The study examines the influence, and potential confluence, of message framing and issue involvement on consumer food safety perceptions. We assess the impact of gain and loss-framed messages and issue involvement on perceptions of two food safety enhancing technologies, cattle vaccines against E. coli and direct-fed microbials.
A survey with six information treatments was developed. Empirical results show that both loss-framed and gain-framed messages were persuasive in influencing safety perceptions of the two technologies under low issue involvement. Under high issue involvement, however, only the loss-framed message influenced consumers’ safety perceptions. High issue involvement also heightened concerns about foodborne infections.
Shaping food safety perceptions: The Influence of informational nudges
About 18 months ago, I sat on a bench in Brisbane and my iPhone 7 fell out of my pocket.
Someone picked it up.
Two nights ago the Queensland police e-mailed me and said they found it.
We had traced the phone using findmyphone, but it was an apartment complex about 2 km away and couldn’t get a specific signal.
I had filed a police report with the serial number, but insurance wouldn’t cover it, so I figured it was just another technology tragedy (also why I use a computer from 2012 because I’ll just drop it, why I used an iPhone 5 for years, because I’d just drop it, why I have to concentrate when I walk, because I’ll just fall over).
And then, after 18 months, the phone shows up at the West End police station.
They wouldn’t or couldn’t tell me how they came into possession of it, my beautiful wife drove me to the police station, and daughter Sorenne now has a nice upgrade to her iPhone 5.
And since this is personally weird post, here’s a picture of when I was about 3 on Grandpa Homer’s tractor (the asparagus baron) that my mother sent along. She’s 77 and flying to Australia to be with me for a week.
The man who led the investigation into the 2005 E. coli O157 outbreak in the UK that killed Mason Jones and sickened about 160 children wrote in the Daily Mail the other day that,
almost two weeks have passed since news emerged of a listeria outbreak linked to ready-made sandwiches provided to patients in hospitals.
Yet until yesterday we had been told absolutely nothing beyond the names of four hospital trusts where some of the patients died or where others had fallen ill.
Last night, we learned that one of the victims was Ian Hitchcock, 52, a businessman and father of twins, from Crich in Derbyshire.
Our thoughts must go to his grieving family. But as a scientist I also have to ask why it has taken so long for even this sliver of information to be shared?
The health authorities have a duty to ensure no more people are put at risk of death. And to try to ensure that we — as doctors, scientists and indeed the wider public — all need to know more about those who got sick and recovered, or who succumbed to listeriosis, a potentially fatal form of food poisoning. This is not out of prurience, but to better safeguard the health of others.
Listeria can present in various ways — which is why diagnosis is so difficult — but among the complications are sepsis and meningitis, two of the nastiest and hardest illnesses to treat. Anyone at risk should know about it sooner rather than later.
Remarkably, and in my view wrongly, the information needed is largely being denied to us. It is only after pressure from the Daily Mail that any details at all have been released.
Tory MP Nadine Dorries, a former nurse, this week called for ‘full transparency and openness about those who have died’.
She added: ‘I don’t understand why they don’t tell us the age or sex — or what conditions they were in hospital for. All these would be relevant.’
She is right. It is in the public interest that the age, gender and reason why the victims were originally admitted to hospital are released as a matter of urgency.
If, for example, a high percentage of victims in the latest outbreak were aged over 80, then that would be helpful to know, allowing doctors and nurses to pay close attention to that demographic.
If more men than women have died — and listeria infections are generally more common in men — that would be highly relevant, too.
I’m old enough to remember the Aberdeen typhoid outbreak of 1964. In that case the names and addresses of the 400 or so infected people, who had all eaten corned beef from Argentina, were printed in the local paper almost before they’d seen a doctor. Miraculously, none of them died.
I’m not, of course, advocating a return to that level of media scrutiny. But as a bacteriologist who has spent much of his career investigating the medical consequences of poor food hygiene, I do know that — now, and for some time to come — it will be to the wider community’s benefit if there is full disclosure of facts relevant to protecting the public’s health.
In the course of my career, I’ve headed two public inquiries into outbreaks of illness caused by the better-known bacterial infection, E. coli. In both cases the public received far more information than has been released this time. One was an outbreak at schools in South Wales in 2005. This was rapidly traced back to a single butcher.
The other, which turned out to be the deadliest outbreak of this particular form of E. coli in recent British history, hit central Scotland in 1996 and was again linked to one meat supplier. A hospital, an old people’s home and a pub were all affected.
Some 21 people died in that outbreak. Thanks to strategic and considered release of information, however, doctors knew that although some children as young as 10 were infected and became seriously ill, the elderly were at the highest risk of dying. Treatment was adjusted accordingly.
