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Backyard chickens and pathogen spread

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Food Online reports that keeping backyard chickens was already on the rise, and the hobby has become even more popular during the COVID-19 pandemic. Now, a University of Georgia researcher cautions that the practice has risks not just for chickens, but for wildlife and people as well.

“As a researcher who studies pathogen movement along different groups, I see backyard chickens as a potential interface where pathogens can spill over into wild birds, or vice versa, and even into people,” said Sonia Hernandez, professor of wildlife disease at the Warnell School of Forestry and Natural Resources and the College of Veterinary Medicine. “Owners need to seek information and medical care for their animals to minimize those risks.”

Hernandez and first author Andrea Ayala published their comprehensive review of pathogen transmission at the backyard chicken-wild bird interface in Frontiers in Veterinary Science. Ayala, now a postdoctoral researcher at Yale University, earned a Ph.D. in the College of Veterinary Medicine’s Comparative Biomedical Sciences program.

The most well-known pathogen carried by chickens is salmonella, and almost everyone is aware of it, said Hernandez. That’s due to public education and outreach efforts by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and public health agencies.

Food is the source for most of the estimated 1.35 million salmonella infections in people every year in the United States, according to the CDC. Most people who get ill from salmonella experience diarrhea, fever and stomach cramps, but there are 26,500 hospitalizations and 420 deaths every year.

“They’re trying to stay on top of salmonella in backyard chickens because they have seen an explosion of salmonellosis in people as a result of this recent popularity of keeping chickens,” she said. “It can become especially dangerous if you mix little chickens with little people—young chickens that are shedding a lot of salmonella with small kids that don’t have the best hygiene practices.”
Ayala identified a number of practices that backyard chicken owners can implement to reduce the risk of pathogen emergence:

  • keeping backyard chicken feeders where only chickens can reach them getting rid of wild bird feeders;
  • using mesh small enough to prevent wild birds from interacting with chickens removing contaminated water sources, insects and rodents;
  • maintaining good hygiene—changing footwear, for example—when visiting different flocks; and,
  • limiting the number of visitors.

“As backyard chickens become more common, the interactions between wild birds and backyard chickens are also likely to increase,” Ayala said. “Wild birds are attracted to food, water and shelter, and backyard chickens provide all three.”

The researchers’ concerns and recommendations won’t be a surprise to people who are familiar with raising chickens, especially commercial growers, who are very aware of rules from agencies like the U.S. Department of Agriculture that oversee animal health, according to Hernandez.

“The people who will find it the most surprising are newcomers, who get a few chickens as a hobby and have never really thought about the health of their chickens, their own health, and the impact that chickens can have on their environment,” she said.

As Hernandez and Ayala document in their paper, it is well established that backyard chickens may serve as pathogen reservoirs to the commercial poultry industry and that the most likely mechanism of spillover involves wild birds. Perhaps the best documented example of a bacterial pathogen transmission from chickens to wild birds is Mycoplasma gallisepticum, a bacterium that causes chronic respiratory illness in chickens, which spilled over from poultry in 1994 into house finches and rapidly became endemic in North American passerine species.

The U.S. has experienced outbreaks of both Newcastle disease and avian influenza, including an outbreak of highly pathogenic avian influenza in the winter of 2016-17 that involved several backyard operations, Hernandez said.

Food safety types investigate multistate foodborne illness outbreak from possible turkey products

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A new foodborne illness outbreak taking place in multiple states is, according to Food Safety Magazine, being investigated by federal officials, with turkey products identified as the likely source.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Food Safety and Inspection Service indicated the cause of the outbreak in its investigation table as “Salmonella Hadar, turkey suspect.”

A U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) spokeswoman confirmed that the CDC is investigating the outbreak. As of March 15, there have been 22 patients reported across nine states. 

Turkey has been the source of food poisoning outbreaks in the United States in both 2018 and 2019 investigations, involving Salmonella Reading and Salmonella Schwarzengrund, respectively. According to the CDC, the 2019 Salmonella outbreak sickened at least seven people in three states.

The 2018 outbreak involved at least 358 people in the United States who became sick, across 42 states. One death was confirmed, and the illnesses were linked to raw human and pet foods from many sources, including Jennie-O turkey, which recalled some of its products. At the same time in 2018, Canadian officials investigated an outbreak of Salmonella Reading linked to poultry products. Testing showed the same strain on both side of the U.S./Canada border.

