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.
Better food poisoning awareness amongst docs after E. coli O157 inquiry in Wales
Looks like the E. coli O157 death of 5-year-old Mason Jones, the illnesses of 160 other Welsh schoolchildren and the subsequent inquiry headed by Prof. Hugh Pennington were not entirely in vain.
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The South Wales Echo is reporting today that the number of reported foodborne illnesses increased to 631 in June, compared to 234 in January.
The figures highlight the impact the public inquiry into the September 2005 E.coli outbreak in South Wales has had on the willingness of doctors and sufferers to report suspected food poisoning cases.
A spokeswoman for Rhondda Cynon Taf council said,
“The high-profile E.coli court case and subsequent inquiry that has generated increased awareness of food poisoning and, as a result, has driven up the number of cases that are reported to us.
“More GPs are diagnosing cases as food poisoning and not stomach bugs and reporting them to us."
Another E. coli O157 outbreak, again in Wales, linked to seaside restaurant, no one told the public
Madeleine Brindley of Wales Online reports this morning that five people have contracted E.coli O157 after eating at a restaurant in Tenby.
Two children from the same family, who live in West Yorkshire, have been confirmed with the potentially lethal bug.
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A further two men from Newport, in South East Wales and Pembrokeshire, and a woman from Carmarthenshire also fell ill.
It is understood all five people ate at the same food premises, which has not been named, between July 31 and August 15.
It is understood that the restaurant closed voluntarily but has now reopened.
Two girls ill in UK E. coli outbreak; Facebook used to notify potential victims from UK dance camp
BBC News reports that two girls who attended a dance camp in Pembrokeshire have contracted E.coli, it has been confirmed.
An 11-year-old from the West Midlands is being treated in hospital and a seven-year-old from Denbighshire is recovering at home.
Both had attended Dance Camp Wales in Cresselly, which runs between 29 July and 9 August.
Social networking website Facebook is being used to try to contact about 650 people who attended a dance camp after two girls contracted E.coli.
Environmental health officials are also sending letters, e-mails and phoning, where they have contact details.
A spokeswoman said they had turned to Facebook because the event has its own group on the website.
People who experience symptoms are asked to contact Pembrokeshire council's public protection department on 01437 764551 (between 1000 BST and 1800 BST on weekends and between 0800 BST and 1800 BST on weekdays) or email foodsafety@pembrokeshire.gov.uk.
Groundhog Day continues for E. coli prof
Harold Ramis, right, the famed director of Groundhog Day – and writer of dozens of hit comedies, beginning with Animal House -- must be involved in this.
Professor Hugh Pennington (left, below), who authored reports following outbreaks of E.coli, in Scotland, in 1996, and in South Wales nine years later, yesterday told the Western Mail,
“It’s almost ‘Here we go again’.”
The professor, a member of the World Food Programme technical advisory group, said he hoped his last report on the outbreak in South Wales that killed five-year-old Mason Jones would reduce the incidence of E.coli.
But just four years on the bug has left 32-year-old Karen Morrisroe-Clutton seriously ill in hospital. Three-year-old Abigail Hennessey is recovering at Liverpool’s Alder Hey Children’s Hospital.
Professor Pennington, now 71, and living in Aberdeen where before his retirement he was a specialist in bacteriology at the city’s university, said,
“One was hoping that the recommendations would see an end to those food-borne outbreaks or lead to a very significant reduction. A lot of the things we had talked about, people had already started to do on the back of the outbreak of 2005 because it was pretty obvious what had gone wrong. Now it’s almost ‘Here we go again’, unfortunately.”
The face of E. coli O157
Three-year-old Abigail Hennessey, right, is recovering from an E. coli O157 outbreak in Wales that struck at least four people, including a 32-year-old librarian and new mother who remains in a medically induced coma after suffering kidney damage as a result of the infection.
Abigail’s grandfather, Ronald Hennessey, of Gresford, said that thanks to superb medical treatment from the staff at Alder Hey Children’s Hospital in Liverpool, Abigail was now steadily improving.
“It is great to know she is making excellent progress. Day by day she is getting better and stronger in her recovery.”
Mr Hennessey said the situation was in stark contrast to last week when Abigail fell seriously ill after contracting E.coli.
“Then it was almost as if she was in a kind of trance. She was just staring right ahead. But now she is up talking and laughing. I don’t know when she will be coming home. I would very much like to thank Alder Hey for its tremendous work. They have been magnificent.”
Three-year-old recovering from E coli but woman still in coma
A three-year-old girl who needed dialysis after being caught up in an E coli outbreak is beginning to recover in hospital, her parents said today.
Abigail Hussey suffered kidney failure after eating from a takeaway in Wrexham, north Wales, and is one of two people undergoing hospital treatment after the outbreak last month. Karen Morrisroe-Clutton, a new mother who also had kidney failure, remains in a medically induced coma at Wrexham Maelor hospital. The North East Wales NHS trust said she was in a serious but stable condtion.
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She is in Alder Hey Children's hospital in Liverpool, which today released a statement from her mother, Sarah, who also fell ill, and her father, Jeff.
