When Amy and I agreed to marry, having both been divorced and having already bought a house together, we went and bought cheapo wedding rings, and I asked her by the car, in 2006, across from the jewelers in Manhattan, Kansas, and said, I’m too old to be engaged, let’s just get married.
Done.
Now, it’s 2017, and once again, newlyweds who want it all are grappling with Hepatitis A.
It’s like getting married and then saying one of you has chlamydia.
Ariana Lubelli of FiOS 1 reports June 10, 2017 was the day Jay and Jennifer Gorinson had been dreaming of: a wedding that seemed as perfect as can be. But in the days following, the newlyweds faced a nightmare.
“We were notified on the first day of our honeymoon of a potential infection of hepatitis A,” said Jay Gorinson, the groom.
The couple’s nearly 200 guests are at risk for Hepatitis A. The Health Department confirmed that a bartender at their wedding venue, Monteverde at Oldstone in Cortlandt Manor, was infected.
“It’s embarrassing. The first notification that I had to put out about our marriage was warning our guests, family members and loved ones about a potential virus infection,” continued Gorinson.
“All attendees essentially that may have been inside the mansion, including my 1 and 3-year-old nephew and niece, who just got vaccinated today as well and incurred about $700 worth of charges that I contacted Monteverde about today and they said it was an unfortunate circumstance and they had no further comment after that.”
Diners who enjoy a juicy burger have been warned that eating them pink in the middle is “like driving without wearing a seatbelt”.
Fiachradh McDermott of The Irish Times reports that safefood began its new campaign, “Burger Fever”, on Thursday to inform people that eating undercooked burgers could lead to serious or sometimes life-threatening food poisoning.
What she didn’t report is that color is a terrible indicator of safety, and that needle-or-blade-tenderized steaks carry the same risk as mince, so this science-based agency is publishing fairy tales.
But I’ll let the bureaucrats speak for themselves and you judge.
In an online survey conducted by safefood, 96 per cent of people considered themselves well-informed about food safety. However, 51 per cent admitted to eating undercooked burgers.
Two thirds of respondents said they would reconsider their choice if they knew there was a possibility of food poisoning.
Undercooked burgers carry the risk of E. coli, which can have long-term effects. The biggest worry is a type called VTEC, which causes severe diarrhoea.
Dr Linda Gordon, chief specialist in food science at safefood, said it can result in “frequent serious complications.” VTEC can affect the blood and kidneys, and is most serious in older people and children under five. However, it only takes as little as ten E. coli cells to make a person sick, she said.
Dr Gordon said the campaign is intended as a preventative measure, but “emphasising the difference between a burger and a steak” is an important aspect.
According to Dr Gary Kearney, director of food science at safefood, “Mince used in hamburgers is a higher risk as the food poisoning bacteria that live on the surface of the beef (steak) is then mixed through the middle of the burger when the beef is minced – so in effect, the outside is now on the inside.”
Dr Martin Cormican, Professor of Bacteriology at National University of Ireland, Galway (NUIG), emphasised the possibility and danger of contracting VTEC from undercooked meat.
“Eating burgers that are pink in the middle is a bit like driving without a seatbelt; you might get away with it for years but if something goes wrong and you are harmed, will you still think it was worth it?”
No mention of thermometer, cooking temps and hold times, just plain pandering.
Use a fucking thermometer and stick it in.
Assessment of risk communication about undercooked hamburgers by restaurant servers
E. Thomas, E,M,, Binder, A., McLaughlin, A., Jaykus, L., Hanson, D, Powell, D.A., Chapman, B. 2016.
Journal of Food Protection Vol. 79, No. 12, pp. 2113-2118
According to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration 2013 Model Food Code, it is the duty of a food establishment to disclose and remind consumers of risk when ordering undercooked food such as ground beef.
The purpose of this study was to explore actual risk communication activities of food establishment servers. Secret shoppers visited restaurants (n=265) in seven geographic locations across the U.S., ordered medium rare burgers, and collected and coded risk information from chain and independent restaurant menus and from server responses.
