Learning from previous outbreaks: Blue Bell edition

Posted on December 31, 2015 by Ben Chapman

I don’t know what gets CEOs, COOs, CFOs attention when it comes to food safety. Whom reports to whom appears to matter when it comes to the values that support a good food safety culture. recall-master675

Some of the industry food safety folks I interact with say they have a direct line to the decision-makers and work together to nimbly react to food safety issues. Others say that the powers-that-be don’t understand the science, risk assessment and consequences. And won’t do much until there’s a crisis.

Paraphrasing one of the food safety nerds who has power:

I’ve convinced the CEO that finding listeria ourselves is a good thing because we can get to the source; that’s changed the culture of QA folks in the plants. We look, find and fix. And there’s money to support it.

That’s good.

Other food safety folks report that they have to put more money into hairnets, reducing their budget food handwashing tools because the COO thinks orphan hairs is the most unhygienic thing. Risk factor vs. yuck factor at its best.

I’m increasingly cynical that the above is unique and most don’t study the litany of outbreaks and learn from them. Many execs don’t see their companies as the next Blue Bell, and as Powell says, believe their own press releases.

Diana Wray of the Houston Press summarizes Blue Bell’s last year as part of coverage of a U.S. Department of Justice criminal investigation.

For a second there it seemed like Blue Bell was really going to put the whole listeria outbreak behind it. Ever since Blue Bell restarted production back in August, both the officials running the “little creamery in Brenham” and the public have treated the return of Blue Bell ice cream to grocery store shelves as a grand rebirth for the company. It was almost as if the whole listeria thing had never happened.

Almost.

Blue Bell may still be in the midst of a comeback tour, but the company is now facing a U.S. Department of Justice investigation over the listeria outbreak earlier this year that forced the company to recall all of its products and almost sent Blue Bell over the financial edge.

According to a CBS News report, the Justice Department is trying to figure out what Blue Bell management knew about the potentially deadly hazards in their plants and when they knew it.

Still, the company was circling the drain until Fort Worth oil man Sid Bass stepped in with an injection of $125 million this summer in exchange for a one-third stake in the company. And for a little while, despite the OSHA reports of worker injuries and the allegations of unsanitary conditions that reportedly left Blue Bell’s factories incredibly vulnerable to contamination, it looked like Blue Bell was going bounce right back. In fact it seemed likely that the company would simply hire back some of the workers that had been laid off, restart the factories and go back to putting ice cream on the shelves without any real consequences.

Sure there was a federal lawsuit filed by David Shockley, a man who was working at an elderly care center in Houston and regularly eating the ice cream when he became ill with what was determined to be listeria meningitis in October 2013. And of course Blue Bell had been forced to furlough 1,400 employees and lay off about 1,450 from it’s 3,900-person workforce. But despite all of that, the public has been remarkably forgiving, all three factories are now up and running and Blue Bell products are slated to be back on shelves in 15 states by the end of January.

So far neither the feds nor Blue Bell have confirmed or denied the investigation into the company. However, considering who’s spearheading the investigation, Blue Bell management could be facing some pretty serious allegations.

But we’re just down homey folk: Who knew what when as Dept. of Justice investigates Blue Bell for Listeria outbreak

Posted on December 30, 2015 by Douglas Powell

CBS News reports that the U.S. Department of Justice has started an investigation into Blue Bell after their ice cream was linked to a deadly Listeria outbreak earlier this year that killed three people.

An FDA investigation found Listeria in all three of Blue Bell’s production plants located in Alabama, Oklahoma and Texas. Records indicated that the company knew one plant was contaminated at least as early as 2013.

The FDA investigation uncovered other troubling problems, including condensation dripping directly into ice cream and unsanitary equipment. Last April, Blue Bell shut down all three production facilities, and all ice cream was recalled.

Sources tell CBS News that the Department of Justice is trying to determine what Blue Bell management knew about potentially deadly hazards in their plants, and when they knew it.

