Bacterial bombs for a noro outbreak? Australian nursing home given the all-clear

Oh, Bundaberg, we’ve been there and like your rum, but really, 35 residents and 27 staff at an aged care sickened by norovirus?

Bundy-TM-Logo“The staff did a great job in containing the outbreak,” service manager Hazel Lindholm said.

“It could have been a lot worse.”

The service deployed “bacteria bombs” in its fight against the dangerous virus that swept the facility – a new best-practice infection control solution used across Churches of Christ Care for the past 12 months.

Mr Mason said the bombs had received “exceptional results” for the health and wellbeing of clients in the past.

The bombs release a fog which permeates through all surfaces and furnishings in a room, including down drains and plugholes.

They attack dangerous pathogens including norovirus and H1N1 influenza, with no viruses remaining following a treatment.

“The bombs, which we use in conjunction with normal scrubbing of floors and surfaces as part of infection control procedures, offer cost and time benefits eliminating the need for staff to wash the curtains, bedding and clothing for each resident in each room, which is particularly time consuming and inefficient during an outbreak situation,” Mr Mason said.

Sprouts still suck; Globe and Mail is wrong to blindly promote them, especially for school kids

In 2005, as I was flying from Toronto to Kansas City to hang out with the love of my life in Manhattan (Kansas) I’d met a couple of weeks before, over 700 people in Ontario (that’s in Canada) were sickened with Salmonella in raw mung bean sprouts.

sprout.apple.aug.14After the German E. coli O104 outbreak that killed 53 people in 2011and sickened over 4,000, along, with the ridiculous public statements and blatant disregard for public safety taken by sandwich artist Jimmy John’s in the U.S., I figured we really needed to publish something.

The basic conclusions:

• raw sprouts are a well-documented source of foodborne illness;

• risk communication about raw sprouts has been inconsistent; and,

• continued outbreaks question effectiveness of risk management strategies and producer compliance

We document at least 55 sprout-associated outbreaks occurring worldwide affecting a total of 15,233 people since 1988. A comprehensive table of sprout-related outbreaks can be found at http://bites.ksu.edu/sprouts-associated-outbreaks.

Sprouts present a unique food safety challenge compared to other fresh produce, as the sprouting process provides optimal conditions for the growth and proliferation of pathogenic bacteria. The sprout industry, regulatory agencies, and the academic community have been collaborating to improve the microbiological safety of raw sprouts, including the implementation of Good Manufacturing Practices (GMP), establishing guidelines for safe sprout production, and chemical disinfection of seed prior to sprouting. However, guidelines and best practices are only as good as their implementation. The consumption of raw sprouts is considered high-risk, especially for young, elderly and immuno-compromised persons (FDA, 2009).

But, leave it to Canada’s self-proclaimed paper of record to push sprouts on kids in their back-to-school lunch feature.

Canadians fret merger with burger will change Tim Hortons?

I doubt Canadians are fretting about the sale of Tim Hortons to Burger King – as long as they can still get a double-double before 6 a.m. hockey.

TimHortonBut leave it to state-sponsored jazz to get it wrong.

Tim Hortons used to be owned by Wendy’s, but in an $11 billion deal, will be bought by Burger King.

Tim Horton was a bruising (ice hockey) defenseman who won 4 Stanley Cups with the Toronto Maple Leafs in the 1960s. Born in 1930 in Cochrance, Ontario, Horton spent his formative years playing in mining communities surrounding Sudbury, Ontario (that’s in Canada; my sister and her family live up there). He got noticed by the Leafs organization and moved to Toronto when he was 17-years-old. He died in a car accident in 1974 after a 24-year National hockey League career?. Horton had a reputation for enveloping players who were fighting him in a crushing bear hug (sorta like my uncle, who played small-town hockey in Northern Ontario). Boston Bruins winger Derek Sanderson once bit Horton during a fight; years later, Horton’s widow, Lori, still wondered why. “Well,” Sanderson replied, “I felt one rib go, and I felt another rib go, so I just had—to, well, get out of there!” ?