"Abigail's condition deteriorated and she was eventually referred to Wrexham hospital, who transferred her immediately to Alder Hey on Monday 27 July. She tested positive for E coli and was placed on dialysis. We are very relieved that Abigail is beginning to recover, is off dialysis and is eating and drinking quite well."
Sharon Mills, the mother of E. coli victim Mason Jones (left) said the latest Wales outbreak has brought horrific memories flooding back.
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“It’s terrible that more people are having to go through this. Mason fought for two weeks until he couldn’t fight any more and ever since I have fought on for him as I don’t want his death to be in vain.”
While the cause of the North Wales outbreak remains under investigation, Mills said she believes both the authorities and the public still fail to fully appreciate the terrible consequences of E.coli infection.
The Llay Fish Bar was allowed to continue business even though environmental health inspectors found poor hygiene conditions and was awarded the lowest rating of no stars during the August 2008 inspection.
Mills said:
“The threat of E.coli is not being taken on board. People really need to start listening and they need to start listening now. The message needs to be drummed home that E.coli is serious and can affect anyone, not just those with underlying health problems. it’s such a powerful bacteria.”
UK E. coli fish bar scored zero for hygiene
The BBC reports that Llay Fish Bar in Wrexham, suspected as the source of an E. coli O157 outbreak that has left a new mother on life-support and a 3-year-old with renal failure, received zero out of five in a 2008 hygiene inspection.
The Llay Fish Bar has been closed by local council -- but only since the severe illnesses emerged.
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Woman on life-support, 3-year-old suffering renal failure after E. coli O157 outbreak in Wales
Two people are being treated in hospital after a suspected E coli O157 outbreak in north Wales.
One woman is on a life-support machine, according to her family. Health officials say a total of four people have been taken ill.
The Llay Fish Bar in Llay, Wrexham has been closed.
The BBC has named one of the patients as Karen Morrisroe-Clutton, who has an 11-week-old baby being cared for by its grandparents. Her husband, Paul, is at her bedside at Wrexham Maelor hospital.
Rose Morrisroe, her mother, told the BBC her daughter had bought a veggie burger at the premises being investigated. She had been in intensive care since last week and was being kept in a medically induced coma. She was on a dialysis machine and had shown slight improvement.
A three-year-old girl is also being treated for renal failure in Alder Hey hospital in Liverpool.
Tragic food safety stories and teaching moments
This is what happens when doing interviews at 6:30 a.m. while feeding Sorenne some mush of peach and pear.
After blogging about how the U.K. Food Standards Agency was embracing food safety culture, I turned the post into an opinion piece and sent it to a newspaper in Wales.
The next morning, while feeding Sorenne, a reporter e-mailed me with some questions, and I replied, “call me.”
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So she did.
The article, by Abby Alford, appeared this morning in Wales under the headline, Tragic E. coli death used to teach US students food hygiene.
The tragic story of E. coli victim Mason Jones is being used by an American professor as a graphic illustration of what unsafe food can do.
Dr Douglas Powell also shows his students at Kansas State University a picture of the five-year-old as he teaches them about food safety.
“We are always trying to come up with new ways of getting the food safety message across. We have to have a compelling story and there’s no more compelling story than Mason Jones,” he said.
I talked about food safety culture, what FSA was proposing, and questioned how they were going to measure effectiveness.
The FSA has announced a culture change is needed in all parts of the food supply chain if the UK is to avoid another E.coli outbreak.
Dr Powell also suggested UK firms could follow the example of a factory in North Dakota, USA, which uses webcams to stream its activities live on the Internet.
Apparently I dreamed that part. There is a turkey processing plant in South Dakota that uses video cameras to constantly monitor operations and the videos can be accessed by auditors or USDA inspectors at any time – but not on the Internet. And not in North Dakota.
'Change culture to avoid E. coli'
Amy’s father and stepmom came for a visit and yesterday we went to a local eatery for a late lunch.
When Amy’s dad ordered a burger, the server asked how he would like the burger cooked.
He said medium-well.
The server said he could get the burger as rare as he wanted.
Amy said really, and started asking, just what was a medium-rare burger.
The server said it all had to do with color, and after some back and forth with the cooks, said the beef they get has nothing bad in it anyway.
Color is a lousy indicator.
During the same meal, a reporter called to ask, why do companies – big companies, huge chains and brand names -- knowingly follow or ignore bad safety practices? (that story should appear Sunday).
It comes down to culture – the food safety culture of a restaurant, a supermarket, a butcher shop, a government agency.
Culture encompasses the shared values, mores, customary practices, inherited traditions, and prevailing habits of communities. The culture of today’s food system (including its farms, food processing facilities, domestic and international distribution channels, retail outlets, restaurants, and domestic kitchens) is saturated with information but short on behavioral-change insights. Creating a culture of food safety requires application of the best science with the best management and communication systems, including compelling, rapid, relevant, reliable and repeated, multi-linguistic and culturally-sensitive messages.
