A former professor of food safety and the publisher of barfblog.com, Powell is passionate about food, has five daughters, and is an OK goaltender in pickup hockey. Download Doug’s CV here.
Dr. Douglas Powell
editor, barfblog.com
retired professor, food safety
3/289 Annerley Rd
Annerley, Queensland
4103
dpowell29@gmail.com
61478222221
I am based in Brisbane, Australia, 15 hours ahead of Eastern Standard Time
Beau Zimmer of WTSP reports that ants were seen crawling inside a Tampa Bay area Mexican restaurant – our favorite part of Florida and equidistant from the equator as is Brisbane.
Sabor A Mexico in Brandon is the go-to spot for customer Anna Brooks.
“I just love their home homemade salsa and just a lot of their entrees are really good,” Brooks said as she arrived for lunch.
Brooks and other customers had no idea this Mexican restaurant was shut down by state inspectors just two weeks earlier.
The restaurant racked up 65 violations, including meat and salsa stored on the floor and employees not properly washing their hands.
The report indicated one employee was spotted going from working with raw meat to lettuce. Another was seen scratching their crotch area without changing gloves.
“I have no words for that,” a near speechless Brooks said with a look of bewilderment on her face. “That’s very gross. That’s very disappointing.”
Health inspectors weren’t done there. The restaurant’s inspection report also listed too many ants to count walking around in the walk-in cooler area. There was also roach excrement on dry storage shelves holding food and rodent activity with a chewed up plastic lid on top of the tortilla container.
“Wow! That’ eye-opening,” Brooks said.
The restaurant has now had two full weeks to clean up their kitchen so Wednesday 10News stopped in unannounced.
Within minutes of arriving, the restaurant allowed us behind the kitchen door and almost immediately we started spotting positive changes, like soap and paper towels at all the kitchen handwashing sinks.
I’ve been told that pig ear treats are the equivalent of potato chips for dogs.
One of daughter Sorenne’s chores is to feed our two cats every night, with their special anti-neurotic food.
And every night I say, wash your hands.
Same with Ted the Wonder Dog and treats.
With the recent announcements of the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and theCenters for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) investigating contaminated Pig Ear Treats connecting to Salmonella, Pet Supplies Plus is advising consumers it is recalling bulk pig ear product supplied to all locations by several different vendors due to the potential of Salmonella contamination. Salmonella can affect animals eating the products and there is risk to humans from handling contaminated pet products, especially if they have not thoroughly washed their hands after having contact with the products or any surfaces exposed to these products.
There is now 137 sick with Salmonella from handling these things.
Testing by the Michigan Department of Agriculture and Rural Development revealed that aging bulk pig ear product in one of our stores tested positive for Salmonella. We have pulled bulk pig ear product from the shelves at all of our stores and have stopped shipping bulk pig ears from our Distribution Center. We are working with the FDA as they continue their investigation as to what caused the reported Salmonella related illnesses.
If food safety is simple, why do so many get sick?
Because it’s not simple: it’s complex, constant, requires commitment and information must be compelling.
Government, industry and academics continue to flog the food safety is simple line, despite outbreaks becoming increasingly complex and in the complete absence of any data that the message works.
We’ve shown that food safety stories can work. And I’m not embarrassed to wear the Leafs hoodie, because they are at least watchable now, unlike the last 52 years.
Every summer (sure it’s winter here in Australia, but that’s an equator thing, and I still wear shorts 365 days of the year), tucked away in the back pages of every newspaper, it’s the same thing: bland pronouncements about how food safety is easy if consumers follow some simple steps, while the front page usually has another story about another outbreak of foodborne illness. What’s so simple about outbreaks in produce, pet food and peanut butter? Once the products were home, there was nothing individuals could have done to prevent the subsequent illnesses and deaths. Are consumers really expected to cook all their fresh tomatoes and leafy greens to 165F to kill salmonella? Fry up peanut butter? Bake the cat food? Yet there are a multitude of well-meaning groups who preach to the masses that food safety begins at home. Whether it’s a U.S. Department of Agriculture official saying in 2005 that, “Foodborne illness is very serious but easily prevented if foods are handled, prepared and cooked properly,” or a Canadian retail association saying in 2006 that “E. coli can be prevented through simple in home food safety practices such as washing thoroughly fresh produce in clean water for several minutes before consuming,” the it’s-simple message is pervasive, condescending and wrong. Food safety is complex, constant and requires commitment. Produce, peanut butter and pet food demonstrate that messages focused solely on consumers are woefully incomplete. The World Health Organization recognized this back in 2001 and included a fifth key to safer food: use safe water and raw materials, or, source food from safe sources (http://www.who.int/foodsafety/consumer/5keys/en/index.html). Consumers must recognize — and demand — that the first line of defense be the farm. Every mouthful of fresh produce, processed food or pet food is a consumer’s act of faith. Every grower, packer, distributor, retailer and restaurant must stop blaming consumers and work instead on developing their own culture that values and promotes microbiologically safe food.