TikTok is bad for public health: People are using the toilet backwards so they can eat and drink at the same time

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There’s been a lot of crap published on TikTok but this one actually involves crap.

Faima Bakar of Metro reports that on TikTok, viral videos showed people sitting backwards and facing the flush while watching Netflix and munching on crisps. The trend started with TikTokker @AmyWoahh who said she had a life hack for her 11.6million followers. She told viewers the trick would change their lives forever.

‘You have been pooping wrong,’ she says. ‘What I want you to do is poop backwards. Get your favourite snacks, get your favourite show and that’s how you poop. It’s the best of all times. You just sit there jamming and poopin.’

Karla from Texas joined in, adding in her iPad to watch Netflix while drinking Corona and eating crisps. We just hope it was satire. While most viewers were disgusted, some said the sitting backwards and watching Netflix wasn’t a terrible idea. Amy’s video has been viewed more than three million times. Many people commented saying they would never eat in the bathroom. One person quipped: ‘My food can’t tough bathroom air,’ while another said: ‘I refuse to let food in the bathroom, it’s like adding the odour to it.’ ‘This is cool and all, but who eats in the bathroom?’ asked another. One doctor commented on the video advising against it.

Worsening mouse plague sees ‘thirsty’ rodents dying in Australian water tanks sparking health fears

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As southeast Queensland experiences one of the wettest springs in years, rural residents are raising concerns about potentially contaminated drinking water after finding poisoned mice in their tanks, as the mouse plague continues to worsen.

Lucy Thackray of ABC reports frustrated landholders are continuing to try to reduce mice populations with rigorous baiting programs, but the problem isn’t showing any signs of slowing.

Louise Hennessy, from Elong Elong in Central West NSW, has issued a warning to other rural residents about potential health implications for humans and animals after finding baited mice in her drinking supply.

She made the discovery when she climbed up her house tank to check a blockage and was immediately overwhelmed by a revolting smell.

“It was so horrifying, I thought it would make a good picture to remind people to be vigilant about their water tanks,” Ms Hennessy said.

“We always filter the water going into our house from the tanks, so for us personally we feel we’ve covered our precautions so we didn’t notice anything with the taste. But the smell of the mice at the top of the tank was so disgusting.”

Dubbo Regional Council’s environment and health officer Simone Tenne said people often did not consider drinking water contamination.

“Rainwater tanks are perceived to be a clean source of drinking water, but they often have frogs in them, insects, a large amount of bird faeces which has come down off the roof,” Ms Tenne said.

“The public health sector recommends people do some form of treatment whether it be chlorination, a bit of acidification or some sort of filtration to avoid getting bacteria inadvertently through drinking contaminated water.”

Ms Tenne said health issues could be triggered by mice in drinking water.

Huh? COVID-19 science and the uncertainty dance

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My friend Tim Caufield, professor of law at the University of Alberta, the Research Director of its Health Law Institute, and current Canada Research Chair in Health Law and Policy, writes in an op-ed for the Globe and Mail that COVID public health policies have been with us for a year. So has uncertainty. We’ve all lived through twelve months of “huh”? And this has added to the public’s frustration, fatigue, and stress.

In the early weeks and months of the pandemic, there was uncertainty about masks and asymptomatic spread. There was uncertainty about if and when we’d get a vaccine. There was uncertainty about what type of public health policies worked best and were most needed. We have all had to tolerate a lot of ambiguity. And as the vaccines roll out, we are being asked to tolerate even more. (When will I get a vaccine? Which one will I get? And what about the variants?)

For public health communications to be effective, the public must have confidence in the message. And, unfortunately, for some, that confidence isn’t there. A recent study from the University of Calgary explored pandemic communication and found, not surprisingly, that “participants felt that public health messaging to date has been conflicting and at times unclear.”

This perception is understandable. An atmosphere of seemingly relentless uncertainty and confusion has been created by a combination of scientific realities, media practices, some less-than-ideal communication from policy makers, and the spread of misinformation and conspiracy theories.

