Yearly Archives: 2015

Raw pork liver a risk factor for hepatitis E in France

Posted on by
Reply

In France, the number of confirmed autochthonous hepatitis E (HE) cases has shown a substantial increase since 2006. In 2010, a descriptive study of acute autochthonous laboratory-confirmed HE cases was implemented in order to generate hypotheses about transmission modes and contamination sources.

raw.pork.liverAcute autochthonous HE cases confirmed by the National Reference Centre (CNR) were interviewed on exposures in the 2 to 10 weeks before illness onset. Clinical, biological and epidemiological characteristics were documented for 139 autochthonous cases.

Sixty-five per cent of them resided in southern France, 59% reported underlying conditions and 74% were infected by HEV subtype 3f. Consumption of raw pig-liver products during the incubation period was more frequent among cases in southern (47%) than in northern (25%) France. HE is a frequent infection, more prevalent in Southern France, where cases frequently report the consumption of raw pork-liver products. A case control study will determine the fraction of HE cases attributable to the consumption of such products and other risk factors.

Descriptive study of autochthonous cases of hepatitis E cases, France, 2010

Couturier E, De Valk H, Letort MJ, Vaillant V, Nicand E, Tessé S, Roque-Afonso AM

Saint-Maurice : Institut de veille sanitaire

http://www.invs.sante.fr/Publications-et-outils/Rapports-et-syntheses/Maladies-infectieuses/2015/Etude-descriptive-des-cas-autochtones-d-hepatite-E-France-2010#panel2

E. coli in Qatar

Posted on by
Reply

Escherichia coli O157:H7, non-O157 E. coli, and Campylobacter spp. are among the top-ranked pathogens that threaten the safety of food supply systems around the world.

qatar.camelThe associated risks and predisposing factors were investigated in a dynamic animal population using a repeat-cross-sectional study design.

Animal and environmental samples were collected from dairy and camel farms, chicken processing plants, and abattoirs and analyzed for the presence of these pathogens using a combination of bacterial enrichment and real-time PCR tests without culture confirmation. Data on putative risk factors were also collected and analyzed.

E. coli O157:H7 was detected by PCR at higher levels in sheep and camel feces than in cattle feces (odds ratios [OR], 6.8 and 21.1, respectively). Although the genes indicating E. coli O157:H7 were detected at a relatively higher rate (4.3%) in fecal samples from dairy cattle, they were less common in milk and udder swabs from the same animals (1 and 2%, respectively).

Among the food adulterants, E. coli O103 was more common in cattle fecal samples, whereas O26 was more common in sheep feces and O45 in camel feces compared with cattle (OR, 2.6 and 3.1, respectively). The occurrence of E. coli in the targeted populations differed by the type of sample and season of the year.

Campylobacter jejuni and Campylobacter coli were more common in sheep and camel feces than in cattle feces. Most of the survey and surveillance of E. coli focused on serogroup O157 as a potential foodborne hazard; however, based on the PCR results, non-O157 Shiga toxin–producing E. coli serotypes appeared to be more common, and efforts should be made to include them in food safety programs.

 Risk of Escherichia coli O157:H7, non-O157 shiga toxin–producing Escherichia coli, and Campylobacter spp. in food animals and their products in Qatar

Journal of Food Protection®, Number 10, October 2015, pp. 1776-1924, pp. 1812-1818(7)

Mohammed, Hussni O.; Stipetic, Korana; Salem, Ahmed; McDonough, Patrick; Chang, Yung Fu; Sultan, Ali

http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/iafp/jfp/2015/00000078/00000010/art00005

‘Elementary school kids, younger kids probably aren’t the best when it comes to hygiene’

Posted on by
2

We’ve successfully made it through a couple of months of school in our house without any illnesses. I’m not sure if my kids’ recent obsession with handwashing is a factor (I suspect it is) or whether we’ve just been lucky.