Sixteen years after E. coli O157:H7 killed four and sickened hundreds who ate hamburgers at the Jack-in-the-Box chain, the challenge remains: how to get people to take food safety seriously?
Lots of companies do take food safety seriously and the bulk of American meals are microbiologically safe. But recent food safety failures have been so extravagant, so insidious and so continual that consumers must feel betrayed.
Frank Yiannas, the vice-president of food safety at Wal-Mart writes in his book, Food Safety Culture: Creating a Behavior-based Food Safety Management System, that an organization’s food safety systems need to be an integral part of its culture.
The other guru of food safety culture, Chris Griffith of the University of Wales, features prominently in the report by Professor Hugh Pennington into the 2005 E.coli outbreak in Wales that killed 5-year-old Mason Jones and sickened another 160 school kids.
Yesterday, the board of the U.K. Food Standards Agency (FSA), in response to Pennington’s report, approved a five-year plan that will push food businesses to adopt a food safety culture and comply with hygiene laws, and urge stricter punishments for those that do not. The FSA will also ensure health inspectors are better trained.
A report put before FSA board members in London stated “culture change in all of the relevant parts of the food supply chain” is necessary.
Mason Jones’ mum Sharon Mills said she is pleased with the action being taken by the FSA.
“This sounds promising and shows they are moving in the right direction. … Things are slowly changing and hopefully we will all see the benefits sooner rather than later.”
Maybe. I’m still not convinced FSA understands what culture is all about. And how will these changes 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.
And why wait for government. The best food producers, processors, retailers and restaurants should go above and beyond minimal government and auditor standards and sell food safety solutions directly to the public. The best organizations will use their own people to demand ingredients from the best suppliers; use a mixture of encouragement and enforcement to foster a food safety culture; and use technology to be transparent -- whether it's live webcams in the facility or real-time test results on the website -- to help restore the shattered trust with the buying public.
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Welsh government responds to E. coli outbreak report; parents of Mason say it's not enough
After the 2005 E. coli O157 outbreak which killed 5-year-old Mason Jones and sickened 160 schoolchildren in Wales, Professor Hugh Pennington led a public inquiry which revealed the futility of food safety training, government inspection, and pretty much anything to do with the so-called food safety system.
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Yesterday, First Minister Rhodri Morgan announced more of the same in responding to Pennington’s report in the Wales Assembly.
“We know already that the Food Standards Agency is to review the use of equipment such as vacuum-packing machinery for both raw and cooked products.”
Duh. It shouldn’t happen.
“The training of inspectors and their managers is also being examined, with the aim of making this more comprehensive, helping them develop a sixth sense of what is potentially catastrophic.”
So they can see dead people?
“Inspections will be unannounced unless there is a clear requirement otherwise.”
Just make the inspections unannounced.
Sharon Mills and Nathan Jones, the parents of Mason Jones (above, right) said they would like to see Mr Morgan take more direct action and impose measures on the authorities involved, instead of leaving them to correct their own mistakes, with Ms. Mills stating,
“It was a bit disappointing because there was nothing definite about what he said. I thought we were going to get some answers and there still aren’t any. I don’t think we are any further forward than we were before.”
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Somewhere, Prof. Pennington, who also headed the inquiry after the 1996 E. coli O157 outbreak in Scotland that killed 21 and sickened over 400, is wondering how to escape this Groundhog-Day-esque cycle of outbreak-illness-death-report-repeat.
Wales E. coli O157 parents: All food safety inspections should be unannounced
In his report into the 2005 epidemic that struck down more than 150 people, most of them children, across the South Wales Valleys and claimed the life of Mason Jones, aged five (right), Professor Hugh Pennington found that all of the inspections made at the premises of the butcher responsible in the months before people became ill had been pre-arranged.
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This allowed Bridgend-based William Tudor time to clean up and to doctor cleaning records to mislead Bridgend Council’s inspectors.
Prof Pennington has now recommended all inspections, primary and secondary, must be unannounced unless “there are specific and justifiable circumstances or reasons why a pre-arranged visit is necessary”.
The parents of four of the victims want to go further and Julie Price, Jeanette Thomas and Mason’s mother Sharon Mills, are re-forming an action group in a bid to achieve their aim.
“We want to make it illegal for hygiene inspectors to carry out announced visits of butchers and other places where food is prepared,” said Mrs Price, mother of 13-year-old Garyn, who was left fighting for his life after contracting the food poisoning bug which spread through school dinners.
“We want that set in stone.”
Unannounced inspections are recommended in The Food Law Practice Guidance (Wales). But announced inspections remain lawful and continue to happen.
Should food safety inspectors get fired if they screw up? Welsh parents say yes
Ya can’t inspect your way to a safe food supply.
For all those in Canada and America clamoring for more inspectors, please, read the report Bill-Murray-in-Groundhog-Day impersonator Professor Hugh Pennington wrote after the 2005 E. coli O157 outbreak in Wales, which sickened 160 and killed 5-year-old Mason Jones (right).
The Western Mail reports this morning that the parents of those kids want the inspectors – the environmental health officers who failed to shut down the butcher responsible for the E .coli outbreak – fired.