The most extensive violations were found in Oklahoma, where the FDA released 16 separate positive tests for listeria on equipment and in ice cream from March 2013 through January 2015.

Last October, Gerald Bland who worked at the Blue Bell factory in Brenham, Texas, described to CBS News, unsanitary conditions on the factory floor.

“On the wall by the 3-gallon machine, if it had rained real hard and water sat on the roof, it would just trickle down,” Bland said.

Rain water from the roof would leak into the factory.

Another worker, Terry Schultz, told us that his complaints to management about unclean conditions went nowhere.

“The response I got at one point [from management] was, ‘is that all you’re going to do is come here and bitch every afternoon?'”

The message Schultz took management’s response was, “Production is probably more important than cleanliness.”

All three of Blue Bell’s plants are now back up and running, and by the end next month, its ice cream will be back on the shelves in 15 states.

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Bad advice: Food safety and biological nonsense from leading Toronto hospital

Posted on December 23, 2015 by Douglas Powell

In 2008, Listeria in Maple Leaf cold-cuts killed 23 Canadians and sickened another 55.

An outbreak of listeria in cheese in Quebec in fall 2008 led to 38 hospitalizations, of which 13 were pregnant and gave birth prematurely. Two adults died and there were 13 perinatal deaths.

A Sept. 2008 report showed that of the 78 residents of the Canadian province of British Columbia who contracted listeriosis in the past six years, 10 per cent were pregnant women whose infections put them at high risk of miscarriage or stillbirth.

The majority — nearly 60 per cent — of pregnant women diagnosed with listeriosis either miscarry or have stillbirths.

In the April 2010 edition of the journal, Canadian Family Physician, the Motherisk team at the Toronto Hospital for Sick Children published a piece that said, without any references, that “pregnant women need not avoid soft-ripened cheeses or deli meats, so long as they are consumed in moderation and obtained from reputable stores.”

Nonsense.

Five years later, the hospital has finally decided to take action.

But not because of bogus advice.

The Hospital for Sick Children has permanently discontinued hair drug and alcohol tests at its embattled Motherisk Drug Testing Laboratory after an internal review “further explored and validated” previous, and as yet undisclosed, “questions and concerns.”

The decision, announced earlier this year, comes amid a Toronto Star investigation and mounting pressure from critics to shutter the lab, whose hair drug and alcohol tests have been used in criminal and child protection cases across the country, typically as evidence of parental substance abuse.

In March, Sick Kids temporarily suspended all non-research operations at Motherisk, after Lang’s review and the hospital’s review revealed new information, pending the results of Lang’s review, which are expected by June 30.

Yesterday, parents who had lost custody of their children or were convicted of crimes as a result of the lab’s results, received some vindication.

Now if they could get their kids back.

According to a Star editorial, a powerful report made public last week by retired judge Susan Lang found the testing program at the Motherisk lab was “inadequate and unreliable.” As a result, the Ontario government is launching an immediate review of all child custody and criminal cases that may have been adversely affected by false results from the lab.

The probe is both overdue and very welcome. In the last 10 years hair samples from more than 16,000 people were requested by child protection agencies and the review found six criminal cases that led to convictions where hair tests from the lab were used. No one knows how many parents may have lost custody of their children or how many may have been convicted of a crime based on faulty lab results.

Still, it didn’t have to take so long to resolve — or indeed occur in the first place.

First, Sick Kids could itself have reviewed procedures at the lab when questions were first raised about the accuracy of Motherisk hair strand testing during an October 2014 court case, which overturned evidence from the lab based on expert testimony that its results were unreliable.

Instead, in the face of an investigative series of articles by the Star’s Rachel Mendleson, the hospital went on the defence.

Then, when it did conduct a “review” it got it wrong. In November of last year, CEO Dr. Michael Apkon and pediatrician-in-chief Dr. Denis Daneman announced that an internal probe of Motherisk’s processes “has reaffirmed that the public can have full confidence in the reliability of Motherisk’s hair testing.”