Kids and norovirus are a common pair. Last month an estimated 700 students missed school in Person County, NC with the virus (or stayed home to avoid it; only two cases were confirmed). Today, AP reports that 400 kids in northern Nevada at 11 schools likely have noro.norovirus-2

The Washoe County Health District said it believes the norovirus outbreak first started on Sept. 16 at a Reno elementary school, where 150 students and 11 staff members have reported symptoms, including nausea, vomiting, diarrhea and abdominal cramping.

As of Friday, the Washoe County School District reported that the outbreak had spread to 9 other elementary schools, a high school and some associated daycare centers. It has been centered in Reno, with one Sparks elementary school.

Most of the nearly 400 people affected have been elementary school children. The high school teachers who were sickened also traced their illnesses to the affected elementary school kids, whom they were related to.

“Elementary school kids, younger kids probably aren’t the best when it comes to hygiene,” said Phil Ulibarri, a county health department spokesman.

The school district has also been advised to thoroughly clean schools, which Ulibarri said means sanitizing a 25-foot radius where there is vomiting or diarrhea, including going as high as six feet up along walls.

Awesome, the Nevada folks are using the best available science.

Quasi-daily probe E02: A snapshot in time

Posted on by
Reply

My friend and colleague Alyssa Barkley of the North Carolina Restaurant and Lodging Association joined me on Episode 2 of the quasi-daily probe. Here’s our conversation in it’s raw, unedited, form.

Today we talked about restaurant inspection, media coverage and posting grades.Quasi-daily-probe

The article that prompted the probe was from the Triangle Business Journal, who put together a list of restaurants in Wake County (where I live) that were cited for five or more  more critical health code violations since the beginning of August. 

Frances Breedlove, who oversees foodservice facility inspections for Wake County, says a critical violation is any rule violation that increases the likelihood of spreading foodborne illnesses. Those can include storing food at the incorrect temperature, employees failing to wash their hands or not keeping cooking areas sufficiently clean.

In all, more than 200 Wake County restaurants were docked for having at least one critical violation. Of those, roughly half were cited for having five or more critical health code violations. Many more were cited for noncritical violations of food safety rules.

Collaboration – The Scientific Love Story

Posted on by
Reply

Graduate students Nicole Arnold (NC State) and Lily Yang (Virginia Tech) write (below, exactly as shown),

As Dr. Chapman and Dr. Boyer began to delve into the realm of something called “mechanically tenderized beef,” Lily and Nicole glanced apprehensively at each other from across the table. Feeling dwarfed by the immenseness of the Indianapolis Convention Center amidst the hubbub of the the 2014 International Association for Food Protection (IAFP) Annual Meeting, neither of them could have imagined the adventure they were soon to embark upon. What started as a simple question, “Do you want to work with people?” had quickly blossomed and developed into a mind and story of its own. In a world of sensationalized media and fear-mongering, coupled with consumer beliefs of personal immunity, the study of consumer behavior and knowledge has become an essential step toward developing outreach, education, and intervention methods to positively influence consumer behavior changes. However, leaping into science alone can be a scary venture; having a partner-in-crime at one’s side not only makes the experience more fun and exciting, but much less terrifying.giphy

After months of discussion, the multi-faceted goals of their project, under the USDA NIFA STEC-CAP grant, were finally hashed out. Beginning May 2016, a label would be required for mechanically tenderized beef products due to the potential health risk when not fully cooked. As food scientists, it was important for us to better understand these products and to also recognize how consumers and small-scale retailers perceive them. Nicole (working towards a MS at North Carolina State University, NCSU) would determine the prevalence of mechanical tenderization of beef at independent retail markets in North Carolina and Virginia. Lily (working towards a PhD at Virginia Tech, VT) would assess consumer knowledge and behavior towards mechanically tenderized beef through focus groups, nation-wide surveys, and video observations. From these observations and consumer interactions, intervention methods for affecting behavior would be developed, implemented, then evaluated for effectiveness.

