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
The pandemic brought a rise in home canning and food preservation as evidenced by a scarcity of canning supplies on store shelves and from online retailers, perhaps driven by a bountiful harvest by those who planted home gardens in the spring during the early lockdown period.
The Journal Advocate reports improperly canned food is behind at least some of the several cases of confirmed and suspected foodborne botulism that the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment (CDPHE) has investigated in the state since September, according to a release from CDPHE Wednesday. Testing from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention confirmed four of the cases, one is still under investigation, and two test results are pending. All of the confirmed cases occurred along the Front Range, and one of the unconfirmed cases occurred in the Western Slope.
A majority of the cases appear to be unrelated as no common food item was identified. The last two confirmed cases were the result of an improperly canned shared food made in the same household, prompting a warning from CDPHE about home food safety.
“Botulism does not spread from person to person, so there is no risk to the public. However, these cases are a good reminder of how important it is to properly preserve and handle food in the home,” said Nicole Comstock, deputy branch chief, communicable disease branch.
New Zealand Food Safety is, according to Outbreak News Today, warning consumers to thoroughly cook mussels before eating following 2 people reportedly becoming sick from Vibrio parahaemolyticus in the Nelson-Tasman region.
Paul Dansted, director of food regulation at New Zealand Food Safety said, “Vibrio parahaemolyticus is bacteria in mussels that may cause food poisoning if they’re undercooked or eaten raw. People with low immunity, pregnant, or elderly should avoid eating raw or undercooked shellfish as the illness can be more severe.
“While the cause has not been established both people who became ill have reported eating mussels and as a precaution we are reminding consumers to cook mussels thoroughly before consumption.”
It’s not food safety, it has more current relevance to Covid-19, but this paper has some important insights for communicating during an outbreak. The Australian lesson from cornavirus seems to be, go fast, hard.
Expert-lay mass media communication (a phrase I always despised) in public health prevention campaigns has been at the forefront in knowledge dissemination before digital communication gained in momentum.
The advent of digital media has radically changed communicative scenarios and strategies used to actively involve population, for example promoting large-scale change in awareness, behaviour, and attitude. However, research still has not fully documented how digital environments orchestrate different multimodal resources, including, among others, language, still and moving images. Other research gaps deal with understanding how users can be actively engaged in websites and how the identity of participants is projected with reference to their distance from the voice of the expert.
The paper combines linguistic and visual analysis in a multimodal perspective to investigate the interplay of identity and distance in the website and integrated social media of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC, https://npin.cdc.gov), an operating component of the Department of Health and Human Services (US).
Linguistic and visual analysis of the Vital Signs monthly reports on campaigns for HIV prevention will focus on the revision of the notion of deixis to see how this has been reconfigured in multimodal environments. Findings show that person, time, and place deixis have been reshaped in digital scenarios with the aim of engaging participants and disseminate knowledge to prompt change in behaviour.
In a new study published in the journal npj Microgravity, scientists and astronauts conducted experiments with human cells and pathogens to see how the two would change and interface differently in a low-gravity environment. The researchers used the microbial species salmonella typhimurium to infect human cells in controlled experiments on Earth and on the International Space Station.
Chia-Yi Hou of Changing America writes the researchers found that there were changes in RNA and protein expression in the human cells in a microgravity environment. They also found that salmonella was able to cause the human cells to upregulate — increase the rate or level of — expression of compounds that would help fight an infection in both cells that were inflight and on the ground.
Inflight cells upregulated genes that were associated with inflammation, one of the human body’s mechanisms for fighting pathogens. Other genes that are related to virulence or stress regulators were also upregulated in the cells in space compared to the cells on the ground.
In 2000, my lab was awarded slightly more than $1 million Canadian as part of a vitamin litigation settlement. I added some staff, merged with the existing food safety hotline and offered it nationally, and hired a few decent grad students.
I knew the local students, but I wanted something different, people who could shake things up with their research.
I’d been running the Food Safety Network since 1993 with subscribers joining daily. At some point it occurred to me, I have thousands of people already subscribed to FSnet, take advantage of that.
So I did.
I haven’t gotten a pay check in over four years, so why not use the same list, which is now barfblog.com, to reach out to all those microbial food safety types and see if anyone’s got anything for me to write or research.
So I’m asking.
It’s fairly ironic my full professor contract at Kansas State University was not renewed in 2013 – I got fired for bad attendance – yet millions of students in the U.S. were told to stay at home on their computers for much of the past year while teachers and profs scrambled to put together distance ed programs.
I’ve done distance teaching and talks since 2000 – anyone remember IAFP’s Ivan Parkin lecture that year?
And it’s charming that the rest of the world has discovered the way I’ve been working for the past 30 years – by distance.
My American/Australian/Canadian (added that last passport in because I could) daughter is now 12 and increasingly independent.
I need to get back out there in some capacity.
You know how to reach me.
Thanks
dp
(This was the official song for the barfblog videos we did; the live versions have crappy video, so you get this. Tom Thompson was a famous Canadian painter, and an unofficial member of the Group of Seven. He’s in the pic, above right.)
