Yearly Archives: 2015

192 sick: Multistate outbreak of multidrug-resistant Salmonella I 4,[5],12:i:- and Salmonella Infantis infections linked to pork

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According the the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, this outbreak appears to be over. 

pigwapplesm

  • Epidemiologic, laboratory, and traceback findings identified pork produced by Kapowsin Meats as the likely source of this outbreak of SalmonellaI 4,[5],12:i:- and SalmonellaInfantis infections.
  • 192 people infected with the outbreak strains of SalmonellaI 4,[5],12:i:- (188) andSalmonella Infantis (4) were reported from five states.
    • Most ill people were reported from Washington.
    • 30 ill people were hospitalized, and no deaths were reported.
  • CDC’s National Antimicrobial Resistance Monitoring System(NARMS) laboratory conducted antibiotic-resistance testing on clinical isolates collected from 10 ill people infected with one of the outbreak strains of Salmonella I 4,[5],12:i:-.
    • All 10 isolates (100%) were multidrug resistant. This included resistance to ampicillin, streptomycin, sulfisoxazole, and tetracycline.
    • Antibiotic resistance may be associated with increased risk of hospitalization, development of a bloodstream infection, or treatment failure in patients.
  • On August 27, 2015, Kapowsin Meats issued an expanded recallof approximately 523,380 pounds of pork products that might be contaminated with Salmonella I 4,[5],12:i:-.
  • Consumers should check their homes and freezers for the recalled pork products and should not cook or eat them. Retailers should not sell these products and restaurants should not serve them.

Yeah: 11 illnesses but ‘no deaths or hospitalizations to date’ from Salmonella in JEM Raw Chocolate

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JEM Raw Chocolate, LLC (JEM Raw) of Bend, Oregon announced a voluntary recall of its full line of all nut butter spreads within expiry because it has the potential to be contaminated with Salmonella.

gag.meHealth authorities, including the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), Oregon Health Authority (OHA), Oregon Department of Agriculture (ODA), Center for Disease Control (CDC) have linked the illnesses to person(s) who have consumed nut spreads, including JEM Raw products. There have been eleven (11) illnesses reported but no deaths or hospitalizations to date.

In light of this investigation, and with an abundance of caution, JEM Raw has initiated a voluntary recall of all products and sizes, packaged in glass jars, and sold under brand name JEM Raw Organics.

Gag me.

Avocado vomit tales and Listeria

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I don’t like avocados.

There was this one time my ex-wife made an avocado dip to take to my relatives and was so drunk or hungover she barfed up all this green garlicly stuff at the side of highway 400, headed to Barrie.

guacamoleIt smelled awful.

Maybe she had Listeria (doubtful).

Listeria monocytogenes can grow and multiply in various food matrices and cause severe human illness. Apart from the influence on consumer health, L. monocytogenes contamination of ready-to-eat (RTE) food products causes major economic losses due to product recalls.

Control of foodborne pathogens in RTE food products is a challenge, specifically in foods that cannot undergo a heat-treatment during processing. The aim of this study was to develop control strategies for the management of L. monocytogenes in an avocado processing facility, additional to a quality control system. An in-house monitoring system (IMS) was established to test specifically for Listeria spp. in the final products and processing environment, including floors, equipment, work areas and personnel. Guacamole and environmental samples were collected and tested on-site for Listeria with the ISO 11290-1 method.

Based on the prevalence of Listeria, the facility introduced new strategies in processing to counter cross contamination. Results from the 2014 guacamole production season showed almost complete eradication of Listeria spp. in final products (0.17%, n = 1170) and the processing facility (0.79%, n = 1520). This is a major achievement since the highest incidence of Listeria spp. over a period of five years was measured at 11.39% (n = 948) in the final product during the 2013 season and 13.44% (n = 1927) in the processing facility in 2011.

These results indicate that successful management of Listeria spp. in an avocado processing facility can be accomplished with in-house monitoring of the listerial population and subsequent adjustments to the processing system.

So it probably wasn’t Listeria. Just booze.

Successful management of Listeria spp. in an avocado processing facility

Food Control, Volume 62, April 2016, Pages 208–215

Amy Strydom, René Vorster, Pieter A. Gouws, R. Corli Witthuhn

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0956713515302656

 

Why is contaminated feed still circulating, 15 years later? CFIA says small amount of feed likely cause of Alberta mad cow disease

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Canada’s food safety watchdog says a small amount of leftover contaminated feed was the most plausible cause of mad cow disease discovered last February on a farm near Edmonton.

bse.canadaThe Canadian Food Inspection Agency released a report Monday that says no part of the Black Angus beef cow entered the human food or animal feed systems.