Sheep as an important source of E. coli O157:H7 in Turkey

Escherichia coli O157:H7 is a globally important foodborne pathogen and has been mainly associated with cattle as the reservoir. However, accumulating data shows the importance of sheep as an E. coli O157:H7 vehicle.

sheep.shit.aug.12The presence of E. coli O157/O157:H7 in recto-anal mucosal swap and carcass sponge samples of 100 sheep brought to the slaughterhouse in Kirikkale were analyzed over a year. Molecular characteristics (stx1, stx2, eaeA, hly, lpfA1-3, espA, eae-α1, eae-α2, eae-β, eae-β1, eae-β2, eae-γ1, eae-γ2/θ, stx1c, stx1d, stx2c, stx2d, stx2e, stx2f, stx2g, blaampC, tet(A), tet(B), tet(C), tet(D), tet(E), tet(G), sul1, sul2, floR, cmlA, strA, strB and aadA) of 79 isolates were determined and minimum inhibitory concentrations of 20 different antibiotics were investigated. E. coli O157/O157:H7 was found in 18% of sheep included in the study and was more prevalent in yearlings than lambs and mature sheep, and male than female sheep, though none of the categories (season, sex or age range) had significant effect on prevalence. Furthermore, Shiga-toxigenic E. coli (STEC) O157:H7 was determined in 2% and 8% of sheep feces and carcasses, respectively. Additionally, lpfA1-3 and eae-γ1 were detected in all isolates. None of the isolates showed resistance against investigated antibiotics, even though 4 sorbitol fermenting E. coli O157 isolates were positive for tet(A), sul1 and aadA. This is the first study in Turkey that reveals the potential public health risk due to the contamination of sheep carcasses with potentially highly pathogenic STEC O157:H7 strains.

Yilmaz Emre Gencay

https://www.mysciencework.com/publication/show/7322026/sheep-as-an-important-source-of-e-coli-o157-o157-h7-in-turkey

Where does food come from? Indiana restaurant with animal birthing room edition

A new restaurant is taking the term ‘farm-to-table’ to a whole new level by letting diners watch baby farm animals being born in a purpose-built birthing room.

dsc_0790At Farmhouse Restaurant in Fair Oaks, Indiana, customers are invited to visit a separate barn where live births happen every hour, with 80,000 baby pigs born each year and 150 calves born every single day.

And diners need not worry about the animals ending up on their plates; since it is only a dairy farm, the employees at Farmhouse get their meat and poultry from neighbouring farms instead.

The Birthing Barn features stadium seating surrounding a room encased with glass, so that hundreds of visitors can catch a glimpse of the miracle of life.

The restaurant, which is run by co-owner Carl Bruggemeier, sits on the 23,000-acre Fair Oaks Farms and boasts up to 500,000 visitors each year.

The goal of the birthing room, he says, is to expose people to where their food comes from.

“Most of us go into a grocery store and don’t really know where things come from or how they got there,” he told Today.com. “We don’t even give it much thought.”

45 sick from Campylobacter linked to raw milk in Utah

Utah public health officials are investigating a few cases of sickness associated with raw or unpasteurized milk.

A few? Is there that many people in Utah?

colbert.raw.milkSo far, 45 cases of Campylobacter infection have been confirmed in people who had raw milk in the week they got sick.

Officials said the illness has been reported in Cache, Davis, Morgan, Salt Lake, Utah and Weber counties.

Two cases have also been confirmed in California and Idaho.

The first case of the infection was reported May 9.

The Utah Dept. of Health said all 45 cases are linked to raw milk or cream purchased at Ropelato Dairy in Weber County.

The Utah Dept. of Agriculture suspended the dairy’s license to sell raw milk on Aug. 4 after several tests were positive for Campylobacter.

Larry Lewis with the UDAF said the dairy has been very cooperative in working with the inspectors and it will be allowed to sell raw milk again as soon as it consistently passes safety tests.