The science surrounding COVID was – and, for some topics, continues to be – highly uncertain. While a growing body of evidence has emerged around the most contested issues (such as the value of masks and physical distancing strategies), early in the pandemic there wasn’t much that was unequivocal. The science evolved and, as you would hope with any evidence-informed approach, the resulting science advice and recommendations evolved too. But for some, shifting policies, even if appropriate, just added to a sense, rightly or not, of chaos.

In addition, the media has been reporting on the research as it unfolds, including referencing studies that have not yet been peer reviewed. Often the preliminary or uncertain nature of the relevant research is not reported in the media, thus creating a false impression about the actual state of the science – as exemplified by the “hydroxychloroquine works!” debacle (PS, it doesn’t). Perhaps worse, relatively fringe perspectives – such as those pushing the value of “natural herd immunity” – have been given a relatively high profile in both the conventional press and on social media. This can create a false balance (fringe idea vs. broad scientific consensus) that we know can be detrimental to both public discourse and health behaviours.

Despite the frustration that uncertainty can create, the public has a demonstrated preference for honesty about the limits of our knowledge. A recent study from Germany found that “a majority of respondents indicated a preference for open communication of scientific uncertainty in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic.” This finding agrees with other research that has found that when uncertainty is relevant to their lives, the public wants to know about it.

People may want to hear about uncertainty, but will communicating it do more harm than good? Will it just add to an already confused information environment? The data on this point are actually fairly mixed, but recent research exploring the impact of communicating scientific uncertainty found that it either increased perceptions of trust in science or had almost no impact. This is good news. As the authors of one of the studies notes, “this should allow academics and science communicators to be more transparent about the limits of human knowledge.” Other studies have found that being honest about uncertainties in media reports about research can actually boost the perceived credibility of journalists.

And over the long term, honesty about the uncertainties of the evidence used to inform policy seems essential to the maintenance of public trust. For example, being overly dogmatic about a policy or predictive model could hurt the credibility of decision makers if new evidence requires a revision of a past positions.

When possible, public health authorities (or anyone seeking to communicate science) should start with well-defined and well-supported takeaway messages (e.g., please get vaccinated with whatever vaccine is available to and recommended for you!).But then be honest about what is not known (e.g., while vaccines are our best defense, we aren’t sure how long immunity will last).

Depending on the medium used (a social media post, for example, may not be the best venue for a long discourse on methodological challenges), it may also be wise to explain the limits of the research approach (e.g., observational studies can’t prove causation). If there are areas of scientific disagreement, be honest about that too – but be specific about what is being disputed. Often there is broad agreement about the big stuff (e.g., vaccines work!), but academic debate about some details. Often those trying to sow doubt – like those in the anti-vaccine community – will try to weaponize and over-emphasize small academic disagreements. Don’t give them that room.

When communicating about uncertainty it is also important to highlight what is being done to reduce it, such as forthcoming research or new data analysis. This provides a road map forward and invites the public to follow the science as it unfolds. It is also a way to stress that uncertainty is a natural part of the scientific process.

For the public, try not to let the uncertainty kerfuffle distract you from the big picture. Remember that there are many clear knowns. Vaccines, physical distancing, hand washing, masks, and being responsible when symptoms emerge will get us through this pandemic.

Finally, it is also important to take a break from all the uncertainty noise. Studies have shown that the constant consumption of conflicting COVID news can (no surprise here) add to our stress. Put down the phone, back away from the screen, and take ten from “huh?”

The recent supreme court decision on the deadliest foodborne disease outbreak in Canadian history

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Gladys Osien and Ron Doering from Gowling WLG write in the latest Food in Canada that the listeriosis outbreak linked to cold cuts from a Maple Leaf Foods plant in Toronto in 2008 resulted in 57 confirmed cases and 22 deaths. It was the deadliest foodborne disease outbreak in Canadian history. The recall reportedly cost the company $20 million.

A class action lawsuit from affected consumers and their families was settled quickly by Maple Leaf and its insurance company. But that was not the end of the matter. To carry out extensive sanitation, the plant was closed for several weeks with the result that retail customers and distributors did not obtain their usual supply. 424 Mr. Sub franchise operators sued Maple Leaf for lost sales and damage to reputation. In November 2020, the Supreme Court of Canada in a 5-4 majority decision dismissed the case against Maple Leaf with important implications for Canadian food companies.