Yet Public Health England (PHE) has restricted itself to a mealy-mouthed statement, saying: ‘We never confirm any information about patients affected unless there is a risk to the public’s health. Confirmation of those details is a matter for families and their doctors.’
But hang on a minute. This is an outbreak of a potentially fatal bacterial disease that has already claimed five lives in hospitals across England. We know the company at the centre of the outbreak, the Good Food Chain, supplied 43 NHS trusts, and other patients have been infected by sandwiches or salads contaminated by listeria. And we know the bacterium has a long incubation period.
So how can PHE be so certain there is no further ‘risk to the public’s health’?
The first inquests into the deaths of victims — Ian Hitchcock, who was treated at the Royal Derby Hospital, and another patient treated at Manchester Royal Infirmary where two other patients died — open tomorrow.
It is likely there will be inquests into the deaths of the other three victims, too.
But if PHE took responsibility for aggregating the information of all those who have died, stripping it of anything that could identify individuals (a particularly rare illness, for example), I believe that would safely balance confidentiality concerns with the very real need for more information.
The fact is that mounting public unease would be hugely reduced if patients, together with their concerned families, knew what the dangers were and their level of risk.
A small minority would then know they had valid concerns and could seek advice from their doctor accordingly.
The sandwiches linked to the outbreak have now been removed from the food chain, but a threat of infection remains — and will continue to do so for a few weeks yet.
We need to know who is at the highest risk — and we need that information now. Without it, there is a real danger that more people will die needlessly as a result of the authorities’ shameful silence.
Tom Karst of The Packer writes U.S. growers are using less risky irrigation sources and are sanitizing their equipment more often than 20 years ago.
Geez that’s about how long my group was doing on-farm food safety and looking at those exact questions.
Guess on-farm food safety is just a John Prine song.
Those observations are part of a new study called “Changes in U.S. Produce Grower Food Safety Practices from 1999 to 2016,” authored by economists Gregory Astill, Travis Minor and Suzanne Thornsbury.
“Since 1999, and before the implementation of U.S. Standards for the Growing, Harvesting, Packing, and Holding of Produce for Human Consumption, the share of growers who use practices that reduce the risk of microbial contamination increased,” the study concluded.
The study said fewer growers use flowing surface water for irrigation and more growers use well water. As organic production has increased over time, the study found that more growers use manure and compost. And while more growers’ fields are next to livestock, the authors said more growers use fencing around production areas.
“The most prominent example of change is the increase in frequency that growers and sanitize harvest tools,” the study said. “The decrease in growers who never wash harvest tools is drastic as is the decrease in those who never sanitize.”
Even with the increase in food safety practices, the study said more needs to be done.
“The data available for this article also demonstrates a real need to implement more frequent measures of food safety practices within this rapidly evolving industry,” the authors said.
I take pride in my Birmingham and Newport, Wales roots, as well as a lot of Ontario (that’s in Canada) but the UK government’s continued insistence that food be cooked to piping hot is not only unscientific, but just stupid.
This paper sounds nice, but will have no effect.
Chapman, I never got those Comarks, and need about 100 so I can keep improving food safety, one tip-sensitive digital thermometer at a time.
Improper cooking of meat contributes to many foodborne illnesses worldwide. The use of meat thermometers during cooking is recommended by food safety authorities in North America, but not yet in Europe. This scoping review investigated meat thermometer usage trends, consumers’ barriers and facilitators, and usage-enhancing interventions, with the aim of informing potential policy changes as necessary towards enhancing meat thermometers usage.
The study revealed that Europe is far behind North America in meat thermometer research and consumer use. The study results highlighted the increased compliance among mid-aged and higher socio-economic consumer groups. A considerable percentage of people do not use a meat thermometer, despite owning one and knowing its importance.
Barriers to meat thermometer usage among consumers included: cooking habits, non-practicality, and the influence of society and media, whereas responsibility to dependents and enhancing meat quality were strong facilitators. Intervention studies showed that knowledge gain does not necessarily translate to behavior change, unless consumers’ barriers and facilitators are addressed; hence behavioral theory-based interventions were most effective. The review concludes with recommendations for food safety authorities, starting with filling the research gap to understand consumers’ attitudes and behaviors, followed by implementation and scaling-up of evidence-based interventions, associated with cost-effectiveness studies.
Is scoping now a cool word?
Meat thermometer usage amongst European and North American consumers: A scoping review”
Dec.19
Food Control
Sarah Elshahat, Jayne V. Woodside, Michelle C. McKinley
Readers know I’m a fan of restaurant inspection disclosure results, and now, so is Finland.