Sahil Makkar of the Daily Mail writes two elderly people have died and a third is fighting for their life after eating salmon believed to be contaminated.
The two people were from New South Wales and Victoria respectively, while the third person who was rushed to hospital was from Queensland.
All three people have contracted listeriosis.
‘Investigations have implicated smoked salmon as the likely source,’ Australian chief medical officer Brendan Murphy said in a statement.
‘All cases occurred in people aged over 70 years and all had significant underlying health conditions.
Tasmanian salmon products are believed to be the source of the outbreak.
But its two largest suppliers said they are not aware of any evidence linking their products to the outbreak.
‘Tassal products have not been deemed unsafe, nor has it breached the Food Standards Code,’ Tassal said in a statement.
Huon Aquaculture said health authorities had recently tested and cleared of any food safety law breaches.
Tassal and Huon command 30 per cent and 20 per cent of market share respectively.
Tasmania’s Minister for Primary Industries Guy Barnet said his department has investigated the matter.
In a decision issued [June 19, 2019] in Marchand v. Barnhill et al., No. 533, 2018 (Del. June 19, 2019), the Delaware Supreme Court reversed the dismissal of a stockholder derivative lawsuit against the members of the board of directors and two officers of Blue Bell Creameries USA, Inc.
The lawsuit arose out of a serious food contamination incident in 2015 that resulted in widespread product recalls and was linked to three deaths. The Delaware Supreme Court, applying the “duty to monitor” doctrine enunciated in In re Caremark International, Inc. Derivative Litigation, 698 A.2d 959 (Del. Ch. 1996), and noting the very high hurdle to claims under it, nonetheless ruled that the plaintiff had adequately alleged the requisite bad faith by the members of the Blue Bell board.
Plaintiff did so by using information obtained in a Section 220 books and records demand to show facts supporting their contention that the Company did not have in place “a reasonable board-level system of monitoring and reporting” with respect to food safety, which the Court deemed to be “a compliance issue intrinsically critical to the company’s business.”
After concluding that “food safety was essential and mission critical” to Blue Bell’s business, the Supreme Court ruled that bad faith was adequately pled by alleging “that no board-level system of monitoring or reporting on food safety existed.” The Court thus declined to dismiss a claim that the directors breached their duty of loyalty, potentially exposing directors to non-exculpated (and potentially not indemnifiable) monetary damages.
In light of the Blue Bell decision, boards of directors should review carefully their board processes and procedures to ensure that “reasonable compliance system and protocols” are in place with respect to “safety and legal compliance” and other regulatory and business threats that may pose significant risks for their particular company.
Equally important, boards should document the procedures followed to identify significant risks, including advice from management, counsel and other advisors, as well as the processes and procedures implemented to provide for board reporting and appropriate supervision of these risks, and maintain written records of the implementation of these processes and procedures in practice. The principal basis upon which the Court in Blue Bell found the record to support the complete failure to impose any board-level “system of controls” with respect to food safety was the absence of any written board procedures or documented discussion on the topic, and the lack of any mention of food safety in board minutes in periods before the food contamination outbreak, despite previous food safety issues that allegedly had arisen in previous years, including positive tests for listeria in Company facilities beginning in 2013.
The Blue Bell decision makes clear that oversight with respect to these kinds of issues is a board-level responsibility, and goes beyond mere compliance with laws. The Delaware court opined that “the fact that Blue Bell nominally complied with FDA regulations does not imply that the board implemented a system to monitor food safety at the board level.”
“In short,” the Delaware Supreme Court ruled, “to satisfy their duty of loyalty, directors must make a good faith effort to implement an oversight system and then monitor it.” While “routine regulatory requirements, although important, are not typically directed at the board,” companies should ensure that they have written processes and procedures in place for the board to be timely informed about, and to monitor regularly, compliance, safety and business developments that are important to the company, or may be viewed as critical to the company in hindsight. [1]
This decision, while only on a motion to dismiss, illustrates the continued importance of the Caremar kdoctrine as a strand of Delaware law governing the conduct of directors. While the burden for withstanding a motion to dismiss a Caremark claim is high, and the theory remains “possibly the most difficult theory in corporation law upon which a plaintiff might hope to win a judgment,” [2] it can be met. Caremark is an important tool in the Delaware jurisprudential arsenal for enforcing what Delaware courts view as reasonable director conduct, and when applied sends a powerful message because of the potential it creates for personal director liability.