Julie Price, 44, whose son Garyn, 13, was left fighting for his life after his kidneys failed when he contracted E.coli O157, said:
“At the end of the day, the buck stops with (butcher) Tudor, but these people were in place to protect our children and they didn’t. I would like to see them sacked.”
Jeanette Thomas, 37, from Mountain Ash, whose sons Garyn ,10, and Keiron ,13, both contracted the bug, said,
“These environmental health officers shouldn’t be allowed to get away with it, especially considering what these poor kids have been through."
Pennington’s report noted that the inspectors, could and should have stopped Tudor using a single vacuum-packing machine for raw and cooked meat.
The butcher was HACCP-trained, inspected and in the business for 30 years, but apparently didn't know or care about cross-contamination between raw and cooked product. Neither did the imspectors.
Lessons from Wales; fallacy of food safety inspections
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Do more inspectors make food safer?
No.
The latest evidence is from Professor Hugh Pennington, who concluded in a report last week that serious failings at every step in the food chain allowed butcher William Tudor to start the 2005 E. coli O157 outbreak, and that while the responsibility for the outbreak, “falls squarely on the shoulders of Tudor,” there was no shortage of errors.
Welsh First Minister Rhodri Morgan picked up on that theme yesterday and pledged to do everything possible to prevent a repeat of the E.coli outbreak of 2005 – for the sake of the families affected.
“Poor hygiene practices at the abattoir and the butcher’s premises” caused the outbreak, but he added,
“These failings were not dealt with effectively by the Meat Hygiene Service or local authority environmental health officers. …” Environmental health inspectors need to “sharpen up” and “drill down beyond the box-ticking part of the inspection process to the potential danger of the reality beyond.”
In his report Pennington said an inspector who made four pre-arranged visits to Tudor’s in the run-up to the outbreak, should not have allowed him to continue using one vacuum-packing machine for both raw and cooked meat because of the risk of cross contamination.
Among his 24 recommendations, Pennington said all checks should be unannounced, unless there were exceptional circumstances.
Don’t tell mom the babysitter’s dead.
E. coli report: lots of blame to go around in Wales
Five-year-old Mason Jones died a painful and unnecessary death.
Mason (right) died Oct. 4, 2005, from E. coli O157 as part of an outbreak which sickened 161 -- primarily schoolchildren -- in south Wales.
Mason’s mother, Sharon Mills, said in 2005 that her son's death was "avoidable" and that lessons "have to be learnt."
"There was nothing wrong with him, only that he ate a dinner - an innocent child eating a dinner. I never thought you could die from E. coli. Never. I had heard of E.coli and I just thought it was food poisoning. I never ever thought Mason would die from it."
Today, Professor Hugh Pennington concluded that serious failings at every step in the food chain allowed rogue butcher William Tudor to start the 2005 E.coli O157 outbreak, and that while the responsibility for the outbreak, “falls squarely on the shoulders of Tudor,” there was no shortage of errors, including:
• local health types did not sufficiently assess or monitor John Tudor & Son’s food safety management or HACCP plan;
• the abattoir was allowed to continue slaughtering despite longstanding and repetitive failures, in breach of legislative requirements and without significant improvements; and,
• the procurement process was “seriously flawed in relation to food safety”
Prof Pennington said he was disappointed that the recommendations he made more than 10 years ago, following the E.coli O157 outbreak in Wishaw, Scotland, which killed 17 people had failed to prevent the South Wales Valleys outbreak.
“I was very disappointed that the more we looked into what happened in South Wales, the greater the number of parallels between Scotland and Wales. That was disappointing for me personally because I had spent a lot of time coming up with the recommendations in 1996 and 1997 – they were implemented but somewhere things fell down in the way they were implemented. I am looking for these recommendations to be implemented as soon as possible because E.coli is as powerful a threat now as it was in 2005.”
Mud with sheep poop sickens mountain bikers
Hundreds of mountain bikers competing in separate races in British Columbia and Wales in the past year were stricken by campylobacter, apparently from contact with feces-laden mud.
Now, the National Public Health Service for Wales (NPHS) and Environmental Health officers at Powys County Council have concluded the Welsh outbreak was probably caused by campylobacter, spread to the cyclists by mud which was contaminated with sheep feces.
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The report acknowledged that, given the nature of mountain bike events, it would be impossible to eliminate the risk of catching such an infection, but made the following recommendations:
* Participants should avoid using soiled drink and food containers
* Pre-packaged food should be eaten out of the wrapper
* Where possible, hands and utensils should be washed before consuming food and drinks
* No open food should be served at events.
* Drinks produced in large volumes for consumption by participants should be dispensed using a method which does not require the repeated immersion of utensils.
* Organisers should consider providing facilities to wash hands and water bottles with clean, running water
* Wherever possible, courses should be re-routed to avoid areas which are heavily contaminated with animal faeces
* Mountain bikers, particularly those who are vulnerable to infection, should be alerted to the potential risk of acquiring zoonotic illnesses from participation in events which cross land used by agricultural and other animals.
