I will be presenting for the retail food committee at the 122nd AFDO Annual Educational Conference in Burlington, VT June 9-13, 2018 on innovative solutions to food safety training. It is going to be a great Conference with a fulfilling agenda. If you are in the area, come join us.
The State Health Department confirms they are investigating several cases in children in the Moore area. The department says this is not related to the nationwide romaine lettuce E. coli outbreak but instead, the virus (it’s a bacterium) can be traced back to a Moore day care.
Neveah Bell is usually a very a happy and active baby. So earlier this month, it was obvious that something was very wrong.
“She wouldn’t even lift up her head, she was not eating anything. She wouldn’t play with her toys. She just wanted to be held,” said Melissa Bell, Neveah’s grandmother and guardian.
The day before, Neveah came home sick from day care.
“She had some diarrhea that was pretty violent and had blood,” said Bell.
Neveah was admitted to the hospital.
Doctors eventually confirmed she had E. coli.
The State Health Department says they have identified five cases of E. coli that can be traced back to a Moore day care. But say that’s not all that unusual.
“Clusters of cases happen in group settings, especially in child care facilities that are interacting on a daily basis,” explained Laurence Burnsed and Epidemiologist with the Oklahoma Department of Health.
E. coli can be transmitted directly or through contamination of objects that children share. The Health Department says they are working with the day care to stop further spread. Symptoms include diarrhea, bloody stools and cramps and like in Neveah’s case, it can be very serious.
“This is a bacteria that if it gets into your blood stream or effects other organs, it can cause other complications. Some occurrences can result in death,” explained Burnsed.
After two weeks in the hospital, Neveah has fully recovered. But her grandmother says it was a very scary time.
I was perusing a paper this morning about establishing an appropriate bionome for a large-scale, salt-water aquarium, because that’s what microbiological nerds do (but could a virus take out the microorganisms? probably) when I read that at least 111 students from a suburban high school became ill with stomach flu-like symptoms after their Friday night prom at the Shedd Aquarium.
I never went into the prom thing, probably because my high-school girlfriend broke my heart (or did I break her’s?).
According to CLTV, roughly 400 students from Andrew High School in Tinley Park, Ill., celebrated prom at the aquarium at 1200 S. Lake Shore Dr. on Friday. By Saturday and Sunday, some students started to come down with fevers, chills, vomiting and diarrhea. It is still too soon to tell whether the illness is norovirus.
Officials originally reported that 50 students were ill. By Tuesday morning, the number had climbed to 111.
A spokeswoman for Shedd said the aquarium’s food provider, Sodexo, was investigating. Shedd did “an extra precautionary deep clean of the aquarium” Monday; no one at additional private events hosted at the aquarium since Friday became ill.
“At this time, we do not believe there are any safety concerns related to food or drink being served to our guests visiting the aquarium,” spokeswoman Andrea Rodgers said.
All known details have been reported to the Chicago Department of Public Health.
Marci Condon said her son Jack, a football player at Andrew, was still sick in bed Monday. Dozens of students went to Kalahari Resort in Wisconsin Dells and became sick there. Others fell ill on trips to Indiana, Michigan and Six Flags Great America.
“Clearly, my heart goes out to all our kids and their families who were affected,” Principal Bob Nolting said in a statement. “We have many individuals who work very hard on creating a prom experience that is enjoyable and meaningful. It is saddening to see the excitement of an otherwise positive and memorable event dampened by this situation.”
The Shedd Aquarium’s initial full statement is below:
The care and well-being of all our guests is a top priority for Shedd Aquarium and something that is taken very seriously. Upon learning Monday morning about alleged food-related illness reported by a number of students who attended the Victor J. Andrew High School Prom at the aquarium Friday evening, Shedd Aquarium management notified our food service provider Sodexo, and Sodexo leadership began to take immediate action to investigate further. Shedd and Sodexo are in regular contact with the school’s administrative office and have reported all known details to the Chicago Department of Public Health. At this time, we do not believe there are any safety concerns related to food or drink being served to our guests visiting the aquarium.
Sodexo services at Shedd Aquarium has a longstanding, strong performance in food safety and commitment to maintain strict adherence to food safety procedures that lead to clean, safe operations and nutritious food. We welcome health inspections and aggressively self-monitor as well.
Andrea Rodgers, APR
Vice President, Communications & Public Relations
I’m not a huge oyster fan I’ve only eaten raw ones a couple of times and steamed are a bit chewy. I’ll eat them baked or fried.
Raw oysters have been linked to over 170 cases of noro
in Canada – oysters from the same harvesting area we’re distributed to the US too.
One of my favorite noro outbreaks (for the science, not the illnesses) was this one linked to steamed oysters. Lightly steamed doesn’t reduce noro risk that much.
