Authorities say a Pima County, Arizona, woman who had a serious underlying health condition has died after eating tainted cucumbers.
County Health Department officials didn’t immediately release the woman’s name or age Friday but said the woman is one of 16 local cases linked to Salmonella poona cases caused by cucumbers grown in Mexico and sold by California-based companies.
They say she died while being treated at a Tucson-area for an illness linked to the Salmonella outbreak.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) is alerting consumers that frozen, raw, stuffed and breaded chicken products produced by Aspen Foods, a division of Koch Poultry Company, a Chicago, Ill. establishment have been confirmed as having the same Salmonella Enteritidis outbreak strain which was part of a July 15, 2015 recall.
Following the July 15th recall, FSIS has been conducting intensified sampling at this establishment to ensure that the hazard responsible for the initial contamination has been controlled by Aspen Foods. Results from FSIS sampling revealed twelve positive results that match the outbreak strain of Salmonella Enteritidis to Aspen Foods products. Three illnesses were epidemiologically linked to the original recall on July 15, 2015. FSIS continues to work with public health partners including the Minnesota Departments of Health and Agriculture and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on this ongoing investigation.
FSIS is concerned about all frozen, raw, stuffed and breaded chicken products produced by Aspen Foods between July 30, 2015 and September 17, 2015. The twelve positive samples collected during FSIS’ intensified sampling efforts alerted FSIS to a systemic problem at the establishment. FSIS cannot have confidence in the safety of any products produced after July 30, 2015. In addition to issuing this Alert, FSIS has directed its personnel to detain products covered by this Alert that they find in commerce because the company has refused to recall the products.
The frozen, raw, stuffed and breaded chicken items may include the following brands and be labeled as “chicken cordon bleu,” “chicken Kiev” or “chicken broccoli and cheese” and bear the establishment number “P-1358” inside the USDA mark of inspection. These products were shipped to retail location and food service locations nationwide.
These products were labeled with instructions identifying that the product was uncooked (raw) and included cooking instructions for preparation. As stated in the July 15, 2015 Recall Release, some case-patients reported following the cooking instructions on the label and using a food thermometer to confirm that the recommended temperature was achieved. Therefore, FSIS advises consumers not to eat these products. Special attention should be paid by the food service industry and food handlers. Using a food thermometer to properly cook these products will not protect the health of the consuming public.
Every time I go to Buffalo I want to barf.
Buffalo, Missouri, that is, and it’s next door to where Amy’s father lives and the roads are, um, adventurous.
The Dallas County Health Department is investigating an E. coli outbreak, and the family of the affected children say they want to spread the word about the bacteria’s harmful effects.
“It was heartbreaking, I didn’t think my son to come through it,” says Sierra Sanford.
Sanford says her one-year-old son got sick from E. coli in early September. She says the bacteria led to hemolytic uremic syndrome, or HUS, which is a condition that caused his kidneys to fail. She says he was taken to a hospital in Springfield and then airlifted to a hospital in Saint Louis.
Angela Sanford, the child’s grandmother, says, “When we first saw him, it was horrible, my daughter had to literally set him up, lay him down, he couldn’t move.”
Angela Sanford says her five-year-old granddaughter got sick roughly a week after her grandson was sent to the hospital. She says E. coli made her sick, she contracted HUS, and her kidneys failed as well. The young girl is still in a Saint Louis hospital and Sanford says she has a long road to recovery, but she’s stable. Angela Sanford says her mother, the children’s great grandmother, also got sick from E. coli.
“I think the word needs to be out, people need to take precaution,” she says.
We went to the Dallas County Health Department and spoke with Administrator Cheryl Eversole.
She says, “We believe that this is a closed case, meaning this is a contained incident. We do not believe that this is anything that is going to affect a majority of the public. We feel that this may be just a localized incident within a family unit.”
It was one of our go-to phrases growing up, and I have no idea why.
Probably because beets were a staple of the 1970s funky glassware along with pickles and pickled onions.
Customers of UK supermarket giant Asda have been warned not to eat jars of pickled beetroot amid fears they could contain botulism.
The recall affects a batch of 710g jars of ‘Asda Chosen By You Pickled Crinkle Cut Beetroot’.
Customers who have bought any of the jars have been warned not to eat it but to return it to a store.
It is not clear how the bacteria may have got into the jars, but a statement from the Food Standards Agency indicated measures to control the botulism toxin had not been demonstrated.
