Saffron restaurant, Station Plaza, currently closed for refurbishment, after local water supplies were ruled out.
The incubation period for the bug can be up to 25 days, and those who have contracted the illness may not show symptoms until then.
The PCT is still advising anyone with the symptoms of diarrhoea, gas or flatulence, indigestion, nausea, stomach cramps, bloatedness and lethargy, to see their GP. The trust also advises food handlers and health care workers who show the symptoms to seek advice about continuing to work.
Sounds like most people in the U.S. after Thanksgiving yesterday.
