Raw is risky: Eating raw pig liver from Singapore market may increase risk of hepatitis E

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Danielle Ann of Alvinology reports researchers at the Singapore General Hospital have found definite similarities between the virus strains of Hepatitis E virus or (HEV) in pig liver and human liver.

This means that ingesting raw pork liver could mean you’re ingesting a strain of HEV that’s similar enough to human HEV that it could cause you get infected.

The same report said that people who have contracted HEV has risen steadily over the years. While the researchers could not say if the ingestion of raw pig liver is the main cause of the rise in cases, many local dishes feature this ingredient and do not cook the meat thoroughly.

The same report said that you can acquire the disease from eating contaminated food or substances. Ingesting water that is laced with the disease or accidentally drinking water that has trace amounts of faeces. Eating raw or half-cooked meat that is infected can also transmit the virus to you.

Virginia: Who pees on food?

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Bill Wyatt of the Martinsville Bulletin reports two men have been indicted on charges that one of them urinated on food product at Monogram Foods in Martinsville while the other made a video that was used in an attempt to extort money from the company.

Maurice V. Howard and Devin Jamar Stockton, employees of the janitorial company that services Monogram’s plant, were indicted Aug. 8 for tampering with consumer products, conspiracy to tamper with consumer products and extortion.

A three-count indictment issued by a Federal Grand Jury in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Virginia, Danville Division said that Stockton is alleged to have videotaped Howard urinating on food and on a door and doorjamb inside the Monogram manufacturing plant at 200 Knauss Drive in Martinsville on or about Feb. 21 and then attempted to extort money from Monogram and Packers Sanitation Services Inc. between March 1 and March 6.

The two men have been arrested and scheduled for trial in February in Danville.

An application for a search warrant filed Oct. 3 by FBI Special Agent Matthew S. Marlowe with the U.S. District Court Clerk’s Office in Roanoke linked the charges to an Apple iCloud account and describes how investigators used that account to build their cases against Howard and Stockton.

Funky duck: Processor goes full tilt on transparency

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The kids in my lab had me buy a video camera in 1999 so we could film stuff and put it on the Intertubes long before youtube existed (and film my 2000 Ivan Parkin lecture at IAFP when I got turned away at the U.S. border).

Twenty years later, Leesburg, Ind.-based Maple Leaf Farms is offering a behind-the-scenes look at its duck farms with its new #MLFarmToFork campaign that focuses on transparency and the company’s commitment to operating responsibly.

According to Rita Jane Gabbett of Meating Place, Maple Leaf Farms will highlight its farm-to-fork process on social media through behind-the-scenes videos, farmer interviews and more.

“We want consumers to know the story behind our duck and our desire for continuous improvement,” explained Maple Leaf Farms Duck Marketing Manager Olivia Tucker. “We’re proud of our animal husbandry practices, our facilities and our people, and we want to showcase how vertical integration allows Maple Leaf Farms to produce the highest quality duck on the market.”

To explain vertical integration and how it benefits the entire supply chain, Maple Leaf Farms has created an animated video that outlines the production process and how products get to consumers’ tables. You can view the video at www.tinyurl.com/MLFarmtoFork.

Food fraud: People are still drinking bleach and barfing

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The U.S. Food and Drug Administration says that unscrupulous sellers have sold “miracle” bleach elixirs for decades, claiming that they can cure everything from cancer to HIV/AIDS, hepatitis, flu, hair loss, and more. Some have promoted it to parents as a way to cure autism in children.

The health claims are false, not to mention abhorrent. When users prepare the solution as instructed, it turns into the potent bleaching agent chlorine dioxide, which is an industrial cleaner. It’s toxic to drink and can cause severe diarrhea, vomiting, life-threatening low blood pressure, acute liver failure, and damage to the digestive tract and kidneys.

Stocknews Brief reports that poison control centers across the country have seen 16,500 cases involving chlorine dioxide since 2014. At least 50 of those cases were deemed life-threatening. Eight people died.

FDA says that the products have been hard to scrub out because of claims on social media, where the drinks are promoted along with false health information.