The report says no significant events could be linked to the discovery of bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE) near Edmonton and no other sick animals were found.

The February case — the 19th in Canada — prompted a few countries to place temporary restrictions on Canadian beef imports.

An investigation report says the cow was born at a nearby farm almost two years after Canada brought in more strict controls on animal feed to prevent BSE. A previous case was diagnosed on the same birth farm in an animal born in 2004.

“No significant events could be linked with this case but the potential for the carry-over of a small amount of residual contaminated feed could not be discounted,” says the report.

UK curry house poisons 32 and ‘kills one woman’ with a chicken biryani

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Two curry house owners poisoned 32 people with a chicken biryani – and may have also caused one woman’s death.

Karachi Karahi in PlaistowKamran Memon and his wife Farhana Memon, who run Karachi Karahi in Plaistow, East London, provided the buffet at a Sindhi event – despite repeatedly ignoring food safety warnings.

A 39-year-old woman died the day after the August 2013 celebration.

But health officials were not alerted until four days after the outbreak so a full post-mortem examination was not carried out.

As a result there was insufficient medical evidence to present to the jury when the owners were prosecuted, Newham Council said.

The cause of the woman’s death was given as bowel ischemia and heart attack.

More than 140 people from all over the country and abroad attended but the following day several of the guests fell ill.

The Barking Road eatery was inspected the next day, with environmental health officers taking food samples for analysis.

The restaurant was immediately banned from providing outside catering.

The owners were also found to have ignored two improvement notices for breaching food safety rules.

The couple pleaded guilty to charges of failing to maintain a proper food safety management system and properly train staff.

A jury at Snaresbrook Crown Court found the pair guilty of supplying unsafe food.

We only do fruit so we’re clean: How the berry hepatitis A scare inspired an Aussie farm business

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I asked my grandfather, the asparagus baron, what crop he’d go into if he was starting out in 1980 rather than 1960.

FROZEN BERRIES RECALLRaspberries.

Same in Australia.

Rare and expensive.

I want to plant berry bushes around the townhome in Brisbane instad of some decorative plant.

I get voted down.

But spurred by the hepatitis A outbreak from frozen berries earlier this year, a Victorian small family farming business has launched a 100 percent Australian-grown frozen berries product.

Many consumers fell ill in February after consuming Nanna’s frozen berries grown in Chile and China and packaged in Chinese factories.

Matilda’s is the brainchild of husband and wife team Ruth and Matt Gallace, third generation strawberry farmers on Victoria’s Mornington Peninsula.

Alarmed by the outbreak, they fronted $500,000 to construct a purpose-built facility in the Yarra Valley to wash and snap freeze strawberries from Sunny Ridge Strawberry Farm, which has been in the Gallace family for 50 years, and their 800 acres of land in Victoria and Queensland as well as raspberries and blueberries from NSW and Tasmania.

As their facility is dedicated purely to fruit products, the couple insist their frozen berries will be free from contamination.

Um, that’s not the way microbes work, especially hep A which is transferred from human poop to humans.

But good luck.

Government regulation is coming to US sushi

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Cynthia LaBelle-Tun,  president of Edo Sushi Express. writes in Food Safety Magazine that she has been involved in the sushi industry since 2000 when my husband, Thihan Tun, and I opened Tun Asian Foods. We were an exclusive on-site sushi provider for Stop & Shop Supermarkets between 2002 and 2005. In 2005, we parted ways with Stop & Shop and decided to change our focus to delivery sushi in the New England region. Since then we have worked to provide safe and delicious food to businesses throughout the region.