To comment on the report, email bikes.outbreak@nphs.wales.nhs.uk..jpg)
Groundhog Day continues for Hugh Pennington; lashes out a delay in E. coli reporting -- again (and again and again)
“In November 1996, over 400 fell ill and 21 -- largely pensioners who had attended a church supper -- were eventually killed in Scotland from infection with E. coli O157:H7.
Health authorities quickly linked the outbreak to cooked meat sold by family butchers John Barr & Son in Wishaw, who had been in business for 28 years and in September was awarded the title of Scottish Butcher of the Year. … It was concluded by investigators that the contamination occurred probably because knives used to separate raw product were also being used to open packages of cooked product.”
Professor Hugh Pennington was called in to handle a public inquiry.
Then another E. coli O157 outbreak struck, this time in Wales in 2005, killing a five-year-old and sickening some 150 schoolchildren. Another public inquiry was held earlier this year, chaired again by Prof. Pennington.
Then another outbreak of E. coli O157:H7 in Scotland killed one and sickened seven in Aug. 2007, again in cold cuts, and again Prof. Pennington said there was no excuse for allowing contaminated cold meat to be sold.
Yesterday, Prof Pennington told the Sunday Mail that a Scottish hospital taking three days to report three cases of E. coli O157 to the local public team was unacceptable, adding,
"I'd only find a delay of hours acceptable. Finding the source must be done quickly, especially after what happened in Wishaw years ago."
Maybe one day the good prof will awaken from this repeating nightmare.
Another campylobacter outbreak from mud at a mountain bike race
From Canada to Wales, if you’re racing mountain bikes, try not to swallow the mud – apparently there’s a lot of shit in mud.
In June 2007, hundreds were stricken and 18 tested positive for campylobacter during the annual Test of Metal mountain bike race in Squamish, B.C.
Dr. Paul Martiquet, the chief medical officer for Vancouver Coastal Health, said,
"This was an outbreak with a high attack rate. Our future advice to the race organizers is to inspect the route prior to the race to ensure it is not littered with animal feces, and not end the race at the horse ring. If there is any horse poop, they have to remove it."
Now, a preliminary report by the National Public Health Service for Wales estimates that up to 160 people who attended the Merida Bikes mountain bike Marathon July 5-6, 2008, based on Builth Wells, fell ill, and 10 of the riders tested positive for campylobacter.
The report described the course as,
“very muddy and contaminated with sheep slurry in certain areas, leading to significant amounts of mud splashing over participants and their equipment. … The most statistically significant risk was the inadvertent ingestion of mud. The nature of this sport means that riding through muddy, agricultural land is unavoidable. The risk of infection from zoonotic organisms such as campylobacter will therefore always be present. Clearly the weather conditions on the day of this event compounded the problem by making contamination by mud inevitable.”
Hygiene horrors in Cardiff, Wales takeout restaurants
Bill Marler's going to London, and if he gets to Wales, beware the Cardiff takeaway.
The South Wales Echo reports that cockroaches, dirt, poor personal hygiene and congealed fat are just some of the shocking details uncovered in health inspector reports on kebab shops and chippies in Caroline Street.
Hundreds of hungry revellers regularly use the street, widely known as Chip Alley (below), after nights out on the town.
But the most recent kitchen hygiene inspection reports, obtained under the Freedom of Information Act, show the street’s takeaways broke food safety regulations more than 70 times.
Wales: E. coli lessons 'were not learned'
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Mark Powell QC (no relation but a fine Welsh name), representing the families, said warnings had not been heeded following an E.coli outbreak in Scotland between 1996 and 1997 which left 21 elderly people dead."It is galling to the families that many of the observations the Sheriff's inquiry, with the substitution of the name of Tudor for that of Barr, the butcher involved in that outbreak, could be written about the 2005 outbreak. Much of what was said then could equally be said now."
The inquiry, chaired by Professor Hugh Pennington, who also chaired an inquiry following the 1996 outbreak in Scotland, is hearing final submissions on Wednesday and Thursday.
It was as if the report following the Scottish outbreak was never written, he told Professor Pennington, adding, "The families are determined that in 10 year's time, the same might not be said of your inquiry."
The inquiry’s findings and any recommendations are not expected to be published until later this year.
Bureaucrats: We were told to take a "softly softly" approach to food safety plans in Wales
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Bridgend County Council responded by saying it made a "reasonable" decision to allow William Tudor, the Butcher of Wales, to use one vacuum-packing machine for both cooked and uncooked meat and that the rules on the issue were "unclear."The BBC reports that Bridgend council do accept that there were deficiencies in the way its officers worked with the factory to introduce a hazard assessment plan, but it says that the government had intended the scheme to be introduced on a "softly softly" basis.
It also says that Mr Tudor's "undoubted attempts at deceit" gave their officers the impression that he was a "competent and informed food operator."
Hygiene failures in Wales similar to Scottish E. coli outbreak
I wrote an opinion piece about the on-going inquiry into the 2005 E. coli O157 outbreak in Wales, and how the findings to date were somewhat similar to what happened after the 1996 E. coli outbreak in Scotland.
