Monthly Archives: June 2011

Jennifer Hudson hospitalized for food poisoning; Selena Gomez too?

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TMZ reports that songstress Jennifer Hudson was rushed to a New York hospital this morning after suffering from a bad case of food poisoning.

Hudson’s rep said, "After performing on ‘Good Morning America’ earlier today, Jennifer Hudson went to the hospital due to severe abdominal pains. She was treated for food poisoning and released.”

Meanwhile, USA Today reports Selena Gomez looked just fine as she chatted with Jay Leno on the Tonight Show last night, but the singer was rushed to the hospital after the appearance, with symptoms that included nausea and a headache.

Appearing on gabfests can apparently be a health hazard.
 

Nuevo Folleto Informativo: Brotes de soja han sido la causa del brote de E. coli O104:H4 que ya ha causado al menos 31 muertes

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Traducido por Gonzalo Erdozain

Resumen del folleto informativo mas reciente:
– Autoridades Alemanas recomiendan evitar el consumo de brotes de soja y las advertencias ?con respecto a lechuga, tomates y pepinos ?han sido retiradas.
– Aunque las pruebas realizadas a brotes ?de soja de la granja involucrada no dieron positivo ?a la cepa del brote, ?la investigación epidemiológica apunta a los brotes de soja.
– Desde 1988, al menos 55 brotes de enfermedades alimentarias han sido causados por brotes crudos.
– Dichas enfermedades pueden provenir de semillas, agua o suelo contaminado,
o por falta de higiene.

Los folletos informativos son creados semanalmente y puestos en restaurantes, tiendas y granjas, y son usados para entrenar y educar a través del mundo. Si usted quiere proponer un tema o mandar fotos para los folletos, contacte a Ben Chapman a benjamin_chapman@ncsu.edu.

Puede seguir las historias de los folletos informativos y barfblog en twitter
@benjaminchapman y @barfblog.
 

Escherichia coli O157:H7 outbreak associated with rodeo attendance, Utah and Idaho, 2009

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Rodeos can be risky — and not just for riders.

As reported by researchers from Utah and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control, in summer 2009, the Utah Department of Health investigated an outbreak of Shiga-toxigenic Escherichia coli (STEC) O157:H7 (O157) illness associated with attendance at multiple rodeos.

Patients were interviewed regarding exposures during the week before illness onset. A ground beef traceback investigation was performed. Ground beef samples from patient homes and a grocery store were tested for STEC O157. Rodeo managers were interviewed regarding food vendors present and cattle used at the rodeos. Environmental samples were collected from rodeo grounds. Two-enzyme pulsed-field gel electrophoresis (PFGE) and multiple-locus variable-number tandem repeat analysis (MLVA) were performed on isolates.

Fourteen patients with primary STEC O157 illness were reported in this outbreak. Isolates from all patients were indistinguishable by PFGE. Isolates from nine patients had identical MLVA patterns (main outbreak strain), and five had minor differences. Thirteen (93%) patients reported ground beef consumption during the week before illness onset. Results of the ground beef traceback investigation and ground beef sampling were negative. Of 12 primary patients asked specifically about rodeo attendance, all reported having attended a rodeo during the week before illness onset; four rodeos were mentioned. All four rodeos had used bulls from the same cattle supplier. An isolate of STEC O157 identified from a dirt sample collected from the bullpens of one of the attended rodeos was indistinguishable by PFGE and MLVA from the main outbreak strain.

Recommendations were provided to rodeo management to keep livestock and manure separate from rodeo attendees. This is the first reported STEC O157 outbreak associated with attendance at multiple rodeos. Public health officials should be aware of the potential for rodeo-associated STEC illness.

Foodborne Pathogens and Disease. doi:10.1089/fpd.2011.0884
William A. Lanier, Julia M. Hall, Rachel K. Herlihy, Robert T. Rolfs, Jennifer M. Wagner, Lori H. Smith, Eija K. Hyytia-Trees
http://www.liebertonline.com/doi/abs/10.1089/fpd.2011.0884
 

UPDATED Food Safety Infosheet: At least 31 deaths From E. coli O104:H4 in Germany linked to sprouts

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Food safety infosheet highlights:

– Authorities in Germany recommend to avoid eating sprouts; health advisories on raw lettuce, tomatoes, and cucumbers have been lifted.

– Even though testing of sprouts from the implicated farm have not shown the  outbreak strain,  epidemiology links the illnesses to eating sprouts.

– Raw sprouts have been linked to at least 55 outbreaks of foodborne illness since 1988.

– Illness associated with fresh sprouts can come from contaminated seed, water, soil or poor hygiene.

Download the infosheet here.

Clues that sprouts caused Germany’s E. coli O104 outbreak

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At a news conference on Friday, Reinhard Burger, president of the Robert Koch Institute said an investigation into the pattern of the E. coli O104 outbreak that has killed at least 31, had produced enough evidence to draw a conclusion.

“In this way, it was possible to narrow down epidemiologically the cause of the outbreak of the illness to the consumption of sprouts,” Mr. Burger said, accompanied by the heads of Germany’s Federal Institute for Risk Assessment and Federal Office for Consumer Protection. “It is the sprouts.”

The breakthrough in the investigation came after a task force from the three institutes linked separate clusters of patients who had fallen sick to 26 restaurants and cafeterias that had received produce from the organic farm.

“It was like a crime thriller where you have to find the bad guy,” said Helmut Tschiersky-Schoeneburg from the consumer protection agency.

