Monthly Archives: August 2014

Food additives on the rise as FDA scrutiny wanes

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The explosion of new food additives coupled with an easing of oversight requirements is allowing manufacturers to avoid the scrutiny of the Food and Drug Administration, which is responsible for ensuring the safety of chemicals streaming into the food supply.

fda.gras.approvedAnd in hundreds of cases, the FDA doesn’t even know of the existence of new additives, which can include chemical preservatives, flavorings and thickening agents, records and interviews show.

“We simply do not have the information to vouch for the safety of many of these chemicals,” said Michael Taylor, the FDA’s deputy commissioner for food.

The FDA has received thousands of consumer complaints about additives in recent years, saying certain substances seem to trigger asthmatic attacks, serious bouts of vomiting, intestinal-tract disorders and other health problems.

At a pace far faster than in previous years, companies are adding secret ingredients to everything from energy drinks to granola bars. But the more widespread concern among food-safety advocates and some federal regulators is the quickening trend of companies opting for an expedited certification process to a degree never intended when it was established 17 years ago to, in part, help businesses.

A voluntary certification system has nearly replaced one that relied on a more formal, time-consuming review — where the FDA, rather than companies, made the final determination on what is safe. The result is that consumers have little way of being certain that the food products they buy won’t harm them.

“We aren’t saying we have a public health crisis,” Taylor said. “But we do have questions about whether we can do what people expect of us.”

Toxo imported meat might alter nation’s behavior, warns Iceland’s PM

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Contrary to the claims of The Reykjavík Grapevin, toxoplasmosis is not a virus; it’s a parasite.

Prime Minister Sigmundur Davíð GunnlaugssonBut according to Iceland’s Prime Minister Sigmundur Davíð Gunnlaugsson, “Because this is such an interesting topic, maybe I will get one more minute to cover it, because it is extremely important that we, precisely, protect the wholesomeness of Icelandic products, that we don’t use additives, steroids and hormones and such in the production of Icelandic meat,’ Sigmundur Davíð pleaded in a live interview on radio-station Bylgjan on Thursday. … Another thing, no less important, is that we remain free of all sorts of infections which are, unfortunately, all to common in very many places. These are not just harmful to the animals but can be very detrimental to people. For example, there is a virus that causes people’s behavior to change. If they eat, for instance, meat in other countries, that has not been cooked particularly well, then people are at risk of ingesting this infection. And it can lead to changes in behavioral patterns. People have even posed the question, and researched, if this might be changing the behavior of whole nations. This sounds like science fiction, but …’

At this point the radio host intervened to ask: Where has this come up?

‘This is very common,’ Sigmundur Davíð replied, ‘for example widely in East-Europe, France, not least Belgium. Actually all over the world. The prevalence is variable, but there are some countries that stand out, where this toxoplasma is rare. That’s Iceland. And Norway. And the UK, actually. Remarkably. There, people are rather safe against this critter.’

The Prime Minister then recommended that the radio hosts interview a scientist or a doctor about this ‘extremely interesting’ phenomenon.

Wu Heng on throwing China’s food out the window

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“I hope this book will make you feel that it’s time to throw unsafe food out the window.”

Wu HengSo writes Wu Heng, the founder of Throw it Out the Window (www.zccw.info), a website staffed by volunteers that documents China’s rampant food safety problem and tallies incidents of unsafe food — 3,449 since 2004. In July, Mr. Wu, 28, a former history student and now a journalist who lives in Shanghai, published a book by the same title aiming to raise awareness of a problem he says is fueled by greed, ignorance and corruption, and to support consumer rights.

The book’s table of contents vividly illustrates the problem. Resembling a periodic table of elements, it points the reader to chapters dealing with an unsafe food, a chemical or a policy problem. They include melamine milk and leather milk, fake beef and fake lamb, malachite fish and heavy metal fish, garbage pigs, gutter oil, bleach mushrooms and sulfuric acid lychees, institutional overlaps, policy gaps and special interests.

Finally, it shows Mr. Wu’s prescription for how people can protect themselves, to a certain degree. He calls this the “Three RPs Principle”: Right Price, Right Place and Rotate Poisons. 

Don’t eat dog poop, and don’t run around with sharp objects in your ear

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Oh, the Brits.

don't.eat.dog.poopTheir science-based food safety agency won’t say, use a thermometer, but a local council tells kids not to eat dog poop.

Upon seeing this image, you tell yourself that this park can’t possibly be warning kids not to eat dog feces. As if it could ever possibly be a real issue. But then upon reading the sign, you find out you are wrong: the park is warning kids not to eat turds left by dogs because dog turds cause blindness.

Better hygiene through humiliation?

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I’ve always been a fan of shame and blame, humility and hubris, carrots and sticks.

People can be complicated.

leadAccording to The Atlantic, a number of companies have designed systems that aim to nudge doctors and nurses into washing their hands regularly. One of these devices, a badge made by Biovigil, aims to exploit a very powerful emotion: shame.

