European Union takes a stand against food fraud

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Anadolu Agency reports

The European Union said it will take more measures against food fraud cases after a contaminated eggs scandal touched 24 out of 28 member states this year.
“Misdoings and fraudulent practices of a few should not have such devastating effects,” EU Commissioner Vytenis Andriukaitis said in a statement after the high-level meeting in Brussels.
The commissioner said the bloc will improve “risk communication” between the member states to make sure the general public learns about such incidents in a “more coherent and swift way.”
He warned that a lack of transparency could “eventually lead to destruction of trust in particular [of the] food industry,” Andriukaitis added. The European Commission is planning to present more proposals to an upcoming the Council of the EU meeting on Oct. 9-10. The measures include creating common risk assessment on incidents, stretching the rapid alert system for food and holding training and regular crisis exercises. The origin of the egg contamination was detected in poultry in the Netherlands and has led to the closure of 200 farms in the country. Since July 20, millions of eggs have been destroyed or taken off supermarket shelves across Europe amid fears they had been contaminated with fipronil, used in insecticide

Insulated school lunch bags-a good idea

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My wife and I have been preparing lunches for my 6-year old son since he started back at school earlier this month. He’s half Italian, half French meaning that his lunches are 5 course meals, the veal piccata needs to be refrigerated….

Stephanie Casanova reports:

Using a brown paper sack as a lunch bag for a turkey sandwich could be unsafe, according to a Kansas State University food safety specialist.
Paola Paez, research associate professor for Kansas State University’s Center of Excellence for Food Safety Research in Nutrition Programs, says instead of a brown paper bag, use insulated lunch bags and sanitize them frequently.
“If we are sending a deli sandwich or other perishable food, we don’t want to use paper bags because they cannot keep food at proper temperatures,” Paez said. “When food does not stay at the right temperatures, bacteria can grow and make food unsafe for our children to eat.”
Hot food should be kept above 140 degrees Farenheit or 60 degrees Celsius, and cold food should be kept below 41 degrees Farenheit or 5 degrees Celsius, Paez said. The food needs to be kept at safe temperatures from the refrigerator to the lunch bag to the lunch table at school. That means the lunch bag, an important variable in that process, must be insulated, Paez said.
Still, just tossing cold or hot food inside an insulated bag is not enough to keep it properly chilled or warmed until lunch time, Paez said.
For cold food, she recommends placing two frozen items — such as two ice packs or an ice pack and a frozen water bottle — on either side of the meal.
“If students bring a frozen bottle of water, it does double duty because it keeps the food cold and it will be thawed enough to drink by lunch time, so the child can stay hydrated,” Paez said.
Hot foods, such as soups, should go into insulated containers especially designed for that purpose, Paez said. Some containers are made to hold hot or cold food, but others can insulate only hot or only cold food.
“It is important to choose the right one depending on the type of food the student is bringing,” Paez said.
If packaging hot food, 10 minutes before packing the lunch, pour boiling water into the container and let it sit a few minutes. Then, dump out the boiling water, put the hot food into the container and close it tight. That process will heat the container and help the food stay hot longer, Paez said.
At the end of the day, the inside and outside of the lunch bag need to be cleaned and sanitized to prepare the bag for the next use.

 

Maybe not so slightly pink: Properly cooked pork chops may contain threat of Listeria and Salmonella for consumers

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If you are eating leftover pork chops that have not been cooked well-done, you’re putting yourself at risk for Salmonella and Listeria exposure. While many individuals prefer to consume their pork medium, a new study published in Risk Analysis: An International Journal revealed that cooking pork chops to an acceptable temperature does not completely eliminate pathogens, providing these cells with the opportunity to multiply during storage and harm consumers.  

The study, “Impact of cooking procedures and storage practices at home on consumer exposure to Listeria monocytogenes and Salmonella due to the consumption of pork meat,” found that only pork loin chops cooked well-done in a static oven (the researchers also tested cooking on a gas stove top) completely eliminated the Listeria and Salmonella pathogens. Other levels of cooking, i.e. rare and medium, while satisfying the requirements of the product temperature being greater than or equal to 73.6 degrees Celsius and decreasing the pathogen levels, did leave behind a few surviving cells which were then given the opportunity to multiply during food storage before being consumed.  