UK supermarkets fail inspections

Tesco supermarkets prove to be the worst for hygiene after it was revealed that 29 of its stores failed inspections aimed to protect customers from food poisoning.

tesco.foodIt was one of five big supermarket chains that saw stores fall foul of basic checks from the Food Standards Agency (FSA), according to figures from between 2012 and 2013 that were published in the Sun.

Asda, Sainsbury’s, Morrisons and Aldi also had stores that failed to meet expected standards, according to the data.

Lidl and Waitrose were the only two ‘big seven’ chains which saw all stores pass.

The FSA reviewed hygiene practices at a total of 11,106 supermarkets in England, Wales and Northern Ireland. Of that number, 510 did not maintain standard levels of hygiene.

Careful with that fondue: determinants of the campylobacteriosis winter peak in Switzerland

Campylobacteriosis is the most frequently reported food borne infection in Switzerland. We investigated determinants of infections and illness experience in wintertime. A case–control study was conducted in Switzerland between December 2012 and February 2013. Cases were recruited among laboratory-confirmed campylobacteriosis patients. Population-based controls were matched according to age group, sex and canton of residence. We determined risk factors associated with campylobacteriosis, and help seeking behaviour and illness perception.

fondueThe multivariable analysis identified two factors associated with an increased risk for campylobacteriosis: consumption of meat fondue (matched odds ratio [mOR] 4.0, 95 % confidence interval [CI] 2.3–7.1) and travelling abroad (mOR 2.7, 95 % CI 1.1–6.4). Univariable analysis among meat fondue consumers revealed chicken as the type of meat with the highest risk of disease (mOR 3.8, 95 % CI 1.1–13.5). Most frequently reported signs and symptoms among patients were diarrhoea (98 %), abdominal pain (81 %), fever (66 %), nausea (44 %) and vomiting (34 %). The median perceived disease severity was 8 on a 1-to-10 rating scale. Patients reported a median duration of illness of 7 days and 14 % were hospitalised. Meat fondues, mostly “Fondue chinoise”, traditionally consumed during the festive season in Switzerland, are the major driver of the epidemic campylobacteriosis peak in wintertime. At these meals, individual handling and consumption of chicken meat may play an important role in disease transmission. Laboratory-confirmed patients are severely ill and hospitalisation rate is considerable. Public health measures such as decontamination of chicken meat and improved food handling behaviour at the individual level are urgently needed.

European Journal of Epidemiology

Philipp Justus Bless, Claudia Schmutz, Kathrin Suter, Marianne Jost, Jan Hattendorf, Mirjam Mäusezahl-Feuz and Daniel Mäusezahl

http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10654-014-9917-0/fulltext.html#Fig3

Nursery school students in Japan confirmed with E. coli O111

Four Okinawa nursery school students are confirmed to have contracted Enerohemorrhagic Escherichia coli O111.

nurseryThree of the children have diarrheal symptoms, but none have been hospitalized.  One student showing continued symptoms is moving toward recovery, says the Health and Longevity Division of Okinawa Prefecure.

Former California slaughterhouse owner pleads guilty to selling diseased meat

The co-owner of a Petaluma slaughterhouse tied to a massive meat recall pleaded guilty to charges of selling cows with eye cancer and agreed to cooperate with prosecutors in their case against three other defendants.

imagesRobert Singleton, 77, faces up to three years in prison and is free on $50,000 bond, according to a copy of the plea agreement, which was reached Friday.

Singleton co-owned Rancho Feeding Corp., which was shut down in February by federal inspectors after a recall of nearly 9 million pounds of meat.

The recall included grocery chains such as Kroger, Food 4 Less and Wal-Mart. Nestle also issued a voluntary recall for its Philly Steak and Cheese Hot Pockets.

Singleton admitted purchasing cows exhibiting eye cancer, which is deemed unfit for human consumption, according to federal laws.

Workers severed the heads of those cows to disguise them as healthy cows for processing and inspection.