I included this abstract because it was one of the two papers today that cited papers my lab and I produced, all those years ago. Google scholar alerts is wonderful, and tells me when one of the 70 or so peer-reviewed papers, book chapters and a book is cited by someone else. It averages out to about once a day, or 400 times a year. Certainly something we weren’t aiming for, but a pleasant reminder when I get one of those e-mails.
Millions of foodborne illness cases occur in China annually, causing significant social and economic burdens. Improper food handling has been observed not only among commercial food handlers but also among residential food handlers. It is critical to conduct a comprehensive scoping review of previous efforts to identify food safety knowledge gaps, explore the factors impacting knowledge levels, and synthesize the effectiveness of all types of food safety educational interventions for commercial and residential food handlers in China.
This review aims to analyze food safety education studies published over the past 20 years and provide foundations for developing more effective food safety educational interventions in China. A total of 35 studies were included in this review. Most studies reported that Chinese commercial and residential food handlers had insufficient food safety knowledge, especially in the areas of foodborne pathogens and safe food-handling practices. The factors impacting food handlers’ knowledge levels included education level, gender, income level, residency (rural vs. urban), the use of WeMedia, college students’ major, and food safety training experiences. Food handlers in the following demographic groups tend to have lower levels of food safety knowledge: lower education levels, the elderly, males, lower-income levels, rural residents, those who do not use WeMedia, those without food safety training experience, or college students in nonbiology-focused majors.
Many food handlers did not always follow recommended food safety practices, such as proper meat handling practices, handwashing practices, and cleaning and sanitation practices. Thirteen studies evaluated the effectiveness of educational interventions, and knowledge increases were reported after all interventions. The findings of this review provide guidance to researchers, educators, and government agencies in their future efforts to develop education programs emphasizing the importance of microbial food-safety content and behavior change regarding food safety and hygiene practices.
Moving forward to the future: A review of microbial food safety education in China
Outbreak News Today reports the Norwegian Institute of Public Health (NIPH) is reporting a Salmonella outbreak which is geographically spread over large parts of country.
Twenty cases have been reported–12 confirmed and 8 suspected cases. The same genetic profile have been detected in all 12 confirmed cases. Preliminary analyzes of samples from the 8 suspected cases indicate that these also carry the outbreak strain.
Those affected are aged from 11 to 91 years, median age is 59 years. 60% are women.
“The infected live in many different counties. Therefore, we believe that they are infected through a food that is widely distributed”, says doctor Hilde Marie Lund at the department of infection control and emergency preparedness.
“Investigation work can be complicated and time consuming, and in many cases it will not be possible to find the source of the infection or to clarify whether it is a common source. It is too early to say whether this is a limited outbreak or whether it will increase in scope. We follow the situation closely”, says doctor Hilde Marie Lund.
School officials said on Thursday, schools reported an abrupt increase in students reporting symptoms of vomiting.
“At first, it appeared to be at our middle school, but as the day went on, we began to see similar symptoms in other buildings. Our school health professionals immediately notified county and state health professionals, and are working very closely with them through this situation,” Superintendent Dr. Michelle Havenstrite said.
Havenstrite said health officials believe the illnesses are likely due to norovirus.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention lists norovirus as a very contagious virus that causes vomiting and diarrhea. People easily contract the virus by having direct contact with infected people, consuming contaminated food or water or touching contaminated surfaces.
Food World reports that several collective food poisoning infections possibly linked to the consumption of contaminated oysters have been reported since mid-February 2021 in several regions of France.
Since mid-February 2021, 46 mandatory declarations (DO) of collective food poisoning (TIAC) suspected of being linked to the consumption of oysters have been sent to Public Health France and/or to the General Directorate of food .
The meal dates at the origin of these toxi-infections are between 02/11/2021 and 02/25/2021 with a majority of meals reported on 02/14 (21 TIAC, 46%). All these TIACs took place in the context of a family meal with between 2 and 8 patients. A total of 164 patients were recorded and two people were hospitalized.
Shellfish collected from individuals who were sick after consuming oysters as well as from suppliers were analyzed by reference laboratories and laboratories approved by the Ministry of Agriculture and Food: noroviruses were identified. Noroviruses have also been detected in several production areas of consumed oysters.
The recalled “Tahina” were distributed in Mediterranean food stores in Michigan and Chicago, IL. between April 2020 to October 2020.
Please do not consume the product and immediately dispose of the product or return to 32816 Manor Park Garden City MI 48135. Or to the place of purchase. And send us a note to the email: recalls@kareemmart.com with the return receipt and product purchase date for a full refund.
The product comes in 1lb, 2lb in plastic jars and the 10kg in metal can. There is only one lot distributed. With expiration date 07-01-2022.
No illnesses have been reported to date in connection with the problem.
The potential for contamination was noted after routine testing from samples in the stores by the Michigan Department of Agriculture and Rural Development (MDARD).
Production of the product has been suspended while the FDA and the company continue their investigation as to the source of the problem.
The Journal Advocate reports improperly canned food is behind at least some of the several cases of confirmed and suspected foodborne botulism that the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment (CDPHE) has investigated in the state since September, according to a release from CDPHE Wednesday. Testing from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention confirmed four of the cases, one is still under investigation, and two test results are pending. All of the confirmed cases occurred along the Front Range, and one of the unconfirmed cases occurred in the Western Slope.