The majority of servers reported an unreliable method of doneness (77%) or other incorrect information (66%) related to burger doneness and safety. These results indicate major gaps in server knowledge and risk communication, and the current risk communication language in the Model Food Code does not sufficiently fill these gaps. Furthermore, should servers even be acting as risk communicators? There are numerous challenges associated with this practice including high turnover rates, limited education, and the high stress environment based on pleasing a customer. If it is determined that servers should be risk communicators, food establishment staff should be adequately equipped with consumer advisory messages that are accurate, audience-appropriate, and delivered in a professional manner so as to help their customers make more informed food safety decisions.
Freedom of speech is fundamental to western values.
Freedom of speech does not include idiocracy, and must be protected.
Nina Young writes that just a few days ago, Jordan DeRosier and her husband Justin found themselves in a living nightmare when their seven-month-old baby boy, Sloan, died suddenly in his cot.
Jordan announced Sloan’s death on her Facebook in a heartbreaking post, writing: “Our sweet rainbow warrior, your short time on this earth blessed so many. You were a gift to all who knew you, and an inspiration to all who didn’t. Your death has impacted this world, it has left an emptiness felt by so many.”
“Proof that you held with you so much light and grace. You were not able to live out our dreams for you, yet our dreams are where we will find you forever. We will forever be caught in this space between worlds, the space you now exist for us. Our longing for you is eternal, if only your life had been.”
Incredibly, although Jordan did not initially share the circumstances of her young son’s death, a number of anti-vaxxers were quick to comment online suggesting that vaccines had played a part in the tragedy. Some even went so far as to message Jordan directly to make the unfounded accusations.
The grieving mother was forced to go online and defend herself and her son’s memory writing on Facebook about the day the tragedy occurred.
“To those who keep commenting and messaging trying to blame vaccines for our sons death — stop,” she begged.
“Initially I had not wanted to explain the detailed circumstances of his death because of my guilt and the fear of condemnation from others. But I will not allow anyone to try and place blame where it does not belong.”
Jordan went on to explain that she had put her baby down to sleep with a blanket.
“He had pulled it through the crib rails somehow and gotten himself stuck in it,” she explained.
“You never think it will happen to you. You never think it will be your baby. Please do not put your babies to bed with a blanket. Please. He was seven months old, I thought because he was crawling, standing on his own, and climbing, that he would be fine with a blanket.
“This is the face of immense, unfathomable grief, the face of longing, of heartbreak, of self-inflicted GUILT. I will NEVER stop feeling responsible.”
Jordan hopes that people will learn from her experience rather than try to use it to push their own agendas.
I know all about grief and guilt.
And assholes with agendas.
I take great pride in my Friday sessions, where we share stories, struggles, and successes.
It’s making me a better person (maybe).
It’s a much better use of my time rather than sitting in yet another fucking faculty meeting, with the nerds from grade school who made it through to prof-land and feel entitled to inflict their previous abuse on grad students.
And have no intention of admitting weaknesses or self-examination.
Don and Ben are in IAFP preparation mode but take time to talk about the efficiencies of university settings; donairs, gyros, kebabs and other meat-on-a-cone offerings (and risks associated with the products); mice and norovirus; food safety is definitely competitive and iced coffee/fecal matter and the perils of using the fecal coliform assay.
NRK reports that some 50 of 300 participants became sick with Campylobacter in a cycling event in Norway.
Competitors at the start of the 2015 Tough Mudder Scotland at Drumlanrig Castle, Dumfries and Galloway
Earlier, several people were stricken by E. coli O157 in a tough mudder event which was held at Drumlanrig Castle in Scotland on June 17 and 18.
These outbreaks follow previous, numerous outbreaks involved with playing in mud.
In Norway, the reason why the cyclists have become so bad is because animal wreckage resolved after a heavy rainfall and remained in the road. This has again sprung up on the cyclists.
“Especially if the stool is fresh and there are large amounts of water, it can sprinkle on drinking bottles and hands so you get it when you drink,” said Tor Halvor Bjørnstad-Tuveng, to NRK (something may be lost in translation).
