Yearly Archives: 2015

Vaccine and E. coli O157:H7 fecal shedding: Doctoral student at Kansas State University’s College of Veterinary Medicine receives award

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A research paper written by a Kansas State University College of Veterinary Medicine doctoral student in pathobiology and Doctor of Veterinary Medicine graduate has earned the 2015 Mark Gearhart Memorial Graduate Student Award from the Association for Veterinary Epidemiology and Preventive Medicine. 

renter.cull.stecCharley Cull, Oakland, Nebraska, earned the honor for his paper “Performance and carcass characteristics of commercial feedlot cattle from a study of vaccine and direct-fed microbial effects on Escherichia coli O157:H7 fecal shedding.” The award, which includes a plaque and $500, was presented at the Conference of Research Workers in Animal Diseases annual meeting in Chicago on Dec. 8. Cull was a featured speaker at the meeting and received an additional $500 to offset travel expenses.

The Mark Gearhart Memorial Graduate Student Award is an annual competition that recognizes graduate students who are completing, or have just completed, advanced academic or professional training in veterinary epidemiology, public health or preventive medicine. The competition is based on the student’s research that has resulted in a scientific manuscript for which the student is the primary author.

“I am truly honored to be recognized for this year’s Mark Gearhart Award,” Cull said. “I believe that the combination of hard work and outstanding mentoring has made this research and award possible.”
Cull, who completed a Doctor of Veterinary Medicine at Kansas State University in 2014 and is now working on the pathobiology doctorate, attended the meeting with his major professor, David Renter, professor of epidemiology in the College of Veterinary Medicine’s diagnostic medicine and pathobiology department.

“This is arguably the highest award for a graduate student in Charley’s field, so we are extremely proud that he was chosen for this honor,” Renter said.

Cull’s graduate education at Kansas State University has been supported in part by a special Coordinated Agricultural Project grant program through the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s National Institute of Food and Agriculture. This grant is titled “Shiga-toxigenic Escherichia coli in the Beef Chain: Assessing and Mitigating the Risk by Translational Science, Education and Outreach” and is administered by a group of faculty who are beef food safety experts at Kansas State University; the University of Nebraska; Lincoln, Virginia Tech; and the USDA Agriculture Research Service Eastern Regional Research Center. The grant program seeks to significantly advance evidence- and action-based beef food safety knowledge to protect public health.

 

New US food safety meat measures

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The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Food Safety and Inspection Service on Monday announced a new measure that will greatly improve the ability to trace cases of foodborne illness to their source.

paper.trailThe measure, which will require retailers to keep detailed records of the materials they use to make ground beef, was prompted in large part by events in Portland, Maine.

In 2011, a Salmonella outbreak resulted in several illnesses in Maine and parts of the Northeastern region of the U.S. The Food Safety and Inspection Service was able to trace the illnesses to Hannaford, a supermarket that, like many retailers, had used cuts of meat from various sources to make ground beef.

While the Food Safety and Inspection Service was able to trace the illnesses back to the supermarket that sold it, a lack of information about the source of the materials used to make the ground beef prevented us from going back further to the establishment that produced them. Doing so would have enabled us to ensure that the same unsafe meat was not being used by other retailers in the area.

This outbreak got the attention of Maine lawmakers, including U.S. Rep. Chellie Pingree, U.S. Sen. Susan Collins and then-U.S. Sen. Olympia Snowe, all of whom pushed for changes to the recordkeeping requirements.

The USDA FSIS version is below:

The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) today is publishing revised guidelines to assist poultry processors in controlling Salmonella and Campylobacter in raw food products and prevent cases of foodborne illness. This updated document is the fourth edition of the “FSIS Compliance Guideline for Controlling Salmonella and Campylobacter in Raw Poultry” and is intended to offer poultry companies best practices for minimizing pathogen levels and meeting FSIS’ food safety requirements.

“These guidelines take into account the latest science and practical considerations, including lessons learned from foodborne illness outbreaks in the last several years, to assist establishments in producing safer food,” said USDA Deputy Under Secretary for Food Safety Al Almanza. “This new guide is one piece of FSIS’ Salmonella Action Plan and our effort to reduce Salmonella illnesses attributed to meat and poultry products by 25 percent in order to meet the nation’s Healthy People 2020 goals. By following the newer guidelines, poultry facilities can help us reach this important public health target.” 