It is generally believed that when meat is heat treated to 70 degrees Celsius for two minutes, a one million cell reduction of E. coli, Salmonella, and Listeria is achieved and thus the meat is free of pathogens and safe to eat. However, a report by the European Food Safety Authority revealed that more than 57 percent of Salmonella outbreaks in 2014 were in the household/kitchen, and 13 percent were associated with inadequate heat treatment. 

“The results of this study can be combined with dose response models and included in guidelines for consumers on practices to be followed to manage cooking of pork meat at home,” says Alessandra De Cesare, PhD, lead author and professor at the University of Bologna.  

In order to assess the pathogen levels in cooked pork, the researchers, from the University of Bologna, the Institute of Food Engineering for Development and the Istituto Zooprofilattico delle Venezie, tested 160 packs of loin chop. The samples were experimentally contaminated with 10 million cells of L. monocytogenes and Salmonella to assess the reduction in pathogens after cooking, in accordance with the Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) and British Retail Consortium (BRC) specifications (ensuring a reduction of at least 100,000 and 1,000,000 cells, respectively). The samples were contaminated on the surface, to mimic contamination via slaughter and cutting.  

The samples were divided into groups to be cooked either on gas with a non-stick pan or in a static oven. In each setting, the pork chops were cooked to rare, medium, and well-done. For each cooking combination, 40 repetitions were performed for a total of 240 cooking tests.  

The researchers also interviewed 40 individuals between the ages of 20 and 60 to determine household consumer habits regarding doneness preferences. Prior published research was referenced to define meat storage practices and the probability that consumers store their leftovers at room temperature, in the refrigerator or discard them immediately. Growth rate data for the pathogens at each temperature were obtained using the software tool ComBase.  

The only cooking treatment able to completely inactivate the pathogens was oven well-done, which achieved a reduction between one and 10 million cells. Statistical analyses of the data showed significant differences related to level of cooking and cooking procedure. However, the researchers explained that factors such as moisture, water activity, fat levels, salts, carbohydrates, pH, and proteins can impact the cooking treatment and effectiveness and, as a consequence, on bacteria survival. These results emphasize the needs to consider the form of pork (such as whole muscle versus ground) being cooked, in addition to the final temperature necessary to inactivate pathogens.  

The results show that a reduction between one and 10 million of pathogen cells was reached when applying all of the tested cooking treatments, with product temperatures always reaching 73.6 degrees Celsius or greater. However, according to the simulation results using the obtained cell growth rates, the few surviving cells can multiply during storage in both the refrigerator and at room temperature, reaching concentrations dangerous for both vulnerable and regular consumers.  

After storing leftovers, there was a probability for the concentration of pathogens to reach 10 cells ranging between 0.031 and 0.059 for all combinations except oven well-done. Overall, the mean level of exposure to Listeria and Salmonella at the time of consumption was one cell for each gram of meat. The results obtained from this study can be implemented in guidelines for consumers on practices to follow in order to manage cooking pork meat at home.  

 

The big banana

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We’re staying at an Airbnb and Amy is worried about poop.

Dog poop.

We’ve been in Sawtell, NSW, Australia, since Sunday, near the ocean, with Sorenne in a 4-day, full-day hockey camp, leading up to the annual Coffs Harbour Big Banana 3-on-3 Ice Skirmish.

The poop isn’t that serious, it’s just with Ted the wonder dog running around the yard, the excitement of hanging out with the kids at the arena and other dog-type burdens, Amy worries we won’t find all the poop, leading to a bad guest rating.

It’s not nearly as severe as the Mad Pooper runner, who has repeatedly defecated on the sidewalk in front of a family’s Colorado Springs house.

Cathy Budde and her kids first saw her taking a bathroom break on their property about seven weeks ago.

“They came in screaming, ‘You’re not going to believe this!’ ” Budde tells KKTV. “They’re like, ‘There’s a lady taking a poop!’ So I come outside and I was like, ‘Are you serious? Are you really taking a poop in front of my kids?’ and she’s like, ‘Yeah. Sorry.’ ”

Other people in town have since reached out to Budde, and said that they’ve seen the runner defecating outside of a Walgreens and in their backyards.

Budde has also posted a sign outside her house asking the woman to stop, but it hasn’t made a difference.

“I put a sign on the wall that’s like ‘please, I’m begging you, please stop.’ … She ran by it like 15 times yesterday, and she still pooped,” Budde says.