Salmonella, E. coli O157, Listeria, Campy: 1.9 million foodborne illnesses in US per year

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In an ongoing effort to understand sources of foodborne illness in the United States, the Interagency Food Safety Analytics Collaboration (IFSAC) collects and analyzes outbreak data to produce an annual report with estimates of foods responsible for foodborne illnesses caused by pathogens. The report estimates the degree to which four pathogens – Salmonella, E. coli O157, Listeria monocytogenes, and Campylobacter – and specific foods and food categories are responsible for foodborne illnesses.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) estimates that, together, these four pathogens cause 1.9 million foodborne illnesses in the United States each year. The newest report (PDF), entitled “Foodborne illness source attribution estimates for 2017 for Salmonella, Escherichia coli O157, Listeria monocytogenes, and Campylobacter using multi-year outbreak surveillance data, United States,” can be found on the IFSAC website.

The updated estimates, combined with other data, may help shape agency priorities and inform the creation of targeted interventions that can help to reduce foodborne illnesses caused by these pathogens. As more data become available and methods evolve, attribution estimates may improve. These estimates are intended to inform and engage stakeholders and to improve federal agencies’ abilities to assess whether prevention measures are working.

Foodborne illness source attribution estimates for 2017 for salmonella, Escherichia coli O157, listeria monocytogenes, and campylobacter using multi-year outbreak surveillance data, United States, Sept.2019

CDC, FDA, USDA-FSIS

https://www.cdc.gov/foodsafety/ifsac/pdf/P19-2017-report-TriAgency-508.pdf?deliveryName=DM10264

Face the face: USDA to pay Tyson Foods $1 million settlement

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Tyson Foods has, according to KATV, negotiated a settlement with the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) for $1 million.

The settlement is linked to a lawsuit in which the meat processor said a federal meat inspector lied about inspecting hogs at its Storm Lake, Iowa, plant, forcing the company to destroy 8,000 carcasses and resulting in $2.4 million in losses and expenses.

Tyson Foods filed suit against the government agency in May after an inspector signed inspection cards for 4,622 hogs at the Storm Lake facility. The antemortem inspections were never actually conducted by the agency in person as the report stated.

The meat giant was able to show the courts the inspector never left her car but signed the cards without seeing the hogs.

Tyson Foods said it incurred losses of $2.48 million from the false reports. By the time it learned of the alleged actions, the negligently inspected hogs had been intermingled into a larger group of some 8,000 hog carcasses and therefore could no longer be positively identified and the entire group had to be destroyed.

“This was an unfortunate situation and we appreciate the USDA for working with us to address our losses. We take our commitment to food safety very seriously and look forward to a continued partnership with the USDA,” Tyson Foods spokesman Worth Sparkman told Talk Business & Politics in an email statement.

It’s the Montgomery Burns Award for outstanding achievement: USDA edition

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The Association of Public and Land-Grant Universities (APLU) and the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s National Institute of Food and Agriculture (NIFA) today announced the recipients of their excellence in agricultural research awards. The awards will be presented at the 132nd APLU Annual Meeting, Nov.10-12 in San Diego, California.

Who writes this shit.

The awards honor research excellence in three categories – National Excellence in Multistate Research, Excellence in Research Leadership, and National Experiment Station Section Diversity and Inclusion. APLU, NIFA, and the Experiment Station Section of APLU’s Board on Agriculture Assembly present the awards annually.

“Research efforts of our nation’s land-grant universities develop and harness 21st century science-based knowledge and solutions required to improve crop yield and quality, nutritional value, food safety, the environment, and other advances that will drive rural prosperity and economic development,” said NIFA Director J. Scott Angle. “NIFA is proud to be a contributor to these successful research endeavors through our agricultural investments. It gives me great honor to congratulate this year’s award recipients.”

Who talks like this? No one.

The National Excellence in Multistate Research Award recognizes experiment station scientists who are conducting exemplary research and outreach efforts across multiple states. The 2019 award goes to a multidisciplinary team of researchers and extension educators from 39 institutions from across the United States whose work focused on enhancing microbial food safety using risk analysis. The group tackled complex problems across the food production and processing systems like examining foodborne pathogens and food contamination processes and developing devices to help improve food pathogen prediction and detection. The group has helped improve food safety policy, developed novel irrigation water quality assessment tools, and implemented interventions to protect produce from pathogens. They’ve also developed learning materials for the food industry and consumers.

The Excellence in Research Leadership Award recognizes individuals who have served with exemplary distinction, enhancing regional and national research missions, as well as the land-grant ideal. Individuals must have multiple extraordinary service activities, contribute to systematic efforts to enhance diversity and inclusion, as well as significant accomplishments in the agricultural sciences.