Didn’t send it to any media outlets, but posted it on barfblog.com.
That was Feb. 27, 2008. Yesterday, the opinion piece/blog entry apparently made an appearance at the inquiry in Wales.
The Western Mail reported that the Welsh E. coli public inquiry was yesterday shown a blog entry suggesting that chairman Professor Hugh Pennington was trapped in Groundhog Day and that worrying parallels have emerged between the world’s worst E.coli O157 outbreak and the cause of the South Wales Valleys outbreak.
The Scottish outbreak was caused by meat produced by award-winning butcher John Barr, who was found to be using the same knives to handle both raw and cooked meat.
The inquiry into the South Wales outbreak has heard how butcher William Tudor relied on one vacuum-packing machine for both raw and cooked meats. The single machine, which was in use for at least nine months before the outbreak and has been repeatedly referred to as a serious risk of cross-contamination.
In 1999 Prof Pennington said,
“The prospect of another Mr Barr type situation is still quite real because everybody I talk to in meat inspection and environmental health tells me there are people who are still not doing the right thing.”
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But despite the recommendations, Tudor repeatedly passed routine environmental health inspections and was awarded his butcher’s licence just over a month before the outbreak, which killed five-year-old Deri Primary School pupil Mason Jones (right), even though Bridgend Council’s inspectors were aware that he was working with only one vac-packing machine.Asked about the Groundhog Day blog, Dr Salmon said,
“The butcher, John Barr, as far as I understand, was extremely well connected in the location of which his enforcement was taking place. It will be important to take into account how much such considerations may or may not have applied in the case of William Tudor.”
Mother tells how E. coli killed son
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In her statement to the inquiry, Ms Mills said,"When Mason was hallucinating he said to me, 'Mamma, I'm dying.' Mason had never been a child who had ever talked about death - his words therefore hit me for six. You could see it in Mason's eyes that when he said these words he meant what he was saying. That was the first time that I began to form a deep-rooted feeling that Mason could die. I tried to reassure him and talked about things like how many children he was going to have when he got older. I told him that the doctors and nurses were going to make him better. This night was the worst of my life. ...
"He was a beautiful child and I couldn't understand why this had happened. When Mason passed away I felt numb. I felt as if I were looking at someone else's child. I thought that it couldn't be Mason lying there. It was unreal. I felt that I was having a nightmare and that I couldn't wake up. I have felt like that ever since. Returning home without Mason felt as if my life had ended."
The Butcher of Wales Pt. 2
Click here to download the infosheet.
The Butcher of Wales Pt. 2
Click here to download the infosheet.
The Butcher of Wales
More like Bill Murray in Groundhog Day, than Billy Pilgrim.
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In November 1996, over 400 fell ill and 21 were killed in Scotland by E. coli O157:H7 found in deli meats produced by family butchers John Barr & Son. The Butcher of Scotland, who had been in business for 28 years and who was previously awarded the title of Scottish Butcher of the Year, was using the same knives to handle raw and cooked meat. That's a food safety no-no.In a 1997 inquiry, Prof. Pennington recommended, among other things, the physical separation, within premises and butcher shops, of raw and cooked meat products using separate counters, equipment and staff.
In the past two weeks, Prof. Pennington has heard in a new inquiry how John Tudor and Son, the Butcher of Wales, used the same machine to vacuum package both raw and cooked meats, leading to an E. coli O157:H7 outbreak beginning in Sept. 2005, which sickened some150 children in 44 schools in southern Wales and killed five-year-old Mason Jones.
How can the good professor awaken from this recurring national nightmare?
The inquiry into the 2005 outbreak, which began in Feb. 2008, is again chaired by Prof. Pennington and has again heard testimony highlighting gross managerial failures and shocking levels of complacency.
So far, the Butcher of Wales has been shown to have:
• encouraged staff suffering from stomach bugs and diarrhea to continue preparing meat for school dinners;
• known of cross-contamination between raw and cooked meats, but did nothing to prevent it;
• used the same packing in which raw meat had been delivered to subsequently store cooked product;
• operated a processing facility that contained a filthy meat slicer, cluttered and dirty chopping areas, and meat more than two years out of date piled in a freezer;
• a cleaning schedule at the factory that one expert called "a joke;"
• falsified crucial health and safety documents and lied about receiving hygiene awards; and,
• supplied schools with meat that was green, smelly and undercooked.
Professor Chris Griffith, head of the food research and consultancy unit at the University of Wales Institute, Cardiff, told the inquiry the culture at the premises was “dominated by saving money.”
This would explain why Tudor retained his contract to supply schools: because he was the cheapest.
So who allowed Tudor to operate under such conditions?
Government inspectors.
(This is why I get substantially nervous when any food producer, such as California lettuce and spinach growers, says they meet inspection standards.)
Prof. Pennington has heard that Tudor and Son was visited several times in the months leading up to the Sept. 2005 outbreak, that inspectors knew there was only one vac-pac machine being used for both cooked and raw meats but, despite Pennington's 1997 recommendation, inspectors decided the business did not pose "an imminent risk" to human health.