As their project is so incredibly people-oriented, networking and making friends within the food safety world became imperative as many will one day become their colleagues. The importance of partnership and collaboration was emphasized from the moment that Nicole began in the Chapman lab at NCSU and Lily began in the Boyer lab at VT. The combined infectious personalities of Nicole’s charm and Lily’s gregarious nature have allowed them to meet, collaborate, and make friends all across the food science community.

The two first began working together over three years ago, when Nicole was still an undergraduate student at NCSU and Lily was a MS student at VT. At the time, their work together was strictly virtual; they pulled news stories for barfblog, a blog used to discuss evidence-based opinions on current food safety issues by many food safety scientists (check it out here: https://barfblog.com/). Many months later at the IFTSA Central Atlantic Area Meeting 2013 at NCSU, Nicole recognized Lily’s incredible loudness while giving the other schools tours of the NC State Howling Cow Dairy. Amidst squeals of excitement and hugs, Nicole also revealed that she would be joining Chapman’s lab for her Master’s studies.

Now, a few years later, Lily and Nicole are great friends. Each has visited the other’s school to work on their shared project; both of their advisors serve on either girls’ committees. Nicole and Lily are frequently involved in many various joint adventures. The two have gone on many adventures at conferences (i.e.: IAFP, IFT, STEC, etc.), in addition to those outside of academia and scientific-related ventures. Recently, Lily took over as the new chair of the IAFP Student Professional Development Group. Nicole serves as the vice-chair. Lily and Nicole were also both accepted into IFT’s first annual Food Communicator’s Workshop in 2015. Along with a group of like-minded young food communicators, they are members of a working group called Don’t Eat the Pseudoscience (You should check them out here on Youtube at http://bit.ly/1KvSNMY and on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/DontEatPseudo ). This team of students works towards effectively communicating food, science, and all aspects of Food Science through videos, social media, and other prominent channels.

Together, Nicole and Lily hope to share their own positive experiences working with one another and with other students in order to promote more collaboration and teamwork among students interested in food science and food safety. Acknowledging that your own limitations may be another individual’s expertise is essential. The diversity within food science and food safety is something to celebrate. After all, every great adventure begins with two.

No testing, but an A+ on audits: Lenient sentences for ex-peanut officials in Salmonella outbreak

Posted on by
Reply

USA Today reports that two ex-officials of Peanut Corporation of America drew lenient sentences Thursday for their self-admitted roles in a Salmonella outbreak blamed for killing nine and sickening hundreds.

AIB.audit.eggsGeorgia U.S. District Court Judge W. Louis Sands sentenced Samuel Lightsey, 50, a former operations manager at the peanut firm’s Blakely, Ga. plant, to serve three years in prison. Daniel Kilgore, 46, another ex-manager at the plant, drew a six-year sentence from the judge.

Sands allowed them to remain free, pending voluntary surrender after the U.S. Bureau of Prisons designates the correctional facilities where they will serve their sentences.

Both reached plea agreements with prosecutors that limited their punishment when they pleaded guilty last year to conspiracy, mail and wire fraud, along with sale of misbranded and adulterated food.

They later testified as government witnesses during the 2014 federal trial that ended with criminal convictions of ex-Peanut corporation of America owner Stewart Parnell and two other former top executives.

The case stemmed from findings by the Food and Drug Administration and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention that traced a national salmonella outbreak to the Parnell firm’s peanut roasting plant in Blakely. The incident sickened 714 people in 46 states and may have contributed to nine deaths, the CDC reported.

The illnesses erupted in January 2009 and prompted one of the largest food recalls in U.S. history.

Parnell, 61, was sentenced to a virtual life term — 28 years behind bars — on Sept. 21. His brother, Michael Parnell, received a 20-year term, and former quality control manager Mary Wilkerson, drew a five-year sentence.

Sands ordered the Parnell brothers to surrender immediately, denying defense arguments that they should be permitted to remain free on bond pending appeals of their convictions.

Government evidence presented at the trial established that Lightsey and Kilgore knowingly helped the top executives fabricate certificates of analysis in a scheme that falsely showed peanut butter from the Blakely plant was free of Salmonella and other pathogens. In fact, there had been no testing of the product, or tests had confirmed contamination, prosecutors showed.