The new guide makes science-based suggestions for interventions that poultry companies can take on the farm (known as pre-harvest), sanitary dressing procedures, further processing practices, antimicrobial interventions, and other management practices. These prevention and control measures represent the best practice recommendations of FSIS based on scientific and practical considerations. This guidance is particularly important in light of Salmonella outbreaks involving poultry products.

FSIS is seeking comment on the guidelines, which were last updated in 2010. A downloadable version of the compliance guidance is available at: www.fsis.usda.gov/wps/portal/fsis/topics/regulatory-compliance/compliance-guides-index. The guidelines are also posted at the Federal eRulemaking Portal at: www.regulations.gov where comments can be submitted.

While rates of foodborne illness overall have fallen over the course of this century, Salmonella rates have remained relatively stagnant, prompting FSIS to take an all-hands on deck approach to addressing the pathogen in meat and poultry products. The guidance, along with development of new performance standards for raw chicken breasts, legs and wings as well as for ground and other comminuted chicken and turkey products unveiled in January, are a major step in FSIS’ Salmonella Action Plan. FSIS’ science-based risk assessment estimates that implementation of the new performance standards will lead to an average of 50,000 prevented illnesses annually.

Over the past six years, USDA has collaborated extensively with other federal partners to safeguard America’s food supply, prevent foodborne illnesses and improve consumers’ knowledge about the food they eat. USDA’s FSIS is working to strengthen federal food safety efforts and develop strategies that emphasize a three-dimensional approach to prevent foodborne illness: prioritizing prevention; strengthening surveillance and enforcement; and improving response and recovery.

Food safety is not simple, so stop saying it

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It’s not simple.

Food safety is not simple.

food-safety-1But wanker organizations and bureaucrats around the world insist it is.

No.

Food safety is not simple.

Food Standards Scotland (FSS) has launched its festive food safety campaign, urging Christmas cooks to follow simple food safety tips when preparing meals.

The campaign uses tongue-in-cheek humour to get the food safety message across, featuring Santa Claus stricken by a bout of food poisoning. 

Geoff Ogle said there are number of simple things that people could do to help reduce food poisoning infections. He added: “These should include allowing adequate time to defrost your turkey in the bottom of your fridge or somewhere cold: large turkeys can take a couple of days. If it’s not completely de-frosted it can mean inconsistent cooking through the bird and won’t get rid of bugs like campylobacter which can cause food poisoning.

“Also make sure it’s cooked through until the juices run clear, store leftovers in the fridge and eat them within two days unless they’ve been frozen, and re-heat them just once. And keep your fridge temperature at 0-5°C.”

Use a thermometer. Juices running clear is terrible advice.

But food safety is simple.

And if you get sick, it’s your fault.

Soundbites over science: Chipotle’s ‘diarrhea burrito’ and a culture of arrogance

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I had my go at Chipotle on Friday. Here’s some other views.

diarrhea burrito’Brian Sozzi of Real Money writes that from blasting McDonald’s and the fast-food industry on earnings calls, to a company spokesman e-mailing me all of the harmful ingredients that McDonald’s uses to giving a figurative middle finger to competitors in online marketing videos, members of Chipotle’s top brass have gotten a big head.

I believe they have lost their sense of humility.

I encourage them to take a trip to Starbucks (SBUX) in Seattle and sit down with CEO Howard Schultz. That guy exudes humility. Sure, Schultz is known to get riled up on earnings calls when his baby is criticized by a stock analyst, but I have not once heard him disparage competitors on earnings calls or take success for granted. When that humility is lost among executives, it puts the company in a position to be attacked when times get tough — as they are at Chipotle now. Frankly, it just leads to operational miscues.

chipotle.gmoEach and every Chipotle leader needs to look within today and reassess their attitudes — the CFO, for example, should be embarrassed by how he handled himself at this week’s investor’s conference. The guy made it sound as if the media secretly planted E. coli at Chipotle locations across the country to cook up desktop and mobile traffic in the last month of the year.

Even Steve Ells’ performance on the “Today” show Thursday lacked authenticity. I watched that appearance 11 times. The stock may have rallied on the apology, but if you bought Chipotle’s stock on the news, I encourage going back to watch the footage: The culture of arrogance is still there, and it has to be eradicated at a chain growing as quickly as Chipotle.

Norovirus in Boston because of a sick worker? Operational neglect. Closing a Seattle restaurant Thursday due to food not being kept hot enough? Operational neglect.

Five outbreaks in six months?