The question before the Court boiled down to whether Maple Leaf owed the requisite duty of care to the franchisees, a necessary step in establishing whether the franchisees have the right to recover damages in the tort of negligence. The Court held that Maple Leaf did not owe such a duty, especially for the protection of purely economic interest.

A duty of care must establish above all else what the law calls proximity. The Court held that the Mr. Sub franchisees failed to establish the requisite qualities of closeness and directness between the parties. (You can see there is a lot of discretion here.) The Court instead determined that the proximity, established by the responsibility and undertaking to supply meat fit for human consumption, and the rights to receive a supply of safe goods was between Maple Leaf and consumers, not the franchisees. The court reinforced the need for proximity to establish duty of care.

A key factor in the Court’s ruling was the fact that the franchisees could have protected themselves in contract law. There were multipartite arrangements but these did not specifically address the liability for economic loss in the event of a failure to supply product. The Court was reluctant to impose a duty of care in circumstances where the parties could have protected themselves through contracts.

The decision in 8871682 Ontario Inc v. Maple Leaf Foods Inc 2020 SCC 35 has some important lessons for Canadian food companies.

Review supplier warranty agreements: The older of the authors remembers being quite surprised 20 years ago to learn that many large Canadian food companies didn’t even have such agreements. They had longstanding handshake or simple purchase arrangements but did not have legally-drafted contracts to clarify rights and responsibilities in the case of a recall, for example.

One company did not even realize that its main product had 22 ingredients and any one of them could cause a huge recall with serious economic cost. And suppliers too have to be careful; a manufacturer may insist that a supplier undertake to compensate for any and all losses from a voluntary recall, a liability that might far exceed the value of the sale.

Review insurance coverage: Over the years several of our clients have been surprised by wording in their policies. In one case, a claim for losses from a large recall was denied because the client had failed to fully meet Good Manufacturing Practices (GMPs) as the policy required even though another negligent party was the principal cause of the product contamination.

Review sourcing practices: Many supplier warranty agreements rely on audits to ensure compliance with the agreement. However, audits are notoriously unreliable, particularly if the product or ingredient is sourced outside Canada. A supplier may be meeting all GMPs on the Tuesday when the auditor is there but not on the Wednesday after he’s gone. After learning this the hard way, some companies source from domestic suppliers even if it would be cheaper to get the ingredient from abroad.

Food companies should not expect to recover certain economic losses from manufacturer recalls, unless they are protected by contract: A negligence action against a manufacturer for economic losses that are unconnected to a physical or mental injury, or to physical damage to property (ie. purely economic) are rarely rewarded in court. Courts do not accept that manufacturers owe a broad duty of care to distributors.

Every Canadian food company should review this case with its lawyer.

Ron Doering BA, LLB, MA, LLD is counsel and Gladys Osien BSc, MSc, JD is an associate in the Ottawa offices of Gowling WLG.

Foodborne fungus impairs intestinal wound healing in Crohn’s disease

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Researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis and the Cleveland Clinic have discovered that a fungus found in foods such as cheese and processed meats can infect sites of intestinal damage in mice and people with Crohn’s and prevent healing. Moreover, writes Tamara Bhandari of News Room treating infected mice with antifungal medication eliminates the fungus and allows the wounds to heal.

The findings, published March 12 in the journal Science, suggest that antifungal drugs and dietary changes are potential new approaches to improving intestinal wound healing and reducing symptoms of Crohn’s disease.

“We’re not suggesting that people stop eating cheese and processed meat; that would be going far beyond what we know right now,” said first author Umang Jain, PhD, an instructor in pathology & immunology at the School of Medicine. “What we know is that this foodborne fungus gets into inflamed, injured tissue and causes harm. We’re planning to perform a larger study in people to figure out if there’s a correlation between diet and the abundance of this fungus in the intestine. If so, it is possible dietary modulation could lower levels of the fungus and thereby reduce symptoms of Crohn’s disease.”

Crohn’s is a subtype of inflammatory bowel disease. As the name suggests, it is driven by chronic inflammation in the digestive tract and primarily treated with immunosuppressive medications. Crohn’s patients endure repeated cycles of gastrointestinal symptom flare-up and remission. During a flare, their digestive tracts are dotted with inflamed, open sores that can persist for weeks or even months.