A retired senior Food Standards Agency official, who now works as a freelance food safety consultant, told the inquiry that the use of a single vac-pak for both raw and cooked meat was “like playing Russian Roulette."
The official also chided inspectors for failing to note deficiencies in Tudor's written food safety plan and stated, rather bluntly, "There was a failure in the series of inspections to identify poor hygiene and working practices and a failure to take action."
The inspectors also took on "face value" explanations offered by Tudor and his staff for various food safety failures.
Buyers with the school boards were equally eager to look the other way to save a pound. One supervisor told the inquiry, “You have to have faith in people. You don’t expect them to make up stories about meat.”
Except that inspection and regulatory regimes for meat were created in Southern France in the 12th century precisely because people do make up stories about meat. Europe has almost 1,000 years of regulatory experience with shoddy food suppliers; that experience was not applied in southern Wales in 2005. As a result, 5-year-old Mason Jones died a painful and unnecessary death. Dozens of kids were hospitalized and will suffer life-long effects.
The official purpose of the inquiry is to provide recommendations designed to prevent a similar outbreak happening again.
As Prof. Pennington knows, that was supposed to happen in 1997.
E. coli butcher's meat 'was smelly but cheap'
The Western Mail reports that even though school cooks raised numerous concerns, Tudor was not seen as a major problem and councils continued to buy their meat from him because he was the supplier that gave the “lowest overall offer.”
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The inquiry heard that between 1998 and 2005, school cooks in Merthyr lodged complaints with the authority’s catering department. These included:Ham – green and gone off;
Roast pork – smelling and falling to bits;
Mould on slices of turkey;
Feather in cooked turkey.
Yummy.
E. coli butcher played Russian Roulette with school meals
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"It seems to me, in a crude analysis, it is a bit like playing Russian Roulette. You might get away with it the first time, the second time, the third time, but progressively you have a greater chance the gun will go off and what we are talking about is a nine-month period."The South Wales Echo also reports that Mr Curtis told the inquiry yesterday that a document produced by Tudor -- his HACCP plan -- "was not a valid plan. It was not a safe plan," but that Bridgend council’s environmental health officers, “failed to identify the deficiencies and weaknesses” of the document.
Mr Curtis also said there had been flaws in the way Tudor’s was inspected because there were too many announced visits that allowed him to prepare and that the inspections themselves had not been undertaken thoroughly, stating,
"There was a failure in the series of inspections to identify poor hygiene and working practices and a failure to take action."
E. coli butcher failed to follow food safety rules
Media Wales reported that Angela Coles, a Bridgend Council environmental health officer said she took on "face value" explanations from the company's manager Celyn Williams about training and how the vacuum-packaging machine would be cleaned between being used for cooked and raw meats.
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James Eadie, the inquiry's lead counsel, also questioned Amy Lewis, a senior environmental health officer at Bridgend Council, about holding temperatures after cooking gammon, which exceeded Tudor's own HACCP plan, stating,"Is it inconceivable that you would have asked about temperatures, found out it was non-compliant with a crucial step in the HACCP plan and then made no record or note of it? You didn't pick this up?"
Ms Lewis replied, "I don't recall."
The inquiry also heard that E. coli butcher William Tudor was granted his first butcher's licence despite not possessing a relevant food safety certificate; instead he passed a 26-question test, set by senior Bridgend Council environmental health officers in 2001.
E.coli butcher: How the system failed
The South Wales Echo reported that Amy Lewis, an environmental health officer, admitted failing to check Tudor’s claims that his staff had food hygiene certificates – but only after a series of questions by lead counsel to the inquiry James Eadie, including the evidence that Tudor himself had admitted the staff were never trained.
A second officer, Ian Sullivan, who was responsible for advising on a critical food handling plan had only been employed for a few months when he became responsible for supervising Tudor and had never dealt with a business of that size.
A third officer, Joanne Evans, admitted mistakes in filling out forms that affected how often the Bridgend Industrial Estate plant was inspected.
Earlier in the week, Tudor said in a letter read out at the Cardiff inquiry, he followed official hazard analysis guidelines, and the practices used by his firm were supervised by Bridgend Council.
It was also revealed that Tudor, who was sentenced to 12 months in jail for his actions, was released after serving on 12 weeks.
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The parents of five-year-old Mason Jones (right), who died during the outbreak, were unaware of Tudor’s early release until the start of this week’s public inquiry and called it a “travesty of justice.”Garyn Price, 12, who almost died after contracting E.coli during the outbreak, was quoted as saying he was “disgusted” Tudor was allowed out of prison so soon and said,
“I got upset when my mum told me he was out. They should’ve kept him in prison longer. I don’t think he will have learned his lesson.”
There were 157 probable cases of the E.coli O157 strain and 118 confirmed during the outbreak, which was declared on 16 September 2005 and declared over on 20 December that year.
It affected 44 schools across south Wales, making it the largest outbreak of its kind in Wales, and the second biggest in the UK.