Disclosure systems for official food safety inspection results have been introduced in many countries including Finland in order to increase compliance of food business operators (FBOs). Although the disclosure systems are intended to affect FBOs, few studies have been published on FBOs’ experiences of these systems.
To investigate FBOs’ opinions of disclosed food safety inspections in Finland, a questionnaire was distributed in 2016. The questionnaire study also aimed to recognize factors affecting compliance and disagreements about gradings with a special focus on FBOs’ risk perception. In total 1277 responses from FBOs in retail (n=523), service (n=507) and industry (n=247) sectors revealed that the majority of FBOs perceived the disclosure to promote correction of non-compliance. However, many FBOs disagreed with the grading of inspection findings.
Most common topics of disagreements were maintenance of premises, record-keeping of own-check plan and adequacy and suitability of premises for operations. Logistic regression analysis showed that the likelihood of occurrence of disagreements with grading was higher among those retail and service FBOs with a lower risk perception. Similarly, the occurrence of non-compliance was associated with FBOs’ risk perception in all sectors. Thus, FBOs need proper guidance on food safety risks. These results can be used to improve the efficacy of disclosed food safety inspections.
Food business operators’ opinions on disclosed food safety inspections and occurrence of disagreements with inspector grading, 05 June 2019
I always prefer the data of a thermometer, but yeah, this looks raw.
A Gold Coast, Australia man has been left outraged after biting into a McDonald’s chicken burger only to find it was still raw half way through eating it.
Joseph Kim took to Facebook on Saturday to share photos of the uncooked burger which he claims could’ve potentially harmed him and his whole family.
Mr Kim said his daughter and wife had delivered his meal to his job after picking up lunch for their family at McDonald’s in Upper Coomera.
At first glance, he noticed his Chicken Crispy Clubhouse burger hadn’t been assembled properly, but didn’t think anything of it.
Mr Kim proceeded to ‘dive’ right into his meal, getting half way through his burger before making the stomach-churning discovery
In a statement to the Gold Coast Bulletin, a McDonald’s spokesperson said they were ‘disappointed’ over the incident, while adding: ‘We take food safety very seriously and have strict processes and systems in place.’
Don and Ben are joined by friend, listener and co-host of Do By Friday, Max Temkin. The show starts when Don surprises Ben with our special guest. Max brings the guys a bunch of great food safety questions about tomato paste and the nuances of expiration dates, sous vide, jerky and grinding your own meat. They talk about frozen berries, what triggers recalls and what they look for in a company or industry that is doing good food safety things. The episode ends on a story on how Cards Against Humanity became a food processor (sort of).
When someone says a blue-ribbon panel summarized results on the prevention of foodborne Cyclospora outbreaks, I think blue-ribbons is talking about jams or Holsteins at county fairs.
She was sick for weeks.
On June 12, 1996, Ontario’s chief medical officer, Dr. Richard Schabas, issued a public health advisory on the presumed link between consumption of California strawberries and an outbreak of diarrheal illness among some 40 people in the Metro Toronto area. The announcement followed a similar statement from the Department of Health and Human Services in Houston, Texas, who were investigating a cluster of 18 cases of Cyclospora illness among oil executives.
She was sick for weeks.
It’s the fog of outbreaks..
Like the fog my daughter played in last Sat. at the Gold Coast.
On June 12, 1996, Ontario’s chief medical officer, Dr. Richard Schabas, issued a public health advisory on the presumed link between consumption of California strawberries and an outbreak of diarrheal illness among some 40 people in the Metro Toronto area. The announcement followed a similar statement from the Department of Health and Human Services in Houston, Texas, who were investigating a cluster of 18 cases of Cyclospora illness among oil executives.
Dr. Schabas advised consumers to wash California berries “very carefully” before eating them, and recommended that people with compromised immune systems avoid them entirely. He also stated that Ontario strawberries, which were just beginning to be harvested, were safe for consumption. Almost immediately, people in Ontario stopped buying strawberries. Two supermarket chains took California berries off their shelves, in response to pressure from consumers. The market collapsed so thoroughly that newspapers reported truck drivers headed for Toronto with loads of berries being directed, by telephone, to other markets.
However, by June 20, 1996, discrepancies began to appear in the link between California strawberries and illness caused by the parasite, Cyclospora, even though the number of reported illnesses continued to increase across North America. Texas health officials strengthened their assertion that California strawberries were the cause of the outbreak, while scientists at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) said there were not yet ready to identify a food vehicle for the outbreak. On June 27, 1996, the New York City Health Department became the first in North America to publicly state that raspberries were also suspected in the outbreak of Cyclospora.