Just weeks ago Bobby Crosier was a happy, healthy two-year-old who was enjoying a bank holiday break with his mum and dad at a caravan in County Durham.
Now, the Washington tot is in Newcastle’s Great North Children’s Hospital fighting off the illness which his worried parents are desperate to raise awareness of.
Mum Alex Crosier, 23, said: “When they told me, I was in a state of shock.
“I felt like someone has just grabbed our world and turned it upside down.”
The Crosier family, including dad Glen, 27, and three-year-old son Karl, had all been enjoying a weekend at a caravan in Witton-le-Wear during the August bank holiday weekend when Bobby started complaining of feeling unwell.
Alex said: “His eyes seemed a bit swollen and he wasn’t himself but we just thought it might have been a touch of hayfever.
“It turns out the problem was caused by E. coli, and the doctors told me it would just be a one-off case.
“When I heard that, I was so grateful. We had originally feared the situation might be a lot worse.”
Bobby has now started to recover on his own without the need for dialysis.
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports 24 people infected with a closely related Listeria strain have been reported from nine states since August 8, 2010.
Twenty-one people were hospitalized. Five illnesses were pregnancy-related; one resulted in a fetal loss. One death was reported from Ohio.
Additional illnesses are under investigation.
The investigation has not conclusively identified the source of this outbreak, but most ill people interviewed reported eating soft cheese before becoming ill. This investigation is ongoing.
Eighteen (82%) of the 22 ill people with available information reported eating soft cheeses in the month before becoming ill.
Four (57%) of seven ill people who specified a brand of cheese reported brands distributed by Karoun Dairies. No other brand of cheese was reported more than once.
On September 16, 2015, Karoun Dairies, Inc. voluntarily recalled[PDF – 2 pages] and ceased production of certain cheeses that the company distributes due to possible contamination with Listeria.
Products were sold under the following brands: Karoun, Arz, Gopi, Queso Del Valle, Central Valley Creamery, and Yanni.
Products are vacuum packed, in jars or in pails. Weights vary from 5 ounces to 30 pounds.
A full list of cheeses is available on the Advice to Consumers, Restaurants, and Retailers page.
Consumers should not eat, restaurants should not serve, and retailers should not sell recalled cheeses. These products may be contaminated with Listeria and may make people sick.
Updates will be provided when more information is available.
Initial Announcement
CDC is collaborating with public health officials in several states and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to investigate a multistate outbreak of Listeria monocytogenes infections (listeriosis). Listeria can cause a serious, life-threatening illness.
Public health investigators are using the PulseNet system to identify illnesses that may be part of this outbreak. PulseNet is the national subtyping network of public health and food regulatory agency laboratories coordinated by CDC. DNA “fingerprinting” is performed on Listeria bacteria isolated from ill people by using techniques called pulsed-field gel electrophoresis (PFGE) and whole genome sequencing (WGS). PulseNet manages a national database of these DNA fingerprints to identify possible outbreaks. WGS gives a more detailed DNA fingerprint than PFGE. In the current outbreak, this additional detail was important. Five rare PFGE fingerprints of Listeria are included in this investigation. The sequencing showed that the Listeria strains with the five rare PFGE fingerprints are closely related genetically.
Twenty-four people infected with one of the closely related Listeria strains have been reported from nine states since August 8, 2010. The number of ill people reported from each state is as follows: California (14), Colorado (1), Illinois (1), Massachusetts (2), Michigan (1), New York (2), Ohio (1), Tennessee (1), and Washington (1).
Dates of Listeria specimen collection range from August 8, 2010 to August 24, 2015. The cluster was first identified in August 2015 after investigators saw an increase in one of the five rare PFGE fingerprints reported to PulseNet. WGS found that the four other PFGE fingerprints were closely related genetically to the first PFGE fingerprint. Illnesses associated with those PFGE fingerprints were added to the investigation, including illnesses that occurred over 5 years ago. Additional illnesses are under investigation.
Ill people range in age from less than 1 year to 92, and the median age is 77. Seventy-five percent of ill people are female. Twenty-one (91%) of 23 ill people for whom information is available reported being hospitalized. Five of the illnesses were pregnancy-related, and one illness resulted in a fetal loss. One death was reported from Ohio.
The investigation has not conclusively identified the source of this outbreak, but most ill people interviewed reported eating soft cheese before becoming ill. The investigation is ongoing.