Seattle suffered the first E. coli cases in July, followed by almost 100 cases of norovirus in California’s Simi Valley the following month.

Chipotle restaurants in Minnesota infected around 70 people with Salmonella in September, and over 140 Boston College students were confirmed with norovirus earlier this week. And there was another outbreak of E. coli that was not publicly known until recently. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in its latest count cited 52 cases of E. coli in nine states, the majority of which were reported in Washington and Oregon.

“I’ve been doing this since the Jack in the Box outbreak of 1993 and the number of possible cases in such a short period of time is something I’ve never really seen before,” said William Marler of the Seattle-based Marler Clark LLP.

Chipotle, which has 1,900 locations nationwide, closed 43 stores in the two states before reopening them following deep cleaning and inspections by local health officials. The Brighton, Mass., restaurant near the B.C. campus also shuttered as local health agencies investigate the outbreak, The Boston Globe reported.

Chipotle’s stock dropped nearly 30% from August to December, according to CNN Money. But the shares gained some ground back after Chipotle founder and co-CEO Steve Ells pledged to make the restaurant “the safest place to eat” Thursday on NBC’s “Today” show.

chipotle.new.food.safeDarin Detwiler, senior policy coordinator at STOP Foodborne Illness and an adjunct professor in the regulatory affairs of food and the food industry department at Boston’s Northeastern University, said cooking fresh ingredients in traditional ways is no excuse. “Don’t you and I do that at home?” he asks. “If I am cooking for my family, I’m responsible.”

While it’s clear that using canned and frozen foods could make it easier for Chipotle to meet food safety standards, a diverse supply chain shouldn’t stop the company from meeting regulatory requirements. “It may be more challenging that you have to tell more people to pay attention, but that’s really not that much of a challenge,” says Doug Powell, a former food safety professor and the publisher of the food-safety-focused Barf Blog. “You put in place your standard operating procedures, you have your plans, you go ahead and do it.”

Timothy B. Lee of Vox writes that rather than pandering to groundless fears about GMO safety, Chipotle would have served its customers better by focusing on the very real dangers of food tainted with E. coli, norovirus, or salmonella. Theoretically, it should be able to do both, of course, but like any organization Chipotle has limited resources. A dollar it spends guarding against the overblown threat of GMOs is a dollar it can’t devote to preventing actual health problems.

22 sickened: Lambing Live farm now faces civil claim after £120,000 fine and costs

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A farming attraction ordered to pay £120,000 after an E. coli O157 outbreak now faces a civil claim from families whose children were left seriously ill.

lambing-live-preston-300x277London-based personal injury solicitor Jill Greenfield is putting together the case on behalf of families whose children were hospitalized with the potentially deadly illness.

Huntley’s Country Stores in Samlesbury pleaded guilty on last week to three breaches to health and safety rules after many people were suspected of contracting E. coli during a three-week ‘Lambing Live’ event at Easter 2014.

Twenty-two children became ill with 15 confirmed cases of E-coli.

The firm was fined £60,000 and ordered to pay £60,000 costs.

One mother, Clitheroe’s Juliette Martin, who attended the lamb-feeding event said it had ‘left a permanent scar on the entire family which we will never forget’.

Ms Greenfield won more than £1 million when she represented ten children affected by an E. coli outbreak at a petting farm in Surrey in 2009.

She is particularly concerned about the possible complications to the victims kidney function in later life but said she could not put a figure on the likely total claim against the firm.

Ms Greenfield, a partner at Fieldfisher solicitors, said she was acting for four families.

She said the government had failed to bring in health recommendations by an inquiry into a similar incident at Godstone Farm in 2009.

87104305_huntleys_google-300x169Ms Greenfield said: “If they had been, the tragedy of Huntley’s may never have happened.”

The court heard the tragically typical litany of errors:

  • visitors allowed uncontrolled access to lambs – children could enter animal pens and roll in feces-covered straw;
  • during bottle-feeding, lambs were allowed to climb onto seats, leaving them soiled with feces;
  • pens had open bar gates allowing contaminated bedding to spill onto main visitor area;
  • animals were densely packed, allowing bacteria build-up; and,
  • hand washing basins meant for visitors were used to clean animal feeding dishes.

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.

Best practices for planning events encouraging human-animal interactions

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

03.Apr.14

Zoonoses and Public Health

Educational events encouraging human–animal interaction include the risk of zoonotic disease transmission. ‘It is estimated that 14% of all disease in the USA 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.