To understand why intestinal ulcers take so long to heal in some people, Jain and senior author Thaddeus Stappenbeck, MD, PhD, formerly at Washington University and now at the Cleveland Clinic, studied mice whose intestines had been injured. By sequencing microbial DNA at the site of injury, they discovered that the fungus Debaryomyces hansenii was abundant in wounds but not in uninjured parts of the intestine.

People acquire the fungus through their food and drink, Jain said. D. hansenii is commonly found in all kinds of cheeses, as well as sausage, beer, wine and other fermented foods.

Norway salmonella outbreak strain detected in imported beef from Germany

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The Norwegian Institute of Public Health has, according to Outbreak News Today, in collaboration with the Norwegian Veterinary Institute, detected Salmonella enteritidis with the outbreak profile in a batch of beef imported from Germany.

The imported batch of beef is used for, among other things, chop dough. This product has been withdrawn from the market. Some of the imported batch of beef has also been sold to other companies and the Norwegian Food Safety Authority is still working to trace this.

This agrees well with the information we have from the cases that have so far been interviewed, where several state that they have tasted raw chop dough, says doctor Hilde Marie Lund.

I would also like to remind you of the importance of frying chop dough and minced meat as an important preventive piece of advice, adds doctor Hilde Marie Lund.

Of the total of 22 cases, 19 have so far been detected in the Salmonella enteritidis outbreak strain. For 3 of the cases, we are awaiting a final confirmation, but preliminary analyzes indicate that these belong to the outbreak. In addition, we are awaiting analysis of one case.

Listeriosis in England and Wales: Summary for 2019

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This report summarises the number and characteristics of confirmed cases of listeriosis in England and Wales in 2019:

  • 142 cases of listeriosis were reported in England and Wales;
  • incidence rates of listeriosis were highest in people aged 80 years and over;
  • the crude incidence of listeriosis was lower in men than women, but reported cases among men aged 60 to 69 were 7 times higher than in women aged 60 to 69;
  • pregnancy-associated infections accounted for 17.6% of all reported cases and, a third of pregnancy-associated cases resulted in stillbirth or miscarriage;
  • among non-pregnancy associated cases of listeriosis, death was reported for 23 cases (19.7%), of whom 15 (12.8%) were known to have listeriosis recorded as a cause of death on the death certificate
  • incidence of listeriosis varied geographically, with the lowest incidence in East of England (0.14 per 100,000 population) and the highest in London (0.39 per 100,0000 population); and,
  • there were 4 listeriosis outbreaks investigated in England, including a national outbreak associated with the consumption of prepacked hospital sandwiches.

STEC on dairy farms

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One of my best friends used to be a dairy farmer, and he would always say, I’m not eating at McDonald’s, could be one of my former cows.

Shiga toxin-producing Escherichia coli (STEC) are foodborne bacterial pathogens, with cattle a significant reservoir for human infection. This study evaluated environmental reservoirs, intermediate hosts and key pathways that could drive the presence of Top 7 STEC (O157:H7, O26, O45, O103, O111, O121 and O145) on pasture-based dairy herds, using molecular and culture-based methods.

A total of 235 composite environmental samples (including soil, bedding, pasture, stock drinking water, bird droppings and flies and faecal samples of dairy animals) were collected from two dairy farms, with four sampling events on each farm. Molecular detection revealed O26, O45, O103 and O121 as the most common O-serogroups, with the greatest occurrence in dairy animal faeces (> 91%), environments freshly contaminated with faeces (> 73%) and birds and flies (> 71%). STEC (79 isolates) were a minor population within the target O-serogroups in all sample types but were widespread in the farm environment in the summer samplings.

Phylogenetic analysis of whole genome sequence data targeting single nucleotide polymorphisms revealed the presence of several clonal strains on a farm; a single STEC clonal strain could be found in several sample types concurrently, indicating the existence of more than one possible route for transmission to dairy animals and a high rate of transmission of STEC between dairy animals and wildlife.

Overall, the findings improved the understanding of the ecology of the Top 7 STEC in open farm environments, which is required to develop on-farm intervention strategies controlling these zoonoses.

Investigation of on-farm transmission routes for contamination of dairy cows with top 7 Escherichia coli O-serogroups

Environmental Microbiology

Rapp & C. M. Ross & P. Maclean & V. M. Cave & G. Brightwell

https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00248-020-01542-5