11.jul.19
Harvard Law School Forum on Corporate Governance and Financial Regulation
Brian Frawley, Joseph Frumkin and Krishna Veeraraghavan
Latifa Yedroudj of the Mirror reports an Indian takeaway boss has been ordered to pay £42,000 in fines after food hygiene inspectors found his restaurant did not have a sink.
Mr Biryani restaurant in Slough, Berkshire has been slammed for breaching food hygiene requirements 10 times over the past two years since the eatery opened for business.
Owner Santosh Ragalpavi Balasubramaniam, 37, from Maidenhead, Berks has been slapped with staggering fines after inspectors found his chefs did not have a sink to wash their hands and served undercooked chicken.
The restaurant was also ordered to dispose of all of its food and disinfect the premises after sewage water flooded the basement.
Introduction Norovirus outbreaks frequently occur in communities and institutional settings acquiring a particular significance in armed forces where prompt reporting is critical. Here we describe the epidemiological, clinical and laboratorial investigation of a multicentre gastroenteritis outbreak that was detected simultaneously in three Portuguese army units with a common food supplier, Lisbon region, between 5 and 6 December 2017.
Methods Questionnaires were distributed to all soldiers stationed in the three affected army units, and stool specimens were collected from soldiers with acute gastrointestinal illness. Stool specimens were tested for common enteropathogenic bacteria by standard methods and screened for a panel of enteric viruses using a multiplex real-time PCR assay. Food samples were also collected for microbiological analysis. Positive stool specimens for norovirus were further genotyped.
Results The three simultaneous acute gastroenteritis outbreaks affected a 31 (3.5%) soldiers from a total of 874 stationed at the three units and lasted for 2 days. No secondary cases were reported. Stool specimens (N=11) were negative for all studied enteropathogenic agents but tested positive for norovirus. The recombinant norovirus GII.P16-GII.4 Sydney was identified in all positive samples with 100% identity.
Conclusions The results are suggestive of a common source of infection plausibly related to the food supplying chain. Although centralisation of food supplying in the army has economic advantages, it may contribute to the multifocal occurrence of outbreaks. A rapid intervention is key in the mitigation of outbreak consequences and in reducing secondary transmission.
Simultaneous norovirus outbreak in three Portuguese bases in the Lisbon region, December 2017
Journal of the Royal Army Medical Corps
António Lopes-João1, J R Mesquita2,3, R de Sousa4, M Oleastro4, C Penha-Gonçalves1and M S J Nascimento3,5
Bethany Bump of the Times Union writes that New York state and local health departments are investigating an outbreak of cyclosporiasis in the Capital Region.
The gastrointestinal illness, which can spread through contaminated food and water, has been confirmed in 11 people so far.
Symptoms began around mid-June, and several of the patients reported eating at the Italian American Community Center in Albany, Prime Life Restaurant at the Beltrone Senior Living Community Center in Colonie, and a private buffet held at Union College in Schenectady, state health officials said.
While cyclosporiasis is endemic in some areas of the world, outbreaks in the U.S. are often associated with imported fresh produce that have been contaminated with a fecal parasite known as Cyclospora cayetanensis.
State health officials say there is no indication that the parasite was spread by poor food handling or preparation at local establishments, which are cooperating with the investigation. Instead, contamination often occurs prior to arrival at food distribution centers and restaurants, they said, and is not easily removed by standard rinsing.
Additional dining establishments may be identified as the investigation continues, they added.
Jackie Salo of the NY Post writes that Tokyo authorities are searching for a mystery pooper who repeatedly has left feces in the same shopping district.
The male perpetrator known as “Mr. Poop” has reportedly relieved himself on the streets of the Akihabra district on at least 10 occasions over the last three months, according to the Tokyo Reporter.
In one incident, the mystery pooper, who is believed to be in his 30s, was caught with his pants down as he fled. His dropped trousers were black and he was carrying a blue backpack, witnesses said.
KXAN reports law enforcement in Missouri are sharing the unlikely way they managed to capture a suspect wanted for possession of a controlled substance.
The Clay County Sheriff’s Office says the man was hiding but passed gas loudly enough that it gave away his location.
The sheriff tweeted about the incident, saying “if you’ve got a felony warrant for your arrest, the cops are looking for you and you pass gas so loud it gives up your hiding spot, you’re definitely having a (poop emoji) day.”
The City of Liberty thanked the sheriff’s office for “airing out a wanted person’s dirty laundry.”
Sabor A Mexico in Brandon is the go-to spot for customer Anna Brooks.