Thankfully, the public and those who lost custody of their kids or were convicted of a crime based on the lab’s “unreliable” results did not have to depend on these two men’s judgment of the program for justice.

Two days later the Ontario government announced Lang’s independent investigation, which found that the lab’s “flawed hair-testing evidence had serious implications for the fairness of child protection and criminal cases.”

There’s more the hospital could have done to prevent this disaster. As Lang found, the hospital could have headed it off in the first place if it had applied lessons around forensic training and oversight from a 2008 inquiry into the actions of the hospital’s former disgraced pathologist, Dr. Charles Smith.

Smith, who served as head pediatric forensic pathologist at the hospital, made errors in hundreds of autopsies before 2001 that resulted in false convictions of several people for killing small children.

In the end, it isn’t just leadership at the Motherisk lab that is on “trial.” It is the people who run one of the country’s most prestigious hospitals.

Prestigious is an adjective thrown around so people don’t ask questions.

If it’s so prestigious, how did they get the Listeria advice so wrong?

Blue Bell: The rise and fall (and rise again?) of an ice cream empire

Posted on December 22, 2015 by Douglas Powell

Mark Collette of the Houston Chronicle writes that Paul Kruse’s father had warned him about the perils of family-run businesses, but he couldn’t escape his place as the obvious heir of a dawning ice cream empire.

After ascending to the corner office in 2004, Kruse delivered Blue Bell Creameries to its greatest height, becoming the No. 1 U.S. brand.

This year, it took barely two months to undo everything.

Ironically, Blue Bell’s food-poisoning crisis could give it a one-up on competitors, because it already has been forced to make expensive changes to equipment and safety protocols that other ice cream makers soon will have to emulate under new federal regulations. It took most of the year to upgrade while other brands gobbled up market share.

Under Paul Kruse, Blue Bell’s annual sales grew by 70 percent from 2006 to 2014, versus just 8 percent for the entire U.S. industry, according to figures from the market intelligence firm Euromonitor. It rose from fifth to third in U.S. market share. Relative to its own past, it abandoned any notion that slow was better, roughly doubling the geographical reach it had attained in the previous century. In 2014, for the first time, Blue Bell stole the No. 1 spot in brand sales from Dreyer’s, the longtime U.S. favorite.

Before the listeria crisis struck in March, it sold more than $333 million, according to Euromonitor figures updated in August. As a privately held company, Blue Bell doesn’t publicly disclose sales. But by that reckoning, it had, in one quarter, sold more than half of what it did in all of 2010 – and peak summer sales hadn’t even set in yet.

All that production came with a price. Brenham plant workers said sanitation was hurried. Hot water ran low. And federal records showed that problems reached to plants in Oklahoma and Alabama, negating the possibility that the listeria outbreak was a failure of one supplier, one machine or one employee. Somewhere amid all that growth, reality couldn’t keep up with the clean country image. Worse, it hadn’t been keeping up for years. Epidemiologists this year determined that illnesses from as early as 2010 were caused by Blue Bell – retroactive medical sleuthing made possible by the DNA database.

Had Blue Bell folded, it would have joined the majority of third-generation businesses, only a small percentage of which survive into the fourth, according to various consulting firms.

Unlike public companies, which send CEOs packing after six years on average, family bosses are entrenched, raising a host of challenges, said Andrew Hier, senior partner of the Cambridge Family Enterprise Group. They may have more difficulty coping with shifts in technology over time. Decision-making becomes more complicated in the so-called “cousin generation,” with more personalities at the table. Though privately held, Blue Bell now has hundreds of shareholders. Kruse’s cousin, Greg Bridges, is the vice president of operations.

After 10 illnesses and three deaths linked to Blue Bell, it now has been forced to modernize. It faces a task like Odwalla, the homegrown juice brand roiled by E.coli poisonings in 1996, and, more recently, Chipotle, the fast-food burrito chain plunged into crisis from at least four separate disease outbreaks in a span of months.