“We have been in dialogue with the management of the race, and we have some concrete measures that we will look at. We have been very unlucky with the rides of the year, but we must definitely look at what we can do to prevent it happening again, “says Bjørnstad-Tuveng.
Per Stubban was one of those who had to go to the hospital for intravenous nutrition.
“Now I’m on my way, but there have been some tough days. Next time I will not use a handheld drink bottle, but a drinking bag, and if there is as much rain as it was now, I would probably be skeptical to start, “he said.
NHS Dumfries and Galloway said “a small number of cases” of the bacteria have been found in those involved in the Tough Mudder event at Drumlanrig Castle last month.
It has advised anyone associated with the event who experiences symptoms to seek medical advice.
A spokesman for the health board said: “NHS Dumfries and Galloway can confirm that we are aware of a small number of cases of E.coli O157 across Scotland that appear to be associated with participation in the Tough Mudder event which was held at Drumlanrig Castle on June 17 and 18.
“Any activity undertaken on agricultural land inevitably involves a small risk of gastrointestinal infection.”
A spokesman for the event said: “The safety of Tough Mudder participants, spectators, volunteers and staff is our number one priority.
McDonald’s is a big, semi-popular fast-food chain in the way Semi-Tough (the movie) depicted American professional football as big and semi-popular.
When Shiga-toxin producing E.coli were discovered in 1977 (named verotoxigenic E. coli) and then the first outbreaks were linked to human illness in 1982 at McDonald’s in White City, Ore., and Traverse City, Mich., McDonald’s completely revamped its beef sourcing and cooking procedures.
Over the past three decades, I’ve heard everyone blame McDonald’s for everything, especially on food safety, and especially what used to be known as hamburger disease.
South Korean lawyers are apparently catching up to where North Americans were 25 years ago, but perpetuate semi-stereotypes.
According to The Korea Herald, a mother on Wednesday filed a complaint against McDonalds Korea, claiming her daughter was diagnosed with the “hamburger disease” after eating a burger with an undercooked patty in one of its outlets.
“The 4-year-old victim had no health problems, but caught hemolytic uremic syndrome after eating a McDonald’s hamburger,” lawyer Hwang Da-yeon said at a press conference held in front of the Seoul District Prosecutors Office, before submitting the complaint.
HUS is serious shit.
McDonald’s has known about it for a long time.
The complaint claims McDonald’s violated local food safety rules by serving contaminated meat that was not fully cooked.
The plaintiff also made a tearful plea, asking state prosecutors to investigate and hold McDonald’s Korea responsible for her daughter, who has suffered irreversible damage to her kidneys and must undergo eight to 10 hours of peritoneal dialysis on a daily basis.
According to the mother, the child ate a hamburger at a McDonald’s outlet in Gyeonggi Province in September and fell ill about three hours afterwards.
HUS is always tragic, and I wouldn’t wish it on anyone.
She was brought to an intensive care unit three days later, where she was diagnosed with HUS, a food-borne disease that can cause acute kidney failure. The child was discharged from the hospital two months later, but had lost 90 percent of her kidney function.
The McDonald’s outlet denied any link between its product and the child’s illness, saying the meat is machined-cooked, eliminating human error.
I’m not sure who’s right, but Shiga-toxin producing E. coli – the kind that lead to HUS – take 2-4 days to develop – not 3 hours.
As Kate Murphy of The New York Times explained last week, when you’re fine one minute and barfing the next – what the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention calls an acute gastrointestinal event — happens to all of us at least once a year. The bouts, while extremely unpleasant, usually don’t occasion a trip to the doctor or require any medication.
But such events tend to make us spin our gears trying to pinpoint what made us so miserably sick. While it’s hard to know for sure, there are clues that might help you determine the source and reduce your risk in the future.
“People tend to blame the last thing they ate, but it’s probably the thing before the last thing they ate,” said Dr. Deborah Fisher, a gastroenterologist and associate professor at Duke University School of Medicine.