When a doctor enters an exam room, the badge chirps and a light on it turns yellow—a reminder to the doctor as well as an alert to the patient that he is about to be touched by someone with unclean hands. If the doctor doesn’t wash her hands, the light flashes red and the badge makes a disapproving noise. After the doctor waves a freshly sanitized hand in front of the badge, alcohol vapors trigger a sensor that changes the light from red to green. Other systems include HyGreen, which also uses badges; Hyginex, a wristband that can tell when a user dispenses hand sanitizer (and vibrates if he or she doesn’t); and SwipeSense, which includes a hand-sanitizer dispenser that clips onto scrubs.

Each of these devices generates a log that’s uploaded to a database of what HyGreen calls “all hand hygiene events in the hospital”—a rundown of who’s washing up, and who isn’t. The data could help hospitals engage in after-the-fact analysis of how an outbreak occurred, and, with any luck, might help them to prevent the next one.

Holding auditors blameless

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The N.Y. Times writes an editorial about financial auditing, but use imagination and substitute food safety audit.

audit.checklistMatthew Goldstein of The Times reported this week that an arbitration panel of three former judges has found no basis for a malpractice claim against Ernst & Young, the auditor of Lehman Brothers. The panel held that Lehman and its former executives were “more culpable than EY” for accounting maneuvers that misled investors about the firm’s financial condition before its catastrophic collapse in 2008.

Translation: When it comes to cooking the books, not being as guilty as someone else is the same as being blameless. That sounds appalling, and it is. But it echoes a misguided law from 1995 that set an exceedingly high bar for holding outside auditors liable — along with corporate management — for accounting fraud, a law that has encouraged slippery audits.

Even worse, the arbitration panel acknowledged that Ernst had “some hard data” about what Lehman was up to. What was unclear, the arbitrators said, was whether Ernst “had a duty” to review some of Lehman’s management decisions. But to even raise that question is flabbergasting. If an auditor is not reviewing management decisions that are reflected in the books that are being audited, it can hardly be said to be performing an audit.

Ernst has argued all along that Lehman’s accounting tactics, deceptive or not, complied with generally accepted accounting principles. That may be so, but it is a dubious defense for one of the biggest firms in a profession that is presumably based on integrity.

The problem is larger than Ernst and goes beyond this specific case, which was brought by the holding company charged with recovering and selling Lehman’s assets and paying off creditors. The big auditing firms are virtually never the first to uncover and publicly report financial frauds; credit for that goes to the press, whistle-blowers, hedge funds, independent research firms, bankruptcy trustees or regulators. With each failure by auditors to sound warnings, it becomes increasingly clear that the investing public is being shortchanged when it comes to the reliable information it needs to make sound investing decisions.

AIB.audit.eggsAmong many needed reforms is a revamped system in which audits are paid for not by company management, but by fees that companies pay to a public entity for the purpose of financing audits. In the near term, the Securities and Exchange Commission should require audited statements to be signed by the lead auditor, rather than merely affixing the firm name.

Audits and inspections are never enough: A critique to enhance food safety

30.aug.12

Food Control

D.A. Powell, S. Erdozain, C. Dodd, R. Costa, K. Morley, B.J. Chapman

Internal and external food safety audits are conducted to assess the safety and quality of food including on-farm production, manufacturing practices, sanitation, and hygiene. Some auditors are direct stakeholders that are employed by food establishments to conduct internal audits, while other auditors may represent the interests of a second-party purchaser or a third-party auditing agency. Some buyers conduct their own audits or additional testing, while some buyers trust the results of third-party audits or inspections. Third-party auditors, however, use various food safety audit standards and most do not have a vested interest in the products being sold. Audits are conducted under a proprietary standard, while food safety inspections are generally conducted within a legal framework. There have been many foodborne illness outbreaks linked to food processors that have passed third-party audits and inspections, raising questions about the utility of both. Supporters argue third-party audits are a way to ensure food safety in an era of dwindling economic resources. Critics contend that while external audits and inspections can be a valuable tool to help ensure safe food, such activities represent only a snapshot in time. This paper identifies limitations of food safety inspections and audits and provides recommendations for strengthening the system, based on developing a strong food safety culture, including risk-based verification steps, throughout the food safety system.

I’ve been everywhere: Norovirus transmission between hands, gloves, utensils, and fresh produce during simulated food handling

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Human noroviruses (HuNoVs), a leading cause of food-borne gastroenteritis worldwide, are easily transferred via ready-to-eat (RTE) foods, often prepared by infected food handlers.

mapsmaniaIn this study, the transmission of HuNoV and murine norovirus (MuNoV) from virus-contaminated hands to latex gloves during gloving, as well as from virus-contaminated donor surfaces to recipient surfaces after simulated preparation of cucumber sandwiches, was inspected. Virus transfer was investigated by swabbing with polyester swabs, followed by nucleic acid extraction from the swabs with a commercial kit and quantitative reverse transcription-PCR.