And Keith Richards gets blood transfusions in Switzerland (not): Five sickened with Q fever after sheep cell injections

Posted on by
Reply

ABC News reports five Americans came down with an unusual illness after traveling to Germany for a controversial treatment involving injections with sheep cells, health officials reported Wednesday.

a-human-q-fever-cluster-linked-to-a-sheep-farm-in-lavaux-switzerland-4-638The treatment is not permitted in the United States. The five New York residents received the “live cell therapy” in May last year. About a week later, they developed fever, fatigue and other symptoms of a dangerous bacterial illness called Q fever.

Two told investigators that they were part of a group that, for the last five years, had traveled to Germany twice a year for the injections. They said they get them to improve their health and vitality. There is no published clinical proof the treatments work, health officials say.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on Wednesday released a report on the outbreak, which included a Canadian case — another medical tourist who got the treatment in Germany at about the same time. The four women and two men ranged in age from 59 to 83.

Three of the six recovered. But three others were still experiencing symptoms more than nine months later, health officials said.

Live or fresh cell therapy involves injecting people with fetal cells from sheep. It’s sometimes offered as an anti-aging therapy, but also has been touted as a treatment for conditions ranging from impotence to migraines to liver disease.

Camera system detects foodborne toxin

Posted on by
Reply

Chemist Reuven Rasooly and his colleagues at the Agricultural Research Service’s Western Regional Research Center (WRRC) in Albany, California, have developed a simple and inexpensive system for detecting biologically active Shiga toxin, a product of pathogenic Escherichia coli serotype O157:H7. It is estimated that E. coli O157:H7 causes 73,000 cases of food poisoning and more than 60 deaths in the United States each year.

e.coli.O157.usda.detectThe new system involves the use of a camera and a light-emitting source to biologically determine active toxin. Affordable, sensitive devices like this are needed to reduce the sources and incidence of foodborne illness, says Rasooly, who works in WRRC’s Foodborne Toxin Detection and Prevention Research Unit. Current immunological tests, such as the ELISA, cannot distinguish between the active and inactive form of Shiga toxin.

“For example, in food processing, a heat-treatment method inactivates the toxin, but the ELISA cannot tell whether the toxin is active or inactive in the processed food,” Rasooly says. “Determining the activity of the toxin is very important, because the active form poses a threat to humans. The inactive form is nontoxic.”

Technology used to detect Shiga toxin and other pathogens is expensive and not a concern for resource-rich countries, he says. But equipment is typically too costly for developing countries, where the risk of foodborne illness and outbreaks is greatest. The camera system makes it easy and affordable for diagnostic labs that cannot afford a fluorometer, which is typically used to detect toxins.

“We demonstrated that our system is effective in measuring Shiga toxin activity compared with equipment costing 100 times more,” Rasooly says. “Afluorometer costs about $35,000, whereas the camera in this experiment costs $300.”

In the study, scientists constructed a fluorescence detection system using a camera and light source to measure GFP (green fluorescent protein) in a cell-based assay. A portion of a Shiga toxin-containing food sample was incubated with cells designed to produce GFP. The toxin in the sample inhibited the synthesis of GFP—reducing GFP production in relation to the amount of toxin present. The greater the toxicity, the less fluorescent the cells were.

Filters used with the light source and camera blocked wavelengths (signals) that would interfere with precise measurements of fluorescence. “We obtained these signal levels by taking a picture with a camera and analyzing the image with a free, available computer software that determines average pixel intensity,” Rasooly says.

The camera method, which can easily be adapted for detecting other foodborne toxins,was compared to a commercial fluorometer for detecting active Shiga toxin, Rasooly adds. Both instruments had the same level of toxin detection.