It takes the stomach around four to six hours to empty a full meal, and then the small intestine takes about six to eight hours to squeeze out all the nutrients and empty into the colon. The remains linger there for another one to three days, fermenting and being formed into what ultimately is flushed down the toilet. So-called bowel transit time varies significantly from person to person, but gastroenterologists said you can easily find out what’s normal for you by eating corn and watching for when the indigestible kernels appear in your stool.
Gross, perhaps, but with that baseline, the next time you get sick, you’ll be better able to estimate when you might have eaten the offending meal. For example, if you throw up something and don’t have diarrhea or roiling further down, it could be that what made you ill was something you ate within the last four to six hours. If you wake up in the middle of the night with cramps and diarrhea, it’s more likely something you consumed a good 18 to 48 hours earlier, depending on the results of your corn test.
We stopped at a McDonald’s on the way home from the Glass Mountains yesterday. Quality was semi-OK, but safety was there.
(No McDonald’s money was involved in this blog post; there was no money at all; I just like to write).
Two children died from E. coli in southern Utah in recent weeks, the Southwest Utah Public Health Department confirmed Monday, as reported by KSL.
Four other incidents of E. coli have also been reported in the area of the border towns of Hildale and Colorado City, Arizona, said Southwest Utah Public Health Department spokesman David Heaton.
The incidents are limited to that area, he said.
The cause for the outbreak is still being investigated, but health officials believe it can likely be traced to contamination from food or animals. Heaton says investigators don’t think the town’s water supply is the cause.
Before Monday, Heaton had refused to confirm the deaths. He declined Monday to release the names, ages or genders of the two children who died. He said the four non-fatal cases are a combination of children and adults but said he didn’t have the exact breakdown. Some of them are still being treated, though none of their conditions were released.
Multiple people who identified themselves as relatives of 6-year-old Gabriella Addison Fullerton indicated on Facebook that she was one of the victims who died. On a GoFundMe webpage* published Friday seeking donations for funeral costs, loved ones called Gabrielle “our little angel” who “has passed on to a better place.”
“Her family is completely devastated at losing such a precious and loving child. She was taken at the tender age of 6. … Hold your babies close every chance you get,” the page states.
Both Hildale and Colorado City are well-known for being largely polygamous communities, with many residents being members of the Fundamentalist Church of Latter-Day Saints.
For someone who took up skating and then hockey (the ice kind, Australians) within the past two years, it was with great pride and reminescence of many a Chapman garbage goal that Amy got her first goal tonight in an all womens’ game.
When Sorenne was turning 5, we were driving through the U.S. south on our way to Florida from Kansas after flying from Australia, and asked her where she wanted to eat for her birthday.
Ronny Chieng may be known to barfbloggers as the Malaysian correspondent on The Daily Show with Trevor Noah, and his shit is funny.
And the dude knows food.
Kylie Northover of Melbourne’s The Age writes when asked about places to dine in Melbourne (that’s in Australia), Chieng swiftly sent back a small list of his favourite places – and a link, no less, to his own restaurant website.
Less food blog than a comprehensive list of cafes, restaurants and bars, Chieng’s site, I’m OK with Anything, also features his bio, links to buy merchandise and his agent details, but it’s foremost a comprehensive “guide to eating, drinking and playing in Melbourne city”.
“This is right up my alley,” Chieng says when we meet at his first choice, Malaysian cafe Aunty Franklee, in the city. “I’m all about this.”
Chieng loves his food, and when he moved here from Singapore to study law and commerce, he was shocked at the lack of late-night food options. This only got worse when he started comedy. But he’s seen a shift, and says it’s usually the Asian places that have spearheaded later opening hours.
“That then forces other places to start doing it too,” Chieng says. “When you do comedy shows, you usually don’t finish until about 11pm, then you have this adrenaline dump and you get hungry. There’s Supper Club and a couple of places but it used to be you had to settle for one of those shitty Lygon Street places; it’s good they’re open but the food is usually awful. That’s why I started the list.”
Visiting comedians would ask for recommendations and he would send out an email.
“That evolved into the website; now I just send people the link.”
Ronny Chieng Photo Credit: Comedy Central
His site covers brunch, lunch, dinner, late openings and bars, and while he doesn’t rate restaurants as such, he does differentiate between prices and “moods”, like “fancy but not super fancy”.