The 2019 Leadership recipients are:

Joe P. Colletti, Senior Associate Dean in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences at Iowa State University, for tireless advocacy for team science and science with practice;

Cameron Faustman, former Associate Dean College of Agriculture, Health, and Natural Resources and Associate Director of Storrs Agricultural Experiment Station at the University of Connecticut, for strong engagement and impact with the region’s research association;

Bret W. Hess, former Director of Wyoming Agricultural Experiment Station and Associate Dean for research, College of Agriculture and Natural Resources, University of Wyoming for enthusiastic and visionary advancements with strategic initiatives;

Saied Mostaghimi, Director, Virginia Agricultural Experiment Station and Associate Dean for Research and Graduate Studies, College of Agriculture and Life Sciences, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University as an advocate for interdisciplinary research collaborations in agriculture and natural resources; and

Mortimer H. Neufville, President and Chief Executive Officer, 1890 Universities Foundation known for creating and implementing mission-aligned academic, research and Extension programs.

The National Experiment Station Section Diversity and Inclusion Award recognizes an individual’s work to empower groups and effectively enhance inclusion within organizations. The award recognizes efforts that aspire to achieve consistent, holistic and inclusive excellence. The 2019 award goes to Jeff Jacobsen, North Central Regional Association Executive Director, for his leadership and team management in crafting and implementing strategies that champion a long-term diversity and inclusion agenda for the 1862 Experiment Stations (ES) and 1890 research programs at Land-grant Institutions. A permanent Diversity Catalyst Committee was created and consistently catalyzes a long-term change in ES culture that promotes diversity and inclusion with research leaders and their research communities.
 
 

Don’t spread poop spread kindness

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So to the couple of readers who took me to task recently. I’ll say the same thing I did in 1986; go publish your own paper and stop complaining.

You want food safety for free?

Amanda Woods of the New York Post  writes the Windy City has its own “Mad Pooper.”

Ke Hu, 46, was busted on Oct. 15 in Chicago’s south side neighborhood of Bridgeport after authorities identified him as a man “wanted for using feces and food to deface vehicles and storefronts” back in June, The Chicago Sun-Times reported.

Police say Hu wore white gloves and carried a brown paper bag as he traipsed through the neighborhood in the early morning hours, smearing dung all over people’s property, the paper reported. Video posted to YouTube by Book Club Chicago catches the crappy culprit in the act — targeting a parked SUV.

He mostly defaced parked cars, but once sullied a storefront, according to the report. It was not immediately clear if the poop was Hu’s own.

Oh and most people in Brisbabe think that Canada ends in Banff.

Pete Townsend’s solo career was so much more interesting.

Australia: 15 people stricken with Salmonella after Core Powerfoods recall

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Emily Olle of 7 News reports 15 people have been struck with salmonella following a national recall of frozen meals sold at Coles and IGA supermarkets.

Core Powerfoods issued a recall of their frozen meals, including the 310g or 350g Going Nuts, Deep South Chilli, Muay Thai Meatballs, Holy Meatballs, Naked

SA Health’s Dr Fay Jenkins said South Australians should throw out their products, with three South Australians among those affected.

 “There have been 15 cases of Salmonella Weltevreden in people who ate these products nationally and we are urging anyone with these meals in their freezers to throw them away or return them to where they bought them,” Jenkins said.

“While this particular type of Salmonella is unusual, any kind of Salmonella poses serious health risks and symptoms of infection can begin anywhere between six and 72 hours after exposure and last for three to seven days.”

So hard done by: Not

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I built this electronic community originally as the Food Safety Network beginning in Jan. 1993. I consider it one big food safety family.

I provided a health update, not because I sought sympathy, but because I thought I should let the family know what was going on and why my writing had declined.

Australia is currently burning, and every time someone who has just lost everything is interviewed, they talk about how grateful they are for what they have and how they will plunge ahead.

It’s the Australian way, and I am very much of that attitude.

I am not wallowing, I am grateful that Deb will be here in a few minutes for the next four hours (not sure we can go for a walk, there is so much smoke in Brisbane from the fires 100km away that health warnings have been issued).

I’ll continue to teach her about hockey (in Australia you have to call it ice hockey).

And look at these two. They have arrived in Paris, where it’s 5C, and they have no winter clothes, because we are spoiled in Brisbane.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

They’ll figure it out and have a great time.

How blessed am I to have so much family?