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/zph.12117/abstract?deniedAccessCustomisedMessage=&userIsAuthenticated=false

Former Kansas State professor (me) uses blog to track stories of foodborne illness

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For former Kansas State University professor of food safety Doug Powell, E. coli isn’t an illness that only appears on his radar during an outbreak like the one traced to Chipotle this fall by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

dp.sweet.potato:feb.14Powell, who in 2013 moved with his wife to Brisbane, Australia (actually it was 2011; it was 2013 when Kansas State decided to dump me for bad attendance), compiles stories of foodborne illness daily on his blog, barfblog.com. Writing about it is his life’s career, he said by phone Friday, from Brisbane, to Samantha Foster of the Topeka Capital-Journal (that’s in Kansas, irony can be pretty ironic sometimes).

“Forty-eight million people get sick from the food and water they consume in the U.S. every year,” Powell said. “If we can make a little bit of a dent in that, then that’s a good reason to get out of bed in the morning.

When Powell started the blog — before Google and other developments made such information more readily available, he said — its purpose was to provide information so people could make informed choices. He said he doesn’t try to preach what to do or not do.

“When I started this 20 years ago, it was largely about parents saying, ‘We never knew,’ ” he said. “I wanted to make sure there was never a case where they said that.”

In a blog post Friday, Powell wrote about a Jefferson County family whose child became infected with a Shiga toxin-producing E. coli — the most virulent type of E. coli. The 8-year-old Meriden boy’s symptoms progressed from severe diarrhea to a point at which his kidneys began to shut down, Powell wrote.

doug.amy.wooli.oct.14According to the Kansas Department of Health and Environment, 106 cases of Shiga toxin-producing E. coli had been reported across the state this year as of Tuesday. Of those, 11 were reported in Shawnee County. Compared with 2014’s statistics, this year’s are slightly higher, with 90 cases reported statewide, four of which occurred in Shawnee County.

“We don’t know definitively why there are more reported cases this year compared to most previous years,” said KDHE spokeswoman Cassie Sparks. “It could be the actual incidence is slightly higher. It could also be with the increased attention in the news lately, that physicians are testing more frequently, so more cases that are occurring are being identified.

“Infectious diseases also tend to cycle. In 2011, we had 108 cases reported for the year, so that was a little higher than usual as well.”

Powell said some research has shown physicians are more likely to check for a specific disease if it has been in the news. If they were to check for everything, that would be expensive and time-consuming, he said.

“When there’s something in the news, it triggers doctors to look harder for it,” he said.

Though Powell said the source of the Meriden boy’s E. coli isn’t clear and doesn’t seem to be part of an outbreak, isolated incidents are frequent and often tragic, sometimes causing lasting problems, he said.

KDHE’s annual reports, available online, state that E. coli occurs when susceptible individuals ingest food or liquids contaminated with human or animal feces. Outbreaks have been linked to eating undercooked ground beef, consuming contaminated produce and drinking contaminated water or unpasteurized juice. Person-to-person contact, especially within daycares or nursing homes, also can spread the disease, according to the reports.

powell.coffsPowell said he personally won’t eat many raw foods, including sprouts, oysters and unpasteurized milk. Produce, however, is problematic. Fresh fruits and vegetables are the cornerstone of a healthy diet, he said, though at the same time, they are the leading cause of foodborne illness in the U.S.

Farm food safety programs are critical to keeping the poop out of the produce, Powell said.

“That entails paying attention to what you’re adding to your soil, whether it’s raw manure or other things,” he said. “It means knowing your source of irrigation water, because often … there’s been a flood situation and it’s coming from a cattle farm loaded with E. coli, and that becomes the water for the produce.”

Good hand-washing also is critical for farm employees, Powell said, because once produce is contaminated, soap and water do little to stop the bacteria.

“It has to be prevented on the farm, as much as possible,” Powell said.

10 dead, 100 sickened by rotten dog meat in Cambodia

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Six people died earlier in the week after eating the barbecued carcass of a dog believed to have been found by a roadside.

dog.meat.cambodiaFour others from the same remote village in the Kratié (or Kraches) province in the northeast of the country later died after consuming the meat as well as drinking rice wine on Tuesday.

The deaths began on Sunday after a 76-year-old man died several hours after cooking and eating the dead dog. 

In a zen-like twist, guests at his funeral, which was held the following day, also ate the leftover dog meat and were rushed to the hospital with acute food poisoning.