And BC oysters had a similar outbreak last year.
It’s a big story when The Onion weighs in:
Saying that it would be a nice break from the health-conscious diet, a local E. coli bacterium announced Tuesday plans to treat itself to a little beef after weeks of eating nothing but salad. “Lately, I’ve been on this kick of just having romaine lettuce for every single meal, but it can’t hurt to cut myself some slack once in a while with a raw steak or a little ground chuck, right?” said the Escherichia coli strain, noting that while its regimen of salad mixes and hearts of romaine had made it feel much healthier and stronger, it was about time to reintroduce some protein into its diet. “I can’t wait to bite into a nice room-temperature hamburger, or maybe some uncooked beef sausages. Man, I’ve been craving beef for so long now that I’ll basically take whatever I find lying around.” The bacterium went on to justify the indulgence by saying that the added energy would come in handy during its upcoming trips to Iowa and Nebraska.
Always a bad idea to prepare and serve food when there is a sewage back-up and no surprise it was caught on video.
Public health takes a back seat to monetary gains I guess. I’ve seen this before when I was in the field. When I was in the field as an inspector, the City informed me that there was a sewage break in the south end. I went to visit the affected food establishments to ensure they were closed and following proper protocols. Three restaurants were involved, 2 shut down but 1 continued to operate in sewage. I shut down the third and when I asked why they continued to operate, the manager played the ignorance card. Meanwhile, his staff were sloshing around in sewage back of house, no excuse for that.
Vanessa Vasconcelos of ABC 30 reports
Cell phone video shows the conditions Kentucky Fried Chicken employees say they were forced to work in last Tuesday. The fast-food restaurant at Kings Canyon and Willow took on several inches of dirty water in the kitchen area.
According to the Fresno County Health Department, it all started with a sewer line blockage. “They brought in a hydro-flush unit that uses high-pressure water to (clean) it and that caused the backed up water in the building as they were trying to get it unclogged,” said Health Department division manager Wayne Fox.
The worker who captured the images didn’t want to be identified, but says their daily operations continued; including serving customers. By Wednesday, health inspectors received a complaint and investigated.
Fox says, “staff was working to clean the place up. Our environmental health staff determined the place needed to be closed while they were doing that cleaning.” He added the site manager should have been trained enough to understand the severity of the violation.
They held an office hearing with senior management then conducted a re-inspection that determined they could resume business, “We wouldn’t take any chances. We take this very seriously we want all the food that anyone gets at a restaurant to be pure and wholesome.
Site supervisors at KFC and JEM restaurant management corporation — which manages the KFC — declined our requests for comment.
Health Department officials say this is only the third complaint in the last decade this particular KFC has received and the previous ones weren’t as severe. They include food temperature violations, pests and improper handling of food.
The KFC at Kings Canyon and Willow is back up and running, but management and all employees will be undergoing mandatory training and will develop an emergency plan so employees know what to do should this ever happen again.
If this does become a recurring problem, the restaurant will have its health permit revoked.
We were only in the Bordeaux region briefly.
It wasn’t like we recorded Exile on Main Street (although we did some decent writing).
But friends of Amy’s had taken us from the train station to Moubisson, and two weeks later picked us up, but only after a luxiourous lunch in Bordeaux, at their vineyard (I got excited because I got the Internet to work and downloaded and sent two weeks of Internet stuff).
Rebecca Fishbein of Bustle writes the world’s longest boozy race Bordeaux is in which participants are supposed to pair running with 23 glasses of Bordeaux wine. That seems … not what marathons are intended for, but it certainly sounds more pleasant than pairing running with protein gels and chafed nipples, so.
Apparently, the Marathon du Médoc is an age-old tradition, dating all the way back to, um, 1985. Every September, thousands of people from all over the world descend upon Bordeaux to take part in the race, which is essentially the opposite of a regular marathon. According to the Guardian, participants dress in costume instead of JackRabbit gear, which means attendees might show up as sexy policemen, Smurfs, zombies, or zebras; they wind through beautiful vineyards and chateaus, where they stop for wine, cheese, waffles, fruits and oysters, which cannot possibly be conducive foods for exercise; there is at least one steak break, and, of course, there are the aforementioned 23 glasses of wine. The race takes about six and a half hours, and unlike real marathon races, participants are encouraged to take that time, and not actually speed through it all. But even without a sprint, the race does lead to some, uh, interestingmoments, like this one in the Guardian:
Plodding along in my own merry way, I’m quite oblivious to the mileage we’re getting through. It’s Birdy who breaks into a spontaneous, projectile vomit around 18 miles (29km), necessitating another Imodium tablet. “Too late,” he shouts, seconds later, running off at a speed we could have done with a while back towards the nearest chemical toilet.
