NZ school’s removal of soap from children’s toilets labeled ‘appalling’

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Whenever someone tells me of an outbreak at a school, day care, university residence, whatever, the first place I go, or someone more geographically-centered should go, is check out the bathrooms.

It’s easy to preach proper handwashing as a way to reduce the spread of infectious disease.

But proper handwashing requires access to proper tools.

So I check out the bathroom and usually find the tools, uh, missing.

Proper handwashing requires vigorous water flow (temperature doesn’t matter), a vigorous rub with soap, and drying with paper towel.

Garth Bray of TVNZ reports an Auckland primary school has dumped a policy that saw soap and hand towels removed from all children’s toilets.

The school felt the children were wasting those basic items, but failed to follow some of the most basic health advice with its policy.

“I think it’s appalling”, said Dr Michael Baker, who is the University of Otago Professor of Public Health.

“We’ve got good evidence in big trials showing that having handwashing can actually reduce risk of gut infections by about 30 per cent and respiratory infections by about 20 per cent so I think all of our schools need to be part of this,” Dr Baker told Fair Go.

Fair Go was contacted by four parents of children at the school who objected to the school withdrawing soap but had been told by teachers this was the policy.

Some had simply accepted this and started sending their children to school with little bottles of liquid hand soap to use.

However, one took her concerns to the principal and to a school board member.

Fair Go has seen written messages between the board member and the parent which say: “There are no legal requirements from the Ministry of Health and the students were wasting the soap and hand towels so they were taken out but every class has hand sanitiser that they encourage their kids to use regularly.”

That’ll work until the kids start drinking the stuff.

Fair Go spoke with the principal, who disclosed that classrooms were sometimes locked at lunchtimes, meaning children had no access to anything but water for washing before meals and after using toilets.

The principal told Fair Go that the same week our programme had made contact, the school board had decided to reverse the policy and will now stock toilets with soap and hand towels again.

On that basis, Fair Go has decided for now not to name the school publicly as it takes steps to make good its commitment to provide hygienic hand washing facilities for children.

“New Zealand’s got an appalling record of having very high rates of a lot of major childhood diseases – respiratory infections, skin infections and gut infections and these are exactly the things that hand washing can protect our children against,” Dr Baker said.

Fair Go’s advice is for parents to take a look at their own school’s facilities and reassure themselves their children have the essentials on hand at school.

I do.

And the school knows I check.

Huffpo tells Bezos to check out food safety in search for host city for HQ2

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Brian Castrucci writes that Amazon should look for a restaurant grading disclosure system in the potential locales for the new second headquarters of the online retailer. 

When your employees go out to lunch, I am sure you want them to do so without the threat of salmonella, E. coli, or some other food-borne illness. A wide spread food-borne illness could really hamper productivity and have a serious impact on the health of your employees. Cities can help guard against such outbreaks with policies requiring food establishments to publicly post safety inspection “grades,” which can empower consumers while also reducing foodborne illness rates and health care costs. Next time you are visiting one of the cities competing for your second headquarters, see how easy it is to find the restaurant inspection grade. 

Not bad advice. Check out this paper on the benefits and limitations of disclosure systems. 

The use of restaurant inspection disclosure systems as a means of communicating food safety information

Use a thermometer: 21 sickened: Campy in UK liver pate, again

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Yorkshire Coast Radio reports Diversorium Ltd, the company which owns and operates the Downe Arms, a country inn hotel in Wykeham near Scarborough, has been fined £8,000 for two serious food hygiene related offences after an outbreak of Campylobacter food poisoning was traced back to contaminated chicken liver pate eaten at the hotel.

Following a prosecution by Scarborough Borough Council, Diversorium Ltd pleaded guilty at Scarborough Magistrates Court to two offences under the Food Safety and Hygiene (England) Regulations after 21 people fell ill following a Christmas party night on 17 December 2016 and a Christmas break package at the hotel during the same month. The court ruled that fines of £5,000 and £3000 respectively should be paid for the offences. The company was also ordered to pay the council £2170 in costs.

The council’s Environmental Health team received complaints from those affected by the food poisoning and during the subsequent investigation it was apparent that there were a number of issues which were not consistent with good hygiene practices and food safety management records were incomplete. In particular, the process for preparing the chicken liver pate had not been validated by appropriate temperature monitoring and recording, and food safety was not being managed effectively. The extensive investigation, carried out in conjunction with Public Health England, concluded that the pate was the most probable cause of the illness. The business was subsequently marked down to a food hygiene rating of 1 (major improvement necessary).

Hospitals should watch their litigation backside if growing their own produce with no safety talk

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I’m not Debbie Downer, but I am Dougie Downer and never get invited to dinner.

This idea has risk written all over it.

Sarah Toy of USA Today writes that high atop the roof of a Boston hospital power plant in the middle of the city, you’ll find something unexpected: A 7,000-square-foot oasis with a lush carpet of green, rows upon rows of mesclun, kale, rainbow chard and a sea of plump green and red tomatoes.

Sounds good, has all the buzzwords except the one that I and anyone serving meals to immunocompromised people in hospitals should care about: microbiologically safe.