The deaths are in region of Cambodia where canines are regarded as a delicacy.

More oyster woes: Frozen raw oysters recalled due to norovirus

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According to MauiNow, 11 cases of norovirus have been linked to raw oyster consumption in Maui since September. And now some frozen raw oysters from Korea are being recalled.

The Hawaiʻi State Department of Health has issued a recall notice for frozen, raw oysters imported from Korea and sold in bulk to distributors and food establishments in Hawaiʻi.http://www.dreamstime.com/stock-photo-plate-oysters-image2256260

The individually quick frozen raw oysters on the half shell are packaged under the Dai One Food Company label.

Health officials say the shellfish harvest dates are Feb. 10, 11, 12, and 13, 2015 and are listed on the required shellfish identification tags for all bulk shellfish cases.

The department has already conducted product trace-backs and embargoed all of the suspect product on Nov. 24 at various local shellfish distributors and restaurants,” said Peter Oshiro, “Although this product is not sold directly to the public, a recall has been issued as an additional safeguard to further notify anyone who may possess the product that it is unsafe and should be destroyed.”

Raw oyster-linked hep causes student to drop out of high school — 70 years ago

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Like Almost Famous, it’s a coming of age story. One of challenges, persistence, legacy.

And hepatitis A.

According to HNGN, 89 year old Betty Reilly received a bachelor’s degree this week after having her academic career derailed by hepatitis A 70 years ago.http://www.dreamstime.com/stock-photo-plate-oysters-image2256260

Reilly had to drop out of high school close to graduation when she became ill with Hepatitis A after eating raw oysters in Times Square as a teen. The year it took for her to recover from the debilitating illness squashed her dreams of not only getting that high school diploma, but also her college dreams.

So she went to work, met her husband and raised a family, like most people. It wasn’t until she applied for a job at a library in Sunrise, Fla. that this then 78-year-old self-processed bookworm realized her lack of degreed education can come back to hurt her. The librarian told Reilly at the time that she needed a high school diploma to work there.

So off went Betty Reilly to get an education, at the ripe old age of 78, according to the Jackson County Floridian.

College was not in her future, though, as Reilly had limited funds and no vehicle. However, she was advised to look into the Federal Pell Grant system, which took care of most of Reilly’s tuition, books and fees, and she took the public transportation’s hour-long bus to Broward Community College in Davie, Fla. to receive her Associate’s Degree.

According to a 1995 paper by Joseph Melnick in the Journal of Infectious Diseases goes through the history of hepatitis A virus; it wasn’t differentiated from other jaundice–causing illnesses until 1945, a little after when Reilly was in high school.

Salmonella increasingly becoming resistant to antibiotics

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Recent studies had proven that the disease has become resistant to antibiotics. Patients with an increased life risk because of the invading bacterium are recommended to take the medicine even though some experts argue about its effects. 

salmonella.jpgSalmonella is classified as a rod-shaped, Gram-negative, very varied genus of bacteria that are usually found in the intestines of human and animals. Unlike other bacteria such as clostridium botulinum, Salmonella is actually harmful to the body once it is ingested. It is so dangerous that every year, there’s an estimated report of 19,000 hospitalizations and 380 deaths that are all from Salmonella infection. But unlike other diseases, Salmonella has a cure.

Some experts argue that if you intake an antibiotic, it can only prolong the stay of the bacteria in your system, thus increasing the chances of infecting others. While there are some who explain that even though using antibiotics can be dangerous to some, it is still recommended.

In situations where antibiotics are needed, there are three types of antibiotics that the doctors most recommend.

Trimethoprim/sulfamethoxazole, ampicillin or amoxicillin are the best choices for patients. Although there are other medicines such as flouroquinolones, these three stand out since they don’t require an age bracket in order for them to become effective. The specific antibiotic that will then be chosen depends on the susceptibility of the bacteria and the possible ability to fight treatment.

In some parts of the United States, the use of fluoroquinoles on children and pregnant women garnered mixed reviews from therapeutic experts, not only because of the potential toxic that it brings to the cartilage but also side effects such as  photosensitivity, electrocardiographic abnormalities and tendinopathies.

The use of antibiotics to pregnant women with Salmonella also garnered some unwanted attention as there has been a report of a lady losing her unborn child while the Salmonella bacterium disseminates from her body. Although there are many options for Salmonella treatments, the antimicrobial therapy remains to be one of the hottest topics because its effectiveness against the bacterium proves to be different for a lot of people.