“Sometimes you feel like a $15 meal and sometimes you feel like a $30 one.”
Chieng is fussy about his Malaysian food, and Aunty Franklee, inside the Exford Hotel, serves the best char kwai teow, a hawker flat noodle dish, he’s had in Melbourne.
“It’s a dish that I judge all Malaysian restaurants by,” he says. “It’s hard to get this taste outside of Malaysia, and this is the best I’ve had.”
Chieng orders that and the Bak kut teh, a traditional pork rib dish cooked in a fragrant broth made with 23 herbs, for us to share.
Starters are not really a thing in Malaysian cuisine, he says.
“And there’s no rules – it’s very informal,” Chieng says. “You can even use your hands. In fact, I’m probably the best dressed person ever to walk in here.”
Born in Malaysia but raised mostly in Singapore, Chieng moved to Melbourne to study and in one of those almost unbelievable scenarios, decided to try out at an open mic night – despite never having harboured any desire to be a comedian – and found, with his deadpan delivery, he was an instant hit.
Was he always funny?
“I don’t think so,” he says, although that deadpan thing makes it hard to tell. “I gave it a try, just to confirm my suspicions, really.”
That was in 2009, in the final year of his studies – and when he couldn’t get a legal job, he chose comedy. By 2012, he’d won the best newcomer award at the Melbourne International Comedy Festival, and was already touring the major comedy festivals.
And what does his Mum, who, as fans would know, often features in his material, make of his throwing away 10 years of study?
He says she’s “very happy” he got his degrees.
“She’s surprisingly OK – she never once mentioned anything about being part of my stand-up,” he says, again with a tone.
In late 2015, he was headhunted for US comedy news program The Daily Show after host Jon Stewart’s departure. His replacement, comic Trevor Noah, emailed Chieng out of the blue and asked him to come on board as a correspondent. Chieng was on tour at the time, and, as one would, accepted the gig right away.
He didn’t even have time to tell his parents before the news broke in the media.
“I moved straight from the UK to New York – I didn’t even come back to Australia.”
It has been “intense”. “Living in in New York is intense anyway but then with the Trump thing it became even more so,” he says.
On top of the long hours, for many months Chieng was co-writing his sitcom, International Student, via Skype, with Declan Fay in Australia.
“Not to mention I got married last September,” he says.
He married his Australian-Vietnamese fiancee at City Hall in New York, but he’s not getting out of it that easily, with two more “proper” weddings being planned.
“Mum was OK about it but we are getting married again in Melbourne and then again in Kuala Lumpur for my family,” he says. “The Asian wedding is coming!”
He also says no to a beer with lunch, but for less health-conscious reasons.
“The photos will turn out weird if I drink – I have one and my face goes red.”
Much like his character in International Student, one of six comedy pilots shown on ABC last year through its Comedy Showroom initiative, Chieng’s was the first to be made into a full series.
Based “loosely” on his experiences as a student at Melbourne University, it’s a comic look at student life when you’re straddling the cultural divides between locals and foreigners.
It is, Chieng says, an under-explored story.
“It’s all based on stuff that actually happened – I mean, nobody really broke a photocopier, but we had drinking games and I went out of my way to participate in one to get out of my comfort zone,” he says. ” I don’t think you can go through Melbourne Uni without doing a ‘boat race’, for example,” he says of the drinking game in the show’s pilot episode.
When Chieng arrived here, he knew only his sister.
“Usually the international students stick to themselves, but I wanted to make a point of making friends with other students, not just the international ones. I made friends with the locals.”
The series is co-produced by The Comedy Channel in the US, where it will also screen and Chieng reckons despite it being Australian, it will translate to America, where tales of college life are almost their own genre.
As for what lies ahead, Chieng has no definite plan.
“I come from the corporate world where everyone has a five-year plan, but performing arts doesn’t work that way; you just kinda do the best job you can with the gig you’ve got.”
International Student is on ABC, Wednesdays at 9pm, and on ABC iview (that’s the Australian one).
Done.