Ice fingered but epi can be ‘squishy’ 61 sickened by Norovirus at journalists’ conference

Posted on by
Reply

Two months after a norovirus outbreak at Bali Hai restaurant, county health officials have fingered ice as the foodborne source that sickened at least 61 people — including three in a wedding party.

norovirus-2“We’re certain it had something to do with the ice” served at the annual awards banquet of the local Society of Professional Journalists, said county spokesman Michael Workman. “We’re not certain how it got in the ice.”

In its final report to the San Diego SPJ, the county said 84 of the 172 people at the July 29 banquet returned surveys on what they ate and other issues. Fifty were sickened by norovirus type GI.1. (Eight others also reported getting ill.)

Three diners elsewhere in Bali Hai also got GI.1 — part of a wedding party of 140.

“We have to [classify it as] food poisoning,” Workman said, rather than a sick person spreading the gastrointestinal disease.

A Sept. 4 report said, “We did not link any food service workers with the illness,” but Workman on Tuesday told Times of San Diego that “we can’t say yes or no” to whether an employee caused the outbreak.

Workman stressed that Bali Hai remains “rated for high” for hygiene. “Everyone involved — from the people who attended [the banquet] and from the restaurant … did the right thing.”

County spokesman Workman saluted Bali Hai management.

“The restaurant had a great hygiene procedure, really good,” he said. “They are on the up-and-up on what they do and what they teach their employees. The employees have been there a long time. So they get it.”

But Workman acknowleged the county’s findings can be “squishy” and “it’s not an exact science.”

But: “We’re confident it’s been taken care of.”

‘I believe it happened at slaughter’ and other delusions: 9 sickened with E. coli from Worthy Burgers in Vermont, STEC found in unopened beef

Posted on by
1

Vermont health inspectors found the DNA of Shiga toxin in unopened packaged beef at a South Royalton restaurant and believe that undercooked hamburgers at Worthy Burger were the source of an E. coli contamination that sickened several people in late summer, a Vermont health official said Tuesday.

happy.cowsBradley Tompkins, a health surveillance epidemiologist with the Department of Health, also said two more cases of E. coli have been linked to people who dined at the restaurant, and that there now are six confirmed and three probable cases of E. coli in the Vermont outbreak. All have recovered, although to varying degrees, he said.

Tompkins said eight of the nine diners ate ground beef at Worthy Burger between the end of August and the middle of September, when investigators with the Vermont Department of Health inspected the restaurant, recommended some changes, and took some beef and lettuce, which is served on the hamburgers, to test.

The lettuce tested negative — “we do not believe lettuce played a role in this outbreak,” Tompkins said — but the health department found the DNA for Shiga toxin in the ground beef.

When they tried to grow the E. coli in the lab, however, it came out to be a slightly different strain than the one found in the patients from Vermont. Still, Tompkins said, the department believes the beef is to blame.

“It’s certainly not conclusive that it did come from the ground beef, (but) based on the interviews that were done with the patients and that we found the E. coli and the Shiga toxins … we do believe the outbreak was caused by the ground beef that was being undercooked from the restaurant,” Tompkins said.

Asked which farm the beef came from and where it was slaughtered and packaged — Worthy Burger relies on local suppliers for its grass-fed beef and other food — Tompkins referred a reporter to the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Food Safety and Inspection Service, which oversees slaughterhouses.

USDA spokeswoman Gabrielle Johnston said “there’s still debate whether it’s actually been linked to the beef” and said the matter is “still under investigation.”

Aaron Lavallee, another USDA spokesman who was on the same phone line with Johnston, said the agency was not at a point where it would name which slaughterhouses are being investigated, but said officials are “trying to trace this back all the way to the slaughter facility.”

cow.poop.spinachWorthy Burger’s Executive Chef Jason Merrill said on Tuesday the beef that was tested was taken from the restaurant’s walk-in cold storage in its original packaging from a Vermont slaughterhouse, leading him to suggest the contamination could have occurred at what he called a “USDA-inspected plant.”

“The samples they took from us were in a receiving walk-in, and we hadn’t even touched it,” he said.

“I believe the beef was OK (at the farm), and when it got to the slaughterhouse, that’s when the infection happened,” Merrill said.