Odwalla had to abandon its raw-is-better philosophy and start pasteurizing its juices. Similarly, Chipotle is instituting pathogen testing standards unlike any others in fast food.

And lots more.

6 dead, 60 sick, in unknown Listeria outbreak in Germany

Posted on December 18, 2015 by Douglas Powell

Listeriosis patient isolates in Germany have shown a new identical pulsed-field gel electrophoresis (PFGE) pattern since 2012 (n = 66).

Almost all isolates (Listeria monocytogenes serotype 1/2a) belonged to cases living in southern Germany, indicating an outbreak with a so far unknown source. Case numbers in 2015 are high (n = 28). No outbreak cases outside Germany have been reported. Next generation sequencing revealed the unique cluster type CT1248 and confirmed the outbreak. Investigations into the source are ongoing.

Since November 2012, a previously not observed pulsed-field gel electrophoresis (PFGE) pattern in human isolates of invasive L. monocytogenes serotype 1/2a has been detected in Germany with increasing frequency. Altogether 66 outbreak cases have been recorded, with 28 cases in 2015. Four cases were pregnancy-associated and six cases died in the course of the disease. Here we provide details of the ongoing outbreak.

Ongoing outbreak of invasive Listeriosis, Germany, 2012 to 2015

Eurosurveillance, Volume 20, Issue 50, 17 December 2015

W Ruppitsch , R Prager, S Halbedel, P Hyden, A Pietzka, S Huhulescu, D Lohr, K Schönberger, E Aichinger, A Hauri, K Stark, S Vygen, E Tietze, F Allerberger, H Wilking

http://www.eurosurveillance.org/ViewArticle.aspx?ArticleId=21336

Better surveillance or worserer food? Increasing foodborne infections in the EU in 2014

Posted on December 18, 2015 by Douglas Powell

Human cases of campylobacteriosis and listeriosis continued to rise in the EU in 2014, showing an increasing trend since 2008.

“It is worrying that Campylobacter and Listeria infections are still rising in the European Union,” Mike Catchpole, Chief Scientist at ECDC said, “this situation highlights the importance of enhancing listeriosis surveillance through molecular typing, work currently developed by ECDC and EFSA, and strengthening the EU-wide Campylobacter control measures at EU-level”.

There were 2,161 confirmed cases of Listeriosis infections in 2014, a rise of 16% compared with 2013. Although the number of cases are relatively low, the rise of reported listeriosis cases is of particular concern as the surveillance of these infections is focused on severe forms of the disease, with higher death rates than for other foodborne diseases, particularly among the elderly, and patients with a weak immune system.

Campylobacteriosis remains the most commonly reported food-borne disease in the EU and has been so since 2005. The number of confirmed cases in the EU in 2014 was 236,851, an increase of 10%, compared with 2013. This increase can partly be explained by improvements in the surveillance system and/or improved diagnostics for campylobacteriosis in several Member States. In food, Campylobacter was mostly found in chicken meat.

Confirmed cases of salmonellosis, the second most commonly reported food-borne disease in the EU, increased slightly for the first time over the period 2008–2014, due to changes in the number of Member States reporting. However, there has been a statistically significant downward trend of salmonellosis in the seven-year period of 2008–2014. This is mainly due to the successful Salmonella control programmes put in place for poultry by EU Member States and the European Commission.

Prof baffled by public support as Blue Bell ice cream returns to Texas

Posted on December 15, 2015 by Douglas Powell

As Blue Bell ice cream returns to most of Texas, Mindy Brashears, a professor of food safety and public health at Texas Tech told the Lubbock Avalanche Journal she’s baffled by the public’s response to Blue Bell’s return, adding she believes a company selling meat products — such as beef — would probably be out of business under the same circumstances.

Blue Bell was greeted by some faithful fans at 4 a.m. Monday who were awaiting the product’s return after the Brenham-based company recalled all its products when it was linked to 10 listeria cases that resulted in three deaths.