No one’s poop issue came up during a couple of local news segments leading into the tournament this weekend.

The Big Banana tourney started as a two-club match between Newcastle North Stars and Southern Stars from Brisbane with Coffs Harbour as the halfway meeting point for the 3-on-3 ice hockey weekend.

The tournament, now in its seventh year, includes seven clubs represented by 23 teams from NSW, QLD and ACT. Players ranging in age from 5-to 15-years-old in four different age divisions will play from the evening of Friday 29 September until Monday 2 October in the afternoon, totalling around 75 games (they’re 20-minute games). Some 150 players and their families are expected.

Amy had the bright idea to start a facebook page for the tournament

https://www.facebook.com/groups/1620931114644346/

And I helped with some media. The two local TV stations ran bits this evening (one below, both on the facebook page), and I did a radio interview which will be on ABC tomorrow a.m.

Go Stars.

NZ campy outbreak cost $21m

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In Aug. 2016, some 5,500 people in a New Zealand town of 14,000 were sickened with Campylobacter linked to the water supply and three died.

Didn’t chlorinate.

Eric Frykberg of RadioNZ reports the NZ Ministry of Health has found Havelock North’s water contamination cost about $21 million – with residents the worst affected.

The campylobacter infection hit the town last August and afflicted more than 5,000 people with illness, filling the hospital and potentially contributing to three deaths.

The investigators measured the next best thing that people could have been doing if they had not been sick. That and the value of direct costs added up to the total figure of $21,029,288.

A report commissioned by the ministry said some 5088 households were affected by the crisis, and the cost to each household was about $2440.

Those costs included the cost of people getting sick and being unable to go to work or school or carry out other tasks.

Some were unable to look after their children, while others had to drive all over town to visit doctors or to get fresh water or other supplies.

They also had to do far more laundry and cleaning.

This left the households to foot a bill of more than $12,420,000 making up the majority of all costs from the crisis.

The report also said not all consequences of the outbreak could be quantified in monetary terms, with personal stress, loss of public faith in the water supply, and “scarring” of the community adding to the societal bill.

The report said about 25 percent of the population of Havelock North was aged over 65 based on the 2013 Census, and the town also had a large number of school aged children.

8 dead, 25 hospitalized from trichinellosis in Cambodia

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Cambodia’s Ministry of Health confirmed on Tuesday an outbreak of Trichinellosis in an area in central Kampong Thom province that has left eight people dead and 25 others hospitalized.

In its statement, the ministry said 33 villagers living in Prey Long (forest) area in Sandan district had fallen ill earlier this month, about three weeks after they ate contaminated wild meat that was undercooked, and eight of them had subsequently died in recent weeks.

“The samples of 3 patients’ muscle tissue were tested by the Calmette Hospital’s laboratory and the result confirmed that there were Trichinella larvae in their muscle tissue,” the statement said.

It added that another test on the blood samples from other nine patients by a Vietnamese hospital’s laboratory confirmed that “there were eggs of Trichinalla worms” in their blood.

Cambodian Minister of Health Mam Bunheng said,  “I’d like to appeal to the people to stop eating raw or undercooked meat in order to prevent themselves from infecting Trichinellosis and other diseases.”

 

Raw is risky: 7 sick from NZ mussels

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Hawke’s Bay District Health Board is investigating four confirmed cases of Paratyphoid fever and is following up three suspect cases.

All four confirmed cases have required hospital care at Hawke’s Bay Hospital. At least two of the cases ate mussels gathered from Napier’s Ahuriri area. The district health board is also concerned that mussels from the same area, may have been eaten at a Tangi at the Tangoio Marae 11 days ago, and is following that up.

Medical Officer of Health Nick Jones said, “People with Paratyphoid can carry the (Salmonella Enterica) bacteria in their blood and in their stomach and gut so it is possible for it to be passed on through feces. Hand washing was extremely important to help prevent infecting other people as you can get paratyphoid if you eat or drink things that have been handled by a person who has the bacteria.”

 

Hepatitis A transmission: Door knob edition

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There’s a lot of hepatitis A going around in Southern California. With an outbreak going through the homeless population in a couple of counties and potential exposure of fruit cart patrons, there’s lots of paranoia.