“There is an increasing trend in hospital farms,” said Stacia Clinton, the national program director for Health Care Without Harm’s Healthy Food in Health Care program, which advises hospitals on ways to provide sustainable and nutritious food. “There’s a greater demand now for people to know where their food is coming from, and hospitals are looking for ways to connect people to their food more directly.”

No mention of produce food safety.

If it’s growing on roofs, birds –Salmonella and Campylobacter factories – are crapping on the stuff, and washing does almost nothing.

Stick it in and get it safe

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Our contractor warned us the house would like a missile site for a few weeks.

It does, after Canadian daughter 4-of-4 and her boyfriend moved in.

Aussie time.

What I do notice is the builders are always shouting out measurement in millimeters.

120-this, 280-that.

So why wouldn’t anyone expect the same precision in cooking and use a tip-sensitive digital thermometer instead of some food porn adjectives.

We expect bridges to stay up when we cross them, house to stay intact when they are reinforced with steel.

We should expect food to be safe when we cook it.

That requires data, not porn.

12-year-old Oklahoma girl lives with constant reminder of E. coli outbreak nine years ago

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In Aug. 2008, 26-year-old Chad Ingle had a meal at the Country Cottage in Locust Grove, Oklahoma, a popular family-owned buffet-style restaurant.

Nine days later, Chad was dead from E. coli O111.

By the end of the outbreak, 341 people had been sickened with E. coli O111, all from eating at the country diner in a town of 1,423 people.

A paper describing the investigation was published in 2011 in Epidemiology and Infection and concluded from epidemiological evidence the outbreak resulted from cross-contamination of restaurant food from food preparation equipment or surfaces, or from an unidentified infected food handler.

Ethan Hutchins of ABC News writes that at first glance Machaela Ybarra is a typical 12-year-old going through the struggles any pre-teen faces. But like the words on the pages of her textbooks, Machaela has a story to tell, a story she only wishes was fiction.

“Whenever I understood what happened to me, I couldn’t believe it,” said Ybarra.

Machaela was just 2 when she contracted E. coli. It happened at Country Cottage restaurant in Locust Grove.

A Sunday afternoon lunch nine years ago changed Machaela’s life forever.

“It sounds scary even though I don’t remember much,” said Ybarra.

Her mother will never forget that day. Christina Ybarra still knows what her daughter ate: Fried chicken, meatloaf, green beans, mashed potatoes and gravy.

“It was a buffet so we went and got one plate, her and I both ate off of it and I didn’t get sick at all,” said Christina Ybarra.

It’s a miracle, she says, since Christina was seven months pregnant at the time with Machaela’s little sister.

Of the hundreds who got sick from E. coli, one person died. The restaurant closed, but was back in business two months later, and now years later Country Cottage remains open. Folks here in town say they still eat here, not blaming the restaurant for those dark days years ago.

No one in Locust Grove at the restaurant or even with the city likes to talk about the outbreak. It’s fair to say, it’s a bad time most people there would like to forget.

But for Machaela, there are daily reminders.

“I’m on seizure medication because I can just stare sometimes and just be unconscious,” said Ybarra.

 

Eating too much black licorice is harmful, FDA warns

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I’ve never liked licorice, especially the black stuff.

Reminds me of a grandparent’s decaying hard candy dish.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration is, according to Ashley May of USA Today, warning consumers not eat large amounts of black licorice.

The candy, made from a shrub usually found in Greece, Turkey and Asia, contains a compound (glycyrrhizin) that can lower a person’s potassium levels, FDA experts say. So, eating too much could cause heart problems, high blood pressure, swelling and sluggishness, an FDA advisory reports.  

Last year, the FDA heard of at least one case of black licorice causing health problems, according to the advisory. 

Especially for those 40-years-old and older, eating two ounces of black licorice a day for at least two weeks could throw off heart rhythms. 

Food Safety Talk 138: Ominous noises

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This special pre-halloween episode features ominous noises, and we are not talking about the pinging noise from Don’s email in the background.  The show opens with discussion not of noise, but of the sights and smells of fresh compost around Ben’s office.  After a brief digression into favorite TV, podcasts and fan feedback, the talk turns to recent food safety publications on cutting board safety and water bottle sanitation, followed by best Reduced Oxygen Packaging Handling practices from listener feedback. Next Ben gets real time inspiration and the guys do some back of the envelope risk assessment on home preparation of black garlic before a discussion raw camel milk and the risks of fake cures.  The show ends with a discussion of turkey eggs and Canadian Thanksgiving.

Episode 138 can be found here and on iTunes.

Here are show notes so you can follow along at home:

Rabid bat in salad: LGMA said anything?

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On April 3, 2017, two Florida residents consumed part of the same prepackaged salad before reportedly discovering the partial remains of a bat carcass in the salad. Bats are known reservoirs for rabies virus, which causes rabies disease in both animals and humans (1). The persons who ate the salad contacted the Florida Department of Health (FLDOH), which notified CDC’s Poxvirus and Rabies Branch. CDC and FLDOH determined that the immediate concern was for potential rabies virus exposure, because approximately 6% of bats submitted to U.S. public health departments annually test positive for rabies virus (2,3).