One fan who wasn’t awaiting the product’s return with open arms is Mindy Brashears, the director of International Center for Food Industry Excellence and a professor and researcher at Tech. She is currently teaching a class in the Bahamas, but spoke with A-J Media through email.

She said there’s no logical explanation she can think of to explain why consumers were so anxious and welcoming for the product’s return.

“The consumer response to Blue Bell baffles me,” she said. “First of all, had this been a beef product, the public outcry/ban would have likely put the company out of business. There is much history of this phenomenon. This occurs even when no illnesses are reported and there is simply a recall of the product.”

Blue Bell did face economic hardship after the recall and temporary shut-down.

But what Brashears found most troubling was what she called Blue Bell’s lack of response to addressing the problem sooner. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s investigation, the outbreak began in 2010. Brashears said it wasn’t until the outbreak caught public attention that the company decided to act.

“Of great concern is the fact that they knew the product was going to hospitals and schools, thus reaching the most at-risk populations and therefore, they should have been especially diligent in addressing the issues that started back in January of 2010 instead of waiting for the problem to grow,” she said.

Brashears said Listeria monocytogenes, or listeria, is a bacteria that causes muscle aches, headaches and fever. It can cause septicemia and meningitis and even death, she said.

Listeria is of special concern when it’s in a ready-to-eat product like cheeses and ice cream, and the center for disease control estimates 1,600 illnesses and 260 deaths each year in the U.S. because of it.

Soft-serve a bitch to clean: Listeria linked to ice cream sickens 3rd victim — a year later

Posted on December 10, 2015 by Douglas Powell

It was our most popular blog post for years.

In May, 2008, Baskin Robbins decided to offer free soft serve ice cream to expectant mothers on May 21, 2008, in California, Chicago, New York, Nashville, and El Paso, Texas. It’s apparently the beginning of a national roll-out of soft serve ice cream at Baskin Robbins.

I have no idea why they targeted expectant moms, or why they recruited a pregnant D- celebrity like Tori Spelling as spokesthingy.

Problem is, soft serve ice cream is on the Australian list of foods pregnant women should avoid. Sanitation with the equipment appears to be an on-going problem.

Today, JoNel Aleccia of The Seattle Times writes that a year after a giant recall of Snoqualmie ice cream tied to Listeria, a third illness has been blamed on the bug after it apparently lingered in a machine used to make milkshakes for hospital patients.

A woman in her 40s being treated at the University of Washington Medical Center was diagnosed in November with listeria. When experts did tests, to their surprise, they found the bacteria matched the genetic fingerprint of the germ that sickened two other UWMC patients in 2014.

The common factor? All three drank milkshakes made with ice cream from the same UWMC machine, said Dr. Jeff Duchin, health officer with Public Health — Seattle & King County.

“We’re assuming it’s linked to Snoqualmie ice cream from last year that persisted in the machine,” Duchin said. “The most likely explanation is it persisted in some nook or cranny somewhere where it escaped the cleaning process.”

The 2014 illnesses were traced to an ice-cream mix used by Snoqualmie Gourmet Ice Cream and sparked a voluntary recall of a year’s worth of ice cream, gelato and other products. The plant underwent extensive cleaning before reopening.

However, UWMC isn’t using Snoqualmie mix in their ice cream now. Instead, they use another commercial brand.

That means the listeria from the Snoqualmie mix likely remained inside the machine for more than a year, he said. UWMC cleaned and sanitized the equipment twice weekly, which is less often than recommended by manufacturers, health officials noted in a blog post.

Pregnant women, the elderly and others are urged to avoid foods such as lunchmeat and soft cheeses because of the risk of listeria. Soft-serve ice cream isn’t usually included on the list in the U.S., though officials in Australia and elsewhere warn pregnant women against consuming the treat.

The unusual outbreak at UWMC may underscore the need for more research into a link between listeria and the ice-cream machines, Duchin said.