The San Diego Tribune asks, can you get hep A from a door knob (this outbreak’s version of a toilet seat can give you HIV). My friend, colleague, and virologist extraordinaire, Lee-Ann Jaykus answers the call:

Lee-Ann Jaykus, a microbiologist at North Carolina State University who specializes in hepatitis and other types of food-borne illness, said that, while it is definitely possible for this bug to linger on a surface — maybe for weeks — it’s not likely.

She noted that only one activity is known to spread a hepatitis A infection: Accidentally ingesting a tiny amount of an infected person’s feces.

Even though this microbe is tough enough to live on surfaces for extended periods, it would take quite a large amount of material, she said, to actually have a transfer occur.
“It’s not impossible, but the chances are very slim. You would need people walking around with a lot of poop on their hands all of the time to be causing a problem in the general population,” Jaykus said.

Research shows that the chance of transference decreases with each thing that person touches after their hands are contaminated, she said. And dry surfaces tend to be less prone to collecting and holding substances than wet surfaces.

So, an infected food service worker who does not adequately wash his or her hands after going to the bathroom is more likely to transfer the illness to a moist, cold piece of lettuce while building your burger than a homeless person is to leave behind a significant contamination on the door handle of a downtown restaurant.

In all cases, Jaykus added, the bit of bad stuff would have to make it into your mouth. So, in the context of public transportation, just don’t lick anything at your local bus stop and wash your hands before putting them near your mouth. You should be just fine.

Norway: 7 infected with rare Salmonella

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Ida Louise Rostad of NRK Finnmark reports seven people in Norway have been stricken with a rare form of Salmonella.

The samples of the patients were taken at the end of August, and all are thought to be infected in Norway. Bacteria with similar DNA profiles have been detected in all seven people, says senior adviser Heidi Lange at the Public Health Institute in a press release.

The people who are infected are between 19 and 60 years old. Two people live in Finnmark, but also people from Møre og Romsdal, Sogn og Fjordane, Akershus and Oslo are infected.

The DNA profile of the bacterium has never been seen before in Norway, either in humans, animals or in foods.

“There are no symptoms beyond what we usually see, such as diarrhea, fever and abdominal pain. So it does not look like this is more serious,” says Director of the Department of Public Health Institute, Line Violence to NRK.

“Now we are working on common routines for outbreaks. We have a little work to do to get out and we know this is work that can take time, “she says.

Now the institute cooperates with the municipal health service, the Norwegian Food Safety Authority and the Veterinary Institute to investigate whether patients can have a common source of infection.

The bacterium is a rare variant of the bacterium Salmonella Typhimurium.

The Norwegian Institute of Public Health does not want to provide information on whether patients are in hospital or have been with the GP to detect infection.

Kids develop HUS in Wisconsin

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So sad. Kids developed hemolytic uremic syndrome from an E. coli infection in Wisconsin, source of contamination is unknown.

The La Crosse County Health Department is investigating eight cases of a “particularly nasty form” of the e-coli bacteria that forced the hospitalization of six children.
Some of the children have recovered and been released from the hospital, said Paula Silha, education manager at the Health Department who declined to name where the children live for privacy concerns.
The families are concerned about messages that might appear on social media, in particular, Silha said.
E-coli is a bacterial infection that is more common during the summer months. Cases can be linked or individual.
The variant in these cases, e-coli 0157, is “a particularly nasty form, which produces a toxin that can be harmful to the body organs such as the kidneys,” Silha said.
The hospitalized children had developed hemolytic uremic syndrome, a toxin that can damage kidneys, she said.
This form also is called shiga toxin-producing escherichia coli, and the Health Department is working with the Wisconsin Division of Health to contain the outbreak, Silha said.
The ongoing investigation has not identified a single source of infection or contamination.
The first reports came in early in the month, and additional people are being tested, she said.
E-coli is transmitted by eating contaminated food or water and by contact with fecal material from infected people or animals, she said.
Annual reports for the past several years indicate an average of two to three cases a year, although 30 were counted last year, Silha said, adding, “I cannot tell from the annual report if they were all related to one outbreak or if they came in a few at a time.’
Person-to-person spread of bacteria is possible and may occur in family settings, day care centers and nursing homes. Children younger than 5 and the elderly are the most susceptible to infection from e-coli.

The rest of the story can be found here.