“They even studied the menus, the ingredients, looked at bills and took pictures of the different meals, which they then showed to those who had fallen ill,” said Andreas Hensel, head of the Risk Assessment agency.

Those interviews with patients and even the chefs at restaurants where they had eaten showed that people who had consumed bean sprouts were nine times more likely to become infected than those who had not.

Gert Lindemann, the state agriculture minister, said the owners of the farm had already pledged not to sell any produce after their facility came under suspicion last Sunday.

In an interview to be published in next week’s edition of Focus magazine, Mr Lindemann said 60 of the people contaminated had eaten sprouts from the small farm in Bienenbuettel.

Contamination might have been caused by infected seeds or "poor hygiene", he added.
He said three of the farm’s employees also fell ill last month, suffering from diarrhea.

The farm is located about 35 miles (56 kilometers) southeast of Hamburg. Its products include radish, red-cabbage, alfalfa, broccoli, onion and garlic sprouts, as well as sunflower seedlings, according to information on its website. Gaertnerhof has about 18 employees.

An updated table of international sprout-related outbreaks is available at:
http://bites.ksu.edu/sprouts-associated-outbreaks
 

Rankin restaurant Cayenne gets one star for hygiene

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One of Northern Ireland’s most respected restaurants, celebrity chef Paul Rankin’s Cayenne, was awarded a rating of just one under the Food Hygiene Rating Scheme.

A score of zero means "urgent improvement necessary" and the top rating of five indicates a "very good’ standard of food hygiene.

The Belfast Telegraph reports Cayenne celebrated its 10th anniversary in 2010, but in March this year the verdict from food safety officers was that "major improvement" was needed.

Manager Peter McKenna said staff at the restaurant were upset by the low rating, but insisted that the restaurant was perfectly safe and the score had nothing to do with food handling.

A new mark will not be given until at least three months after the last inspection.

Nick Wright, manager of Made In Belfast, said he is waiting for inspectors to return to his restaurant. They visited the city centre restaurant on March 5, 2010 and gave it a rating of one, which indicates the need for "major improvement."

"The only reason we received the score was for structural reasons," Mr Wright said. Zen Restaurant manager Alex Yosh, based in Adelaide Street, said while he appreciates the work done by environmental health officers, he feels the rating system can be "misleading."

Is that a grasshopper in your taco or are you just happy to see me

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"Tacos de chapulines" are a popular cart and bar snack in Mexico City, Oaxaca and even in certain parts of the U.S. Devotees cite the cooked bugs’ appealing crunch and protein content – said to be twice that of beef.??

However, local authorities aren’t keen on where La Oaxaqueña Bakery and Restaurant owner Harry Persaud was sourcing his grasshoppers. While he has a permit to import them, the vendor he’s using is not FDA-approved, and he has yet to locate a domestic, approved source.

Persaud is reportedly considering raising his own grasshoppers.

Cute birds sicken 39 with salmonella in 15 states

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Baby chicks and ducklings may be fun to play with, especially for little kids, but they are also sources of salmonella.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control reports that 39 people –almost half children under 5-years-old – have been sickened with Salmonella Altona from handling chicks or ducklings, that have been traced back to the same mail-order hatchery in Ohio.

Reuters reported the implicated business was Mt. Healthy Hatchery, which supplies chicks and ducklings to an unnamed nationwide agricultural feedstore.

CDC reports among the persons with dates available, illnesses began between February 25, 2011 and May 23, 2011. Infected individuals range in age from less than one-year-old to 86-years-old and 44 percent of ill persons are 5 years of age or younger.

The complete CDC investigation update is available at http://www.cdc.gov/salmonella/altona-baby-chicks/060911/index.html
 

Sorta sure sprouts cause of German E. coli outbreak; advisories for other produce lifted

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"It is the sprouts."

So says the president of Germany’s national disease control center, Reinhard Burger.

Burger says the Robert Koch Institute is lifting its warning against eating cucumbers, tomatoes and lettuce but keeping the warning in place for the sprouts.

Burger told reporters Friday that even though no tests of the sprouts from a farm in Lower Saxony had come back positive, the epidemiological investigation of the pattern of the outbreak had produced enough evidence to draw the conclusion.

To date, 30 people have been killed and almost 3,000 sickened in the outbreak of E. coli O104.

An updated table of sprout-related outbreaks is available at

http://bites.ksu.edu/sprouts-associated-outbreaks

 

E. coli O104:H4 outbreak hits 30 deaths; source still unknown

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The Local, Germany’s news in English site, reports today that the unsolved outbreak of E. coli O104:H4 has claimed it’s 30th victim.

The latest victim was a 57-year-old man in Frankfurt who last month travelled with his wife to the northern city of Hamburg, an epicentre of the outbreak, authorities in the western city said.

The death of a 68-year-old man and a 20-year-old woman were also reported in the northern state of Lower Saxony. The toll is now at least 30, including one woman in Sweden who had recently returned from Germany.

The source of the outbreak still remains ellusive to investigators and yesterday’s reports of cucumbers being back on the list of culprits is being dismissed by health officials:

Authorities in the eastern German state of Saxony-Anhalt played down the discovery of cucumber pieces with traces of the killer bacteria in the two-week-old rubbish of a Magdeburg family who fell ill.

"According to the information we have now, this is not a decisive lead," a spokesman for the state social affairs ministry told news agency AFP.

The newest food safety infosheet focuses on the evolving information surrounding this outbreak, you can download the infosheet here.