State and local health departments are interviewing ill people about the foods they may have eaten or other exposures in the month before their illness began. Fifteen (63%) of 24 people with available information are of Middle Eastern or Eastern European descent or shopped at Middle Eastern-style markets. Of 22 ill people for whom information is available, 18 (82%) consumed soft cheeses, and 16 (89%) reported eating Middle Eastern, Eastern European, Mediterranean, or Mexican-style cheeses, including ani, feta (including Bulgarian feta), Middle Eastern-style string cheese, and nabulsi. Four (57%) of seven ill people who specified the brand of cheese eaten reported brands distributed by Karoun Dairies. No other brand of cheese was reported more than once.
On September 16, 2015, Karoun Dairies, Inc. voluntarily recalled and ceased production of certain cheeses that the company distributes due to possible contamination with Listeria. The recall includes several brands and types of cheeses that were distributed to retail outlets in the United States. Products were sold under the following brands: Karoun, Arz, Gopi, Queso Del Valle, Central Valley Creamery, and Yanni. Products are vacuum packed, in jars or in pails. Weights vary from 5 ounces to 30 pounds. A full list of cheeses is available on the Advice to Consumers, Restaurants, and Retailers page.
CDC and state and local public health partners are continuing laboratory surveillance through PulseNet to identify additional ill people and to interview them. Updates will be provided when more information is available.
I remember Brantford, Ontario, Canada, where I grew up, but I’m not sure Brantford wants to remember me.
Wayne Gretzky, Massey-Ferguson, the telephone (my dad may be in this pic, he was head of quality control at the Brantford plant that made combines for the world, and I was always proud of that).
But that’s another discussion, and this is a food safety blog.
So it pains me to write that the good folk of Brantford, all 94,000 and where my parents still live, had more than 80 child protection employees sickened by food poisoning last week, a situation that has decimated working teams at the Brant Family and Children’s Services agency.
Executive director Andy Koster said Thursday staff at the agency has been scrambling to help cover shifts after between 80-100 workers called in sick, beginning last Friday.
“Some people have symptoms that are going on well beyond the regular time associated with food poisoning,” Koster said. “But people are working really hard to deliver our services and those who aren’t ill are doing double duty.”
Koster said staff at the agency plans a once-a-year getaway event where all staff take part. A professional speaker addressed issues of stress management and dealing with the trauma many child protection workers face. This year’s event was held at the St. George Arena and a professional caterer was hired to feed the 200-plus people at the day-long conference. Koster said egg salad wraps, chicken wraps and potato salad were all on the menu for lunch.
“On Friday morning we had people calling saying ‘we’re down four people on our unit’ and people were reporting stomach pains and diarrhea.”
Workers continued to call in sick, although Koster said some employees, knowing their colleagues were more ill, came to work.
Bad idea.
Maybe get a food safety type next year. Not me, but someone who can credibly address food safety issues (without the baggage). Chapman? He’s a Port Hope boy.
Karen Boughner, the unit’s director of health protection said the unit will not identify the caterer at this point, noting the problem may have been totally out of her hands if it was a contaminated product she purchased for the event.
Except caterers should know better, and know their suppliers.
Boughner said the situation wasn’t made public sooner because it didn’t affect the general public.
That’s just embarrassing.
Scientists wonder why some people get so sick and even die after being infected by the foodborne pathogen E.coli O157:H7, while others experience much milder symptoms and recover relatively quickly. Now Penn State’s College of Agricultural Sciences researchers believe they have discovered an explanation.
Over the course of a four-year study, researchers co-cultured the pathogenic E. coli O157:H7 serotype with a nonpathogenic strain of the bacteria and inoculated mice. These mice got much sicker than mice that were infected with the pathogenic strain alone. The finding appears to be especially relevant because people normally have multiple strains of E. coli living in their intestines.
Most E. coli bacteria are harmless and are an important part of a healthy intestinal tract, noted co-author Edward Dudley, associate professor of food science. However, some E. coli are pathogenic, meaning they can cause illness by producing toxins that can result in bloody diarrhea, severe abdominal cramps or other more serious conditions, such as impaired kidney function.
“Within our intestines, each of us carries several hundred different types of bacteria, including E. coli, and E. coli comes in a large number of varieties. These range from organisms that just naturally colonize our intestines and provide us with benefits to organisms like the ones I focus on that have evolved to be very virulent,” he said. “This research suggests that some strains of harmless E. coli in our intestines can interact with pathogenic E. coli in ways that will either increase or decrease how much toxin the pathogen produces. And that may dictate how sick one gets with an E.coli infection, or even if an infection proves to be fatal.”
