Monthly Archives: June 2011

EHEC on Dutch beetroot sprouts not same strain as in Germany

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Look for something and it will be found.

But is anyone else concerned about the E. coli being found on European produce, even if it is not the O104 outbreak strain?

EU officials said on Wednesday evening traces of EHEC bacteria have been found on beetroot sprouts from a Dutch grower.

The sprouts are not carrying the same variant of the bacteria as has killed some 27 people in Germany, but all produce from that grower is being removed from the supermarket shelves as a precautionary measure.

Beetroot sprouts are sprouted beetroot seeds which can be eaten in salads or used as decoration.
 

Sprouts still suspect in Germany; E coli O104 toll at 26

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Bean sprouts remain  the focus of a hunt for the cause of a toxic E coli bacteria outbreak in Germany, Consumer Affairs Minister Ilse Aigner said Wednesday after a crisis summit.

Aigner said the Biogaertnerhof market garden remained under suspicion because its products had been eaten by so many EHEC victims. Two more groups of patients had been identified Wednesday whose diet had included Biogaertnerhof vegetable sprouts.

Health Minister Daniel Bahr said an official warning to Germans against eating any raw lettuce, tomatoes, cucumbers or sprouts remained in place until the source was confirmed.
 

Germany fingers cucumbers as E. coli source – again

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Cucumbers came under fresh suspicion on Wednesday in Germany’s desperate hunt for a pathogen that has killed 26 people, with investigators discovering the mutant bacteria on food scraps in a family’s garbage.

It was the first time the type O 104 enterohaemorrhagic Escherichia coli (EHEC) had been confirmed on any food since the outbreak began in mid-May. All the other evidence has come from fecal tests.

The scraps turned up in garbage in the eastern city of Magdeburg, authorities of the state of Saxony-Anhalt said.

Three of the family have been sick: the father only had a stomach upset, the mother has been discharged after a hospital stay for diarrhea and the daughter is suffering from hemolytic-uraemic syndrome (HUS), a condition caused by EHEC where the kidneys fail.

Experts said they still did not know how the bacteria came to be on the cucumber, which had been in the bin for a week and a half.

Earlier in the day, investigators affirmed that bean sprouts from a market garden remained the likeliest cause of the E coli outbreak, despite the fact that the pathogen has not been found on any sprouts.

At a Berlin news conference, officials summed up the evidence against sprouts.
One woman working at the Bienenbuettel Gaertnerhof, an organic sprout grower, has been infected with EHEC, the germ behind the outbreak, and two other women there had unexplained diarrhea in May, Lower Saxony state officials said.
Two more clusters of EHEC victims were meanwhile confirmed as having eaten sprouts from the Gaertnerhof.

Consumer Affairs Minister Ilse Aigner said a total of eight clusters of EHEC victims who ate Gaertnerhof products had been spotted this way

German E. coli O104: 26 dead, 674 HUS, 1755 sick

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While German Chancellor Angela Merkel was dining in D.C. last night with President Obama, two more people died in Germany’s E. coli O104 outbreak, and today health-types said raw sprouts remain a primary suspect.

At least 26 people have died, 674 have developed a life-threatening complication from E. coli and 1,755 are stricken.

“It’s not normal that people go out for a salad and die of the consequences,” Linda McAvan, a U.K. member of the European Parliament, said today at a session devoted to the outbreak.

Sprouts can’t be ruled out as a cause of the outbreak because the bacterium may be gone from the farm where they were grown, scientists said. Traces may be undetectable now if the offending produce was grown from a depleted batch of contaminated seed weeks ago, said James Paton, head of the bacterial pathogenesis laboratory at the University of Adelaide in South Australia.

“They are still pretty strongly suspicious of the sprouts because the epidemiological link was strong,” Paton said in a telephone interview today. “It’s just that they haven’t found it at the farm.”

The property, Gaertnerhof Bienenbuettel, which has produced sprouts for 25 years, said it recalled produce and informed its customers immediately. Lab tests in mid-May found no evidence of E. coli, its proprietors said in a statement, adding they were “shocked and concerned” at being linked to the infection.

Outside health experts and even German lawmakers have strongly criticised the German investigation, saying the infections should have been spotted much sooner.

Weeks after the outbreak began on May 2, German officials are still looking for its cause.

Consumer Affairs Minister Ilse Aigner said today bean sprouts remain the focus, adding the Biogaertnerhof market garden remained under suspicion because its products had been eaten by so many EHEC victims. ‘There are now eight sickness clusters that can be traced back to this farm,’ she said.

Biogaertnerhof, owned by a strict vegetarian, grows sprouts from mung beans, peas and other plants and distributes them to factories, canteens and shops in northern Germany, mainly for use in salads.

Bahr said an official warning to Germans against eating any raw lettuce, tomatoes, cucumbers or sprouts remained in place until the source was confirmed.
 

Salmonella food poisoning in Singapore pre-schools; 270 sickened

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The cause of a food poisoning outbreak in 10 pre-schools last month in Singapore, which affected over 270 people, has been traced to Salmonella Enteritidis.

It was found in the seafood marinara pasta supplied by Mum’s Kitchen.

The organism is not native to seafood but is commonly found in items such as poultry and eggs.