Grey Headed Flying Fox (Pteropus poliocephalus)

(This is an Australian flying fox, left; everything is bigger here.)

Although percutaneous exposures are more likely to result in successful transmission of rabies virus to humans (1), transmission can occur when infectious material, such as saliva or nervous tissue from an infected animal, comes into direct contact with human mucosa (2). Infection with rabies virus causes an acute, progressive encephalitis that is nearly always fatal once clinical signs have begun. The disease is preventable if exposed persons receive timely postexposure prophylaxis (PEP), which includes human rabies immunoglobulin and 4 doses of inactivated rabies vaccine administered over 14 days (4).

FLDOH submitted the bat carcass to CDC for rabies virus testing on April 4. Polymerase chain reaction and direct fluorescent antibody tests were inconclusive because of the deteriorated condition of the carcass. However, because the cranium of the bat was intact, exposure to brain material by the persons who consumed the salad was unlikely, although exposure to the bat’s organs or peripheral nervous tissue was possible. PEP was recommended because laboratory test results were inconclusive and exposure to nervous tissue could not be ruled out.

The salad was purchased from a company A store location. After being notified of the investigation, company A removed the lot of prepackaged salad from all store locations on April 5. Company B (the prepackaged salad supplier) recalled the affected lot of salads on April 8. CDC advised consumers to contact their local health department for PEP evaluation only if the consumer had eaten a recalled prepackaged salad and had found animal material in the salad. CDC was not notified of any other reports of dead bats in prepackaged salads.

To identify where the bat might have been introduced into the prepackaged salad, CDC performed genetic analyses on the bat to determine its subspecies. Based on morphology and phylogenetic analyses (Bayesian inference and haplotype network analyses) of mitochondrial DNA sequence data (Cytb and D-loop), the bat was identified as a Mexican free-tailed bat (Tadarida brasiliensis mexicana), which is found throughout the southwestern United States. It is genetically distinct from T. brasiliensis cynocephala, which occurs in the southeastern United States (Figure) (5).

The investigation determined that cutting and harvesting of greens for the recalled salad occurred in fields in the west and southwest United States before they were transported to a processing plant in Georgia. At the processing plant, the greens were washed with chlorinated water and packaged. Given the physical condition of the bat (e.g., decomposed, bisected) and the geographic location of the fields and the processing plant, along with the genetic identification of the bat, investigators concluded the bat most likely came into contact with the salad material in the field during harvesting and cutting and was then transported to the processing facility.

Several factors likely reduced the risk for rabies virus transmission to the two Florida consumers. No rabies virus was detected in the specimen, the bat’s cranium was intact, and the salad was rinsed before packaging, thereby diluting any potential virus. In addition, mucosal membrane exposures have rarely been proven to result in rabies disease, and rabies virus does not survive more than a few days outside a host (2). Although this exposure was likely of low risk, this investigation was an example of effective industry and government collaboration to remove a product of concern from the marketplace rapidly to protect consumers.

‘Notes from the Field: Postexposure Prophylaxis for Rabies After Consumption of a Prepackaged Salad Containing a Bat Carcass — Florida, 2017

Weekly / October 27, 2017 / 66(42);1154–1155, Vikram Krishnasamy, MD1,2; Matthew R. Mauldin, PhD3; Matthew E. Wise, PhD2; Ryan Wallace, DVM3; Laura Whitlock, MPH2; Colin Basler, DVM2; Clint Morgan, MS3; Dana Grissom4; Sherry Worley4; Danielle Stanek, DVM5; Jamie DeMent, MNS5; Pamela Yager3; William Carson3; Rene E. Condori, MS3; Yoshinori Nakazawa, PhD3; Claire Walker3; Yu Li, PhD3; Christopher Wynens, DVM6; Allison Wellman, MPH6; James Ellison, PhD3; Emily Pieracci, DVM

https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/66/wr/mm6642a7.htm?s_cid=mm6642a7_w

17 sick: Trichinosis outbreak linked to brown bear meat in Russia

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Robert Herriman of Outbreak News Today reports that at least 17 people, including several children have contracted the parasitic infection, trichinosis, after eating smoked brown bear cub in Kataiga village in the Tomsk region of Russia.

“The fact of poisoning is confirmed, 12 people were hospitalized, one victim was taken to Tomsk to SibGMU clinics.” All in all, there are 17 cases of trichinosis. “In total, 29 cases of poisoning were detected in the region,” said EDDU employee Verkhneketskiy district.

The head of Verkheketsk district, Alexey Sidikhin, said: ‘The bear was killed in the summer, if not in the spring.

We are now looking for the hunters on our own. They also need to be warned that there is a risk of serious illness.’

Some meat was smoked, some salted. The hunters gifted the meat to villagers.

Village chief Ivan Nasonov said: ‘We have seized 57 kilograms of bear meat.

‘Some was sent analysis, some was destroyed.’