The study, which was published recently in Infection and Immunity, may be a significant step toward doctors being able to predict how an E. coli-infected patient will fare by evaluating a stool sample and analyzing the presence or absence of various strains of nonpathogenic E. coli. However, an advance like that would first require follow-on studies like those now being conducted in Dudley’s laboratory, aimed at determining which nonpathogenic strains of bacteria amplify the production of E.coli O157:H7 “Shiga” toxin.
“One of the issues with this particular pathogen is that by the time people are infected, we can’t do much for them,” said Dudley. “We can’t use antibiotics because antibiotics make E.coli O157:H7 more virulent — the only treatment is just to monitor the individual and make sure he or she doesn’t become dehydrated and be sure the kidneys stay functional.”
“What our findings suggest is that by looking carefully at the gut flora of someone who is sick — while we can’t necessarily treat them right away — we soon may be able to make a prediction about what the outcome of the disease is going to be. We can see if the patient is going to clear the organisms and have mild symptoms, or if they are likely to have something that is more serious.”
To test their hypothesis, lead researchers Kakolie Goswami and Chun Chen, recent Ph.D.s in food science, cultured multiple strains of E. coli, inoculated otherwise germ-free mice and followed the resulting infections. Researchers then examined the animals’ kidneys, intestines and livers after their demise, using molecular biology and DNA-sequencing techniques, along with biochemistry procedures. Goswami is now at Sample6,Cambridge, Massachusetts, and Chen is at Abbott Laboratories, Shanghai, China.
“These findings create a compelling argument to reconsider the appropriateness of assessing the virulence potential of E. coli O157:H7 strains solely by quantifying Shiga toxin production in pure cultures, because there are many strains of otherwise harmless E. coli present in the human intestine that have the potential to enhance Shiga toxin production,” Goswami said. “More research on the interactions between E. coli O157:H7 and the plethora of bacterial species present in the intestine is needed to appreciate how the gut microbiome affects virulence of this foodborne pathogen.”
The next step will be to study how pathogenic and nonpathogenic organisms communicate with each other and how modern medicine might use that information to minimize the course of disease, Dudley said. “We hope these findings have both a diagnostic potential and the promise of leading to information that will make the disease outcome less severe.”
The U.S Department of Agriculture supported this research.
As the number of Americans sick from Salmonella linked to Mexican cucumbers reached 418, tomatoes have been identified as the source of a Salmonella outbreak linked to Chipotle restaurants in Minnesota.
So much for the wife’s tomato and cucumber salad, with olive oil and salt.
The Minnesota Department of Health reports tomatoes have been identified as the source of the Salmonella Newport outbreak that has sickened dozens of people who ate at Chipotle restaurants in Minnesota since late August. Investigators are working with state and federal partners to trace the tomatoes back to the farm of origin.
Since the outbreak was reported last week, additional illnesses have been confirmed by MDH. A total of 64 cases and 22 locations now have been linked to the outbreak [locations are listed below]. Nine people have been hospitalized; all are recovering. Meal dates for the cases range from August 16 to August 28 and people became ill between August 19 and September 3. The cases range in age from 10 to 69 years and are from 13 metro counties and several greater Minnesota counties.
“We expected to see additional cases because it can take up to 10 days for symptoms of Salmonella to appear, another few days to a week before people go to their doctors and the cases get reported to us,” said MDH Epidemiologist Dana Eikmeier. “However, there is no longer a risk of Salmonella from this particular product at Chipotle.” The company has switched suppliers for its tomatoes and implicated product was removed from stores.
Russian state news agencies say government officials have issued a total of $600,000 in fines for alleged food safety violations at Burger King and French supermarket chain Auchan.
Anna Popova, head of Russian consumer protection agency Rospotrebnadzor, was quoted by media outlets including RIA Novosti as saying Auchan’s fines totaled over 25 million rubles ($372,000) and that “several hundred” employees were suspended from work.
Specific reasons for the fines were not immediately clear and Auchan declined to comment.
Auchan is also the target of allegations from Russia’s agricultural agency, which claims some Auchan meat products tested positive for bacteria such as E. coli and Listeria. The allegations have reportedly led Auchan to close down some facilities for cleaning.
The inspections come at a time of tension between France and Russia over the extension of European Union sanctions and France’s decision to cancel a deal to provide warships to Russia.