sushi.riceOur strong focus on food safety came about due to our decision to focus on delivering fresh sushi. We already had a basic on-site Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Points (HACCP) plan and Standard Operating Procedures, but delivering fresh sushi requires special handling due to perishability issues. This caused Edo Sushi Express to begin the long road to a deeper understanding of sushi food safety. One of the results of this road was the law in Connecticut changing the way the health department looks at sushi rice.
Sushi is a traditional Japanese food that has been incorporated into the American cuisine, and as it has grown in popularity throughout the country, the health authorities in states and municipalities have had to grapple with the issue of food safety. Sushi is a Japanese word that means “seasoned rice.” And it is the sushi rice that concerns many health officials. The concern for health officials is the growth of bacteria that will normally begin growing in food held at room temperature within 2 hours.
In the United States, very few people die from eating sushi. Death from eating bad sushi is usually attributed to fugu, a type of poisonous fish rarely eaten in the United States. People do get sick from eating sushi, but the cause for illness is usually poorly handled fish. An example of this occurred earlier this year with a Salmonella outbreak caused by raw tuna. Salmonella is caused when food is exposed to feces. It is highly likely that the fish processor, in China or Indonesia, washed the tuna with dirty water. Raw fish to be used in sushi must be handled with care. Salmonella bacteria will not die if the fish is frozen, it will only stop growing.

Surely some mistake: US catfish rule exemplifies government waste

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David Acheson, president and CEO of The Acheson Group LLC, a global food safety consulting firm, writes in Forbes that last week was a sad day for food safety in the United States as the U. S. Department of Agriculture, Food Safety Inspection Service (FSIS) published a final rule on the inspection of catfish.  This new rule exemplifies government waste, the politics of food safety and the inherent dysfunction between the FDA and the USDA Food Safety Inspection Service.

airplane.shirleyThis story goes back to 2008 when the Farm Bill transferred regulatory authority for the safety of catfish from the FDA to the USDA.  But why would this change in regulatory authority happen? Was FDA doing a bad job with regulating catfish? Was catfish such a high risk food that it needed the continuous inspection approach of the USDA?  Did FDA feel the need to off load some inspectional responsibilities because the Agency could not cope with the workload.   The answers are no, no and no. So why the move?

To date neither Congress, FDA nor USDA have come up with a sound reason as to why this move was made.  So why was this decision made? To the best of my understanding the decision was based on the belief that US catfish farmers would be better protected from overseas competition by putting all catfish regulation under USDA.  Being regulated by USDA will consume more time and resources for those that slaughter and process catfish. It will require more effort by the industry to be responsive to the on-site and shift by shift inspections of USDA. But if one assumes that this more severe and costly oversight can be met by the domestic producers but might be too much for those importing catfish, then maybe there is an economic advantage to the domestic catfish growers in that the foreign suppliers will just give up and stop importing catfish to the US. 

Rectal swabs? Eeww: Diarrhea downs 91 police trainees in Philippines

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Ninety-one police trainees were hospitalized  Friday due to diarrhea in Surigao City, a belated police report said on Tuesday.

Cartman-Anal-Probe-275x180Superintendent Daniel Puesca, information officer of the Caraga regional police office, reported to the National Operation Center in Camp Crame said that 50 members of Public Safety Field Training Program (PSFTP) class 2015-02 were rushed to the regional hospital at around 6 p.m. Friday

Another 41 trainees were later taken to the same hospital after also complaining of stomachache after they were given first aid by the staff of the training school.

As of Tuesday, Puesca said the Surigao City health office of the DOH are still working to determine the cause of the diarrhea and water samples have been taken by the regional hospital. The results on the water testing are expected in a week.

Results of rectal swabs and stool examinations conducted on the patients will also be sent to Metro Manila for confirmation.

Is that a bearded dragon in your pocket or are you just happy to see me: walnut/Salmonella edition

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Inspectors and investigators have the best stories and FDA’s move over the past few years to post warning letters is a goldmine for food safety stories. Like the one Gregory Banes of Gold State Nut LLC received earlier this month. According to the letter, Banes was tugging the skin of a bearded dragon in his office during an FDA visit. And then he went to touch some nuts.DnYEv

Three of 100 environmental swabs we collected from your facility yielded Salmonella. One of the swabs was taken from a cross-beam directly above the belt where all shelled walnuts exit the shell cracker. Our investigators observed debris falling from this cross-beam directly onto the belt below where walnuts exit the cracker during operation. All cracked walnuts pass under this cross-beam.

Two swabs collected from the inside of the reptile enclosure in your office yielded Salmonella. During an interview in your office located within the packing facility, our investigators observed you holding a bearded dragon reptile and peeling off its skin with your bare hands. Following this interview, you were seen touching shelled walnut meats with your bare hands, without first washing your hands. Reptiles are known reservoirs for Salmonella.

Beyond the dragon handling, the company had lots of risk issues including a lack of hand washing tools, and cross-contamination potential.