Mum’s Kitchen was the caterer for eight of Pat’s Schoolhouse’s preschools, the Children’s Place at Kay Siang Road and Learning Visions at Raffles Place.

In a joint statement, the Health Ministry and National Environment Agency said there might have been cross-contamination of the pasta with raw food during preparation at the caterer’s premises.

Interviews with food handlers indicated that the same trays were used to hold raw and cooked foods.

Salmonella numbers still high, O157 way down; new Foodnet numbers

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Salmonella infections in the U.S. have not declined in a decade, and should be targeted in new public health initiatives.

So says the U.S. Centers for Disease Control in the annual Foodnet update.

The report says the incidence of E. coli O157 infection has declined to reach the 2010 national health objective target of ≤1 case per 100,000.

The prevention measures that reduced STEC O157 infection need to be applied more broadly to reduce Salmonella and other infections.

Gonzalo Erdozain: Real housewife of New Jersey or not, don’t wash your poultry

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The only positive thing about working on the couch while my wife watches Real Housewives of New Jersey is that sooner or later, they will screw something up, and I can blog about it.

This week’s episode wasn’t any different. Teresa (right, exactly as shown), one of the many wives, was hosting Thanksgiving dinner for the family. After visiting a local poultry farm, and feeling sorry for the live turkey, she decided to buy a turkey that had been slaughtered the day before. The issue however is not animal welfare, but the food safety atrocity she committed next by washing her turkey in the sink –- this is somebody who has published two cooking books. It has been proven that bacteria can travel up to 3 feet from the sink, highly increasing the risk of cross-contamination.

On a positive note, she was actually shown using a thermometer – it wasn’t digital, but at least she was using one.
 

Nosestretcher alert: The barfing bug may have been in the beer, not raw oysters

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There’s a whole bunch of folks who like to protect the reputation of raw oysters, and we’ve heard from them before.

But it’s raw, and carries risks.

Based on blog reports, the San Francisco Oysterfest last month featured raw oysters, beer and a lot of barf.

"I am calling this event Salmonella-fest" wrote one yelper who, not surprisingly, gave the event just one star. Others wrote of suffering high fevers, shaking and even visiting the emergency room.

The Department of Public Health was on the case — and has determined the culprit was "campylobacter."

Eileen Shields, spokeswoman for the health department, said investigators couldn’t determine whether the bacteria was in the oysters, beer or any number of other food items served at the fest. After all, the food was all gone by the time word of food poisoning had gotten out.

But rest assured, oyster lovers. Shields said there’s no ongoing concern.

Maybe San Fran should follow how close the human shit comes to oyster beds. Or how often food service employees wash their hands.
 

Always tragic:; 2-year-old dies in Virginia from E. coli O157:H7

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Lab results confirm the presence of E. coli O157:H7 in a two-year-old girl that died this weekend and the presence of the bacteria in a close contact of the child.

Northeast Regional Health Office Medical Director Dr. David Kirschke also confirms a similar severe strain in Northeast Tennessee.

"We have one case of the severe type in Tennessee," Dr. Kirschke said. "It may be similar to what the two kids from Virginia had."

According to a Washington County, TN Sheriff’s Office Coroner’s Report, the two year-old was brought to the medical center Pediatric Intensive Care Unit with bloody diarrhea after she was "believed to be exposed to E. coli from a contaminated pool."
 

Nosestretcher alert part 2: traceability can stop outbreaks

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Traceability, like inspection, audits and training are often held up as magic bullets but can’t really stop outbreaks from happening alone. Being able to trace a product is wholly reactive. While it is part of a good food safety culture, can help with market differentiation and allows investigators to find the source of a problem (something to learn from for next time), a good traceability program doesn’t raw poop or vomit off of foods.

Joan Tupponce of the Richmond Times-Dispatch writes that the PCA-linked Salmonella outbreak could have been avoided if someone had a good traceability system in place. Who would that someone be? Many buyers knew about the reported conditions at PCA and refused to   What would good tracking have done to reduce the illnesses that were happening well before epidemiologists were able to link them to peanut products? Traceability may have reduced the recall impacts, but I’m not sure how it would have limited the exposure of the 700 individuals.

[David] Rosenthal  started ConcernTrak LLC in 2010 to provide food-safety technology solutions, which include an online, subscription-based food traceability service. The Chesterfield County-based company also performs food-safety audits of domestic and overseas facilities.

"We became food-safety crusaders," he said. "We saw the concept of food safety and traceability as a reactive process. Our concept is to be proactive, to have more information on food suppliers so we can identify potential contamination before it reaches the consumer level."
Rosenthal began voicing his concern for food safety in June 2008 when he urged the nut industry to be aware of biological contamination such as salmonella affecting food products.
Six months later, a nationwide salmonella outbreak took place involving peanuts from Lynchburg-based Peanut Corp. of America. The outbreak sickened about 700 people, has been linked to at least nine deaths, and led to one of the largest product recalls in U.S. history.
Donna Rosenbaum, CEO of Food Safety Partners, a Chicago food-safety consulting firm, said the outbreak could have been avoided with a system like ConcernTrak.
ConcernTrak "has the capability of putting a lot of information at your fingertips," she said. "The solution ConcernTrak provides is prevention."

I’m interested to see more from ConcernTrak on how their crusading system sniffs out pathogen contamination.