The family was watching hockey this morning (do the time change, the game started at 5 a.m. here), and I was showing Sorenne pictures of her with her step-sister at a Washington Capitals game about 2010, and Amy and I concluded, neither of us had been to Pittsburgh, neither of us had been to Cleveland.
Yet Cleveland rocks.
This is how crazy Americans are about football (gridiron for the Australians): The Cleveland Browns were down to Wyoming quarterback Josh Allen and USC quarterback Sam Darnold according to nearly every report until the final week before the 2018 NFL Draft. There was no buzz surrounding UCLA quarterback Josh Rosen or Oklahoma quarterback Baker Mayfield.
ESPN Cleveland’s Aaron Goldhammer was so certain that Mayfield would not be the choice that he said he would “eat poop” if it happened.
Following the official announcement of Mayfield’s addition, Goldhammer manned up and agreed to follow through with the proclamation via ESPN’s Adam Schefter.
“I will eat the poop,” Goldhammer said.
Don’t eat poop.
And if you do, cook it.
Brittany Wallman of the Sun Sentinel reports a Florida couple who were told their baby didn’t need a doctor and would “poop … out” a remote control battery he swallowed are poised to get a $475,000 settlement from the city of Lauderhill, after the battery corroded and damaged his throat.
The couple, Yandy Joseph and Matthew Asea, took the advice of Lauderhill emergency responders, they said in their lawsuit, and they didn’t immediately take their young son to a hospital. When his saliva interacted with the battery lodged in his esophagus, he suffered severe medical complications and was hospitalized for three months, the lawsuit says.
The $475,000 payout would be one of the largest personal injury settlements in city history, if it’s approved by city commissioners Monday, assistant city attorney Angel Petti Rosenberg, with the Hall & Rosenberg law firm, said. The city’s insurance carrier would pay it.
Joseph called 911 on March 30, 2016, because her son, described as a “baby” in the lawsuit, had swallowed the button battery from a remote control for a fan. When fire-rescue paramedics arrived about 10 minutes later, she showed them the battery from another device so they’d see what he had swallowed.
One of the emergency medical technicians picked up the boy, and said, “He looks good and will probably poop it out,” his mother recounted. She said the technician told her that “if we took him to the hospital, that’s what they’ll tell you.” They gave no other advice and then left.
Joseph inspected her baby’s next two bowel movements, but there was no sign of the battery. The next morning, he threw up, and she called poison control. They instructed her to take him to the hospital immediately.
At Joe DiMaggio Children’s Hospital in Hollywood, X-rays confirmed he had a button battery in his throat. By the time it was removed, tissue around the battery had died, and he required multiple surgeries and procedures over his three months in the hospital. He sustained permanent injuries because of the battery’s interaction with his saliva.
Joseph’s attorney said the family declined comment.
Me and Chapman and Hubbell, we always had this idea to have our own ice hockey arena, with a restaurant where we could evaluate all sorts of food safety ideas.
We would play hockey and do research, as you do.
It grew out of me and Chapman playing hockey at the University of Guelph (that’s in Canada) whenever we could, and led to the development of Chapman’s food safety infosheets, which were posted above urinals and on the backside of toilet doors at the bar bathrooms.
A group of British academics are promoting virtual reality (VR) as the way forward.
It may be hard to pee with VR googles on your head.
I went to the big computer graphics conferences in the early 1990s, where everyone was gaga about this Toronto start-up that did all the graphics for Terminator 2, I’ve had lunch with the founders of Pixar, and I’ve seen Jaron Lanier preach his VR gospel.
Almost 30 years later, the adoption is decidedly slow.
But not according to Nikholai Koolonavich of VR Focus, who writes that thanks to the advancements in technology, reduced development costs and wider adoption of the products, turning to VR to help train people and raise awareness of food poisoning is a logical decision.
The project is titled the The Corrupt Kitchen VR and is being made at the University of Nottingham by the Digital Research Team as a means to educate and train users on food hygiene and food poisoning. Dr Paul Tennent outlines The Corrupt Kitchen VR writing on the projects blog saying: “The Corrupt Kitchen VR is a game where players must balance the task of cooking meals as requests come in with adhering to health and safety rules: keeping themselves and the kitchen clean and free of infestation; ensuring the quality of their ingredients; and ensuring that their employees have all the correct paperwork. The more meals they produce, the more money the restaurant makes and the higher their score. Neglecting the other tasks will certainly make them more money, but there’s an associated risk.”
That’s enough PR fluffery.
I prefer to have my kids cook with me in the kitchen, and teach some basics.