E.coli butcher hid factory filth
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Professor Chris Griffith, head of the food research and consultancy unit at the University of Wales Institute, Cardiff, told the inquiry the culture at the premises was “dominated by saving money.”His report also included statements from those who worked at the factory, who reported that a cling film machine stored in the toilets was used to wrap faggots in the cooked meat area and that rotting meat and maggots were found in drains.
Staff also said Tudor encouraged them to continue preparing meat for delivery to schools even when they were suffering from sickness and diarrhoea.
E.coli butcher lied about his hygiene awards
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The inquiry heard the claims had been made in a document known as a HACCP (Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Point) plan which Tudor, as a butcher, was required by law to prepare and implement to help reduce the risk to the public.Mr Houston told yesterday’s hearing in Cardiff Bay that another of Tudor’s false claims in his HACCP plan had been to suggest that his factory had completely separate areas for the preparation and handling of raw and cooked meat.
Mr Houston told the inquiry he would have expected environmental health officers to check whether this was in fact the case during inspections of the premises on Bridgend Industrial Estate.
I can't wait to hear from the inspectors.
The inquiry also heard from a handwriting expert who found Tudor had falsified vital records detailing the temperature meat was stored at and cleaning records.
"There is conclusive evidence, as she (the handwriting expert) put it, that the logs and cleaning standards forms dated July 2004 onwards, were not completed on a daily/weekly basis, but that the batches of entries were made at one time.”
E. coli butcher encouraged ill staff to prepare meat
Professor Chris Griffith, head of the food research and consultancy unit at the University of Wales Institute, Cardiff, was asked by South Wales Police to compile a report assessing the health risk posed by John Tudor and Son butchers.
Media Wales is reporting that,
E. coli butcher William Tudor encouraged staff suffering from stomach bugs and diarrhoea to continue preparing meat for school dinners.
He was also aware of cross contamination between raw and cooked meats, but did nothing to prevent it.
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Some 150 schoolchildren were sickened in the outbreak and five-year-old Mason Jones died in October 2005.Prof Griffith was quoted as telling the inquiry,
"Packaging in which raw meat had been delivered was subsequently used to store cooked product," and that a cleaning schedule at the factory was so bad it was "a joke."
Yesterday the inquiry was told that a routine inspection of John Tudor and Son in January 2005, by Bridgend Council environmental health officer Angela Coles, found that one vacuum-packing machine – referred to in the inquiry as a vac-packing machine – was being used to package raw and cooked meats – a potentially serious source of cross-contamination, and that there were no facilities for small equipment – such as knives – to be cleaned.
Leaders have foresight
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The Western Mail writes in a scathing editorial this morning that the conditions in some Welsh schools, outlined in the final report of the E. coli O157 outbreak in 2005 that left a five-year-old dead and over 100 sick, would shame the Third World."It’s time to ensure children are not placed in environments which are breeding grounds for disease … to tolerate a situation where schools do not have toilet rolls, soap or hot water is reprehensible."
Hindsight is 20-20. What does it take to have foresight, to realize it's not enough to tell someone to wash their hands, but to also remove any barriers to handwashing and ensure the proper tools -- soap and paper towel -- are available.
Outrage
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Sharon Mills, the mother of five-year-old Mason Jones, said she will campaign for a change in the law after William John Tudor, the butcher who caused the Wales E. coli O157 outbreak that killed Mason, was jailed for 12 months, adding it "sends a strong message that a change in the law is needed."Mills told Western Mail that the jail term was a “joke”, adding,
“Mason was a five-year-old with the rest of his life ahead of him. This person will spend just six months behind bars. It seems the law is a joke.”
Mills told the South Wales Echo that,
“What Mason went through was horrific and six months is a joke really. Six months is just not enough for what he did. William Tudor will be back with his family in six months’ time. Mason will never return to ours.”
Despite working as a butcher since he was 16 and completing an advanced food hygiene course, the presiding judge said that Tudor had a “careless and make-do approach” towards food safety and cleanliness at his factory.
Tudor, 55, allowed cooked ham, turkey and lamb, which he supplied to schools across the South Wales valleys, to become contaminated with E. coli at his factory, specifically a vacuum-packaging machine which was used for both cooked and raw meats.
A prosecuting lawyer said, "In the defendant’s own words, it was not uncommon for pieces of raw meat to get into the chamber of the vacuum packer."
At one time Tudor had two of these machines, which can cost from as little as £1,300, but one was not replaced when it broke.
When inspectors visited the factory on September 19, after the E.coli outbreak had been declared, they found congealed blood, dead insects and cobwebs in the machine.
E. coli butcher jailed
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The South Wales Argus Newsdesk has just reported that William John Tudor, 55, of Clemenstone, Cowbridge, Vale of Glamorgan, the butcher who supplied schools with meat infected with E. coli O157, was given a 12-month prison sentence today after admitting six counts of placing unsafe food on the market and one count of failing, as proprietor of a business, to protect food against the risk of contamination.The outbreak killed five-year-old Mason Jones, a pupil of Deri Primary School, near Bargoed.