During gloving, transfer of MuNoV dried on the hand was observed 10/12 times. HuNoV, dried on latex gloves, was disseminated to clean pairs of gloves 10/12 times, whereas HuNoV without drying was disseminated 11/12 times. In the sandwich-preparing simulation, both viruses were transferred repeatedly to the first recipient surface (left hand, cucumber, and knife) during the preparation. Both MuNoV and HuNoV were transferred more efficiently from latex gloves to cucumbers (1.2% ± 0.6% and 1.5% ± 1.9%) than vice versa (0.7% ± 0.5% and 0.5% ± 0.4%). We estimated that transfer of at least one infective HuNoV from contaminated hands to the sandwich prepared was likely to occur if the hands of the food handler contained 3 log10 or more HuNoVs before gloving. Virus-contaminated gloves were estimated to transfer HuNoV to the food servings more efficiently than a single contaminated cucumber during handling. Our results indicate that virus-free food ingredients and good hand hygiene are needed to prevent HuNoV contamination of RTE foods.

American Society for Microbiology, Applied and Environmental Microbiology, Volume 80, No. 17, Septemper 2014, doi: 10.1128/AEM.01162-14

M. Rönnqvista, E. Ahoa, A. Mikkeläb, J. Rantab, P. Tuominenb, M. Rättöc and L. Maunulaa

http://aem.asm.org/content/80/17/5403.abstract?etoc

Handwashing is never enough: Minnesota paper says require handwashing stations at petting zoos

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I was talking to my friend John this morning at my church – the ice arena – while the women were skating.

amy.hubbell.skates.jul.13 We talked about getting out of the rat race, and how it was nice we had wives to sorta support us, and he mentioned he was going to the Ekka today, and I said, beware the petting zoo, and got the usual response of, I never heard there was a risk.

As the Post Bulletin in Minnesota writes, every summer, there’s an E. coli outbreak originating from a traveling petting zoo, with the latest occurring at the Olmsted County Fair.

The report that at least 13 people, including three in Olmsted County, have been sickened by Escherichia coli O157:H7 after visiting the Zerebko Zoo Tran exhibit is a reminder that even healthy, well-cared-for animals can be vectors for disease.

The Minnesota Department of Health encourages the installation of hand-washing stations near animal exhibits and the display of posters on hand-washing. Some county fairs and festivals voluntarily comply, but we believe it should go a step further and make it a legal requirement to post signs and hand-washing stations at all livestock exhibits.

Kirk Smith, an epidemiology program manager with the state Health Department, said guidelines are sent to county fair and festival managers every year, but compliance is “modest to poor, so it’s really a frustrating issue for us.”

Five percent to 10 percent of children who get infected go on to develop severe complications, said Smith, pointing an 2012 outbreak in North Carolina, where a child died of an E. coli infection after visiting a county fair.

“If parents understand that there’s any appreciable risk from a bug that can cause kidney failure that’s fatal in 5 percent of the cases, they’ll manage that risk a lot better,” Smith said.

Best practices for planning events encouraging human-animal interactions

Zoonoses and Public Health

G. Erdozain , K. KuKanich , B. Chapman  and D. Powell

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/zph.12117/abstract?deniedAccess

Educational events encouraging human–animal interaction include the risk of zoonotic disease transmission. It is estimated that 14% of all disease in the US caused by Campylobacter spp., Cryptosporidium spp., Shiga toxin-producing Escherichia coli (STEC) O157, non-O157 STECs, Listeria monocytogenes, nontyphoidal Salmonella enterica and Yersinia enterocolitica were attributable to animal contact. This article reviews best practices for organizing events where human–animal interactions are encouraged, with the objective of lowering the risk of zoonotic disease transmission.

A table of petting zoo outbreaks is available at https://barfblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/Petting-Zoo-Outbreaks-Table-4-8-14.xlsx.

Is it an egg problem? 156 sick: UK investigating national outbreak of Salmonella

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Public Health England (PHE) is investigating a national outbreak of a type of Salmonella Enteritidis which has affected 156 people.

egg.farmTo date, 55 cases have seen in Hampshire, 25 in London, 33 in Cheshire and Merseyside, and 43 in the West Midlands. Cases have also been seen in Austria and France.

In England, the cases occurred as isolated clusters over several months and have been managed locally, but are now being reassessed as potentially linked under a national investigation.

Dr Paul Cleary, a consultant epidemiologist leading the PHE investigation, said:

We are working with our colleagues across PHE, the Food Standards Agency, in local authorities and with other public health organisations in Europe to investigate the cause of this outbreak.

Irony can be ironic: 47 resident doctors suffer food poisoning at hospital in India

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About 47 resident doctors were admitted at the Sion hospital after they complained of vomit and diarrhea. Authorities suspect sweets distributed at the hospital’s canteen to be a cause.

dr.mcdreamyThe doctors started fealing uneasy after 12.00 noon on Friday post their breakfast at the canteen. The contractor who is appointed by the BMC gives these doctors breakfast free of cost but since it was Independence Day, there were sweets prepared out of Khava which were brought from Sion Koliwada. About 150 doctors had consumed these sweets out of which 47 complained of health issues.