In 2008, a reader asked if I would serve my then pregnant wife soft-serve ice cream.

No.

Just breathe: Chipotle is dumb for blaming media and government

Posted on December 10, 2015 by Douglas Powell

In the midst of a media storm, with me and Chapman inundated with Chipotle-type requests at opposite ends of the globe, I think of U.S. President Bill Clinton’s press secretary, Mike McCurry, who wrote that before a shit-storm, he would go have a smoke in the basement of the White House, just to collect his thoughts.

So this is my diversion to collect my Chipotle thoughts.

Beehive honey was an iconic brand in Ontario, Canada, growing up.

They always had a booth at the food pavilion at the Canadian National Exhibition in Toronto, and usually brought in a professional hockey type to meet-and-greet.

It was only a couple of years since the Leafs had last won the Stanley Cup – so about 1969 – and I went to the Beehive booth and got Norm Ullman’s autograph.

About 25 years later, I met one of his nieces while on a family vacation.

But I didn’t know Beehive made cold-cuts. In New Zealand.

Premier Beehive NZ Limited are initiating a recall of their Beehive Shaved Champagne Ham (200g Family Pack, Use by Date: 26 JAN 2016, Batch 335322) after discovering that the product may contain Listeria.

Comments: The affected product should not be consumed.

There have been no reports of illness, however any person concerned about their health should seek medical advice.

Customers should return the product to their retailer for a full refund or phone 0800 506 701 with any queries.

This recall does not affect any other Premier Beehive NZ Limited product.

‘Bath milk’ claims will not wash: Raw milk stripped from NWS shelves

Posted on December 7, 2015 by Douglas Powell

In Dec. 2014, four children in the Australian state of Victoria developed hemolytic uremic syndrome linked to Shiga-toxin toxin producing E. coli in unpasteurized bath milk produced by Mountain View farm. One child died, and another developed cryptosporidiosis.

The Victorian government quickly banned the sale of so-called bath milk, which although labeled as not fit for human consumption, was a widely recognized way for Australian consumers to access raw milk.

Now, the neighboring state of New South Wales has stripped raw milk marketed as ‘cosmetic’ or ‘bath’ milk from the shelves of a number of Sydney health food shops following recent inspections.

As part of ongoing actions to address the sale of raw milk, the NSW Food Authority has enacted a range of proactive monitoring and compliance activities, which included the seizure of approximately 68 litres of unpasteurised dairy products in the Sydney area.

Minister for Primary Industries, Niall Blair, said retailers are on notice that claims the product is used for bathing will not wash.

“While there are no food businesses in NSW licensed by the NSW Food Authority to produce raw milk for cosmetic purposes, we know that some retailing businesses are sourcing this product from elsewhere to sell it,” Mr. Blair said.

“Raw milk is a high food safety risk – the sale of raw milk for human consumption is illegal in Australia and this kind of farcical deception won’t be tolerated. It was apparent to the NSW Food Authority that the sale of raw milk products at these premises was not for cosmetic reasons.

“The NSW Food Authority will continue to address retail businesses selling raw milk as bath milk and the NSW Government is committed to working with other states in an effort to find a national solution to the broader issue of the sale of raw milk.”

Results from samples taken from the recent product seizures showed elevated levels of E. coli. Unpasteurised milk contains harmful bacteria such as E. coli, Salmonella and Listeria that can result in illness or even death.

The NSW Government will continue removing raw milk from NSW shelves. Random checks of retailers will continue, in line with the Food Authority’s policy of escalated enforcement.

Another area of focus is the practice of ‘herd sharing’, where a person enters into contract and purchase shares in a herd or individual cow to receive raw milk produced by that herd.

Claims that this does not constitute the sale of food are false: the operation of a herd share arrangement can constitute food for sale under the Food Act 2003. Milk for sale in NSW needs to be licensed with the NSW Food Authority to ensure it is subject to the stringent safety requirements of the Dairy Food Safety Scheme.

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