By July 18, 1996, the CDC declared that raspberries from Guatemala — which had been sprayed with pesticides mixed with water that could have been contaminated with human sewage containing Cyclospora — were the likely source of the Cyclospora outbreak, which ultimately sickened about 1,000 people across North America. Guatemalan health authorities and producers have vigorously refuted the charges. The California Strawberry Commission estimates it lost $15 million to $20 million in reduced strawberry sales.
Cyclospora cayetanensis is a recently characterised coccidian parasite; the first known cases of infection in humans were diagnosed in 1977. Before 1996, only three outbreaks of Cyclospora infection had been reported in the United States. Cyclospora is normally associated with warm, Latin American countries with poor sanitation.
One reason for the large amount of uncertainty in the 1996 Cyclospora outbreak is the lack of effective testing procedures for this organism. To date, Cyclospora oocysts have not been found on any strawberries, raspberries or other fruit, either from North America or Guatemala. That does not mean that cyclospora was absent; it means the tests are unreliable and somewhat meaningless. FDA, CDC and others are developing standardized methods for such testing and are currently evaluating their sensitivity.
The initial, and subsequent, links between Cyclospora and strawberries or raspberries were therefore based on epidemiology, a statistical association between consumption of a particular food and the onset of disease. For example, the Toronto outbreak was first identified because some 35 guests attending a May 11, 1996 wedding reception developed the same severe, intestinal illness, seven to 10 days after the wedding, and subsequently tested positive for cyclospora. Based on interviews with those stricken, health authorities in Toronto and Texas concluded that California strawberries were the most likely source. However, attempts to remember exactly what one ate two weeks earlier is an extremely difficult task; and larger foods, like strawberries, are recalled more frequently than smaller foods, like raspberries. Ontario strawberries were never implicated in the outbreak.
Once epidemiology identifies a probable link, health officials have to decide whether it makes sense to warn the public. In retrospect, the decision seems straightforward, but there are several possibilities that must be weighed at the time. If the Ontario Ministry of Health decided to warn people that eating imported strawberries might be connected to Cyclospora infection, two outcomes were possible: if it turned out that strawberries are implicated, the ministry has made a smart decision, warning people against something that could hurt them; if strawberries were not implicated, then the ministry has made a bad decision with the result that strawberry growers and sellers will lose money and people will stop eating something that is good for them. If the ministry decides not to warn people, another two outcomes are possible: if strawberries were implicated, then the ministry has made a bad decision and people may get a parasitic infection they would have avoided had they been given the information (lawsuits usually follow); if strawberries were definitely not implicated then nothing happens, the industry does not suffer and the ministry does not get in trouble for not telling people. Research is currently being undertaken to develop more rigorous, scientifically-tested guidelines for informing the public of uncertain risks.
But in Sarnia (Ontario, Canada) they got a lot of sick people who attended the Big Sisters of Sarnia-Lambton Chef’s Challenge on May 12, 2010.
Michael T. Osterholm, PhD, who has a lot of titles and once called me at 5 a.m. to tell me I was an asshole (maybe not the exact words, but the sentiment) and chair of the Holstein Blue-Ribbon Panel on the Prevention of Foodborne Cyclospora Outbreaks writes that the 1996 cyclosporiasis outbreak in the United States and Canada associated with the late spring harvest of imported Guatemalan-produced raspberries was an early warning to public health officials and the produce industry that the international sourcing of produce means that infectious agents once thought of as only causing traveler’s diarrhea could now infect at home. The public health investigation of the 1996 outbreak couldn’t identify how, when, where, or why the berries became contaminated with Cyclospora cayetanensis.
The investigation results were published in the New England Journal of Medicine in 1997. I was asked to write an editorial to accompany the investigation report.2 In my editorial, I noted the unknowns surrounding the C. cayetanensis contamination. The 1997 spring harvest of Guatemalan raspberries was allowed to be imported into both the United States and Canada—and again, a large outbreak of cyclosporiasis occurred. As in the 1996 outbreak, no source for the contamination of berries was found. Later in 1997, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) prohibited the importation of future spring harvests of Guatemalan raspberries until a cause for the contamination could be demonstrated and corrective actions taken. While the FDA did not permit the 1998 importation of the raspberries into the United States, the berries continued to be available in Canada. Outbreaks linked to raspberries occurred in Ontario in May 1998. When the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)-led investigative team published its 1997 outbreak findings in the Annals of Internal Medicine, 3 I was again asked to write an accompanying editorial.4 As I had done in my previous editorial, I highlighted how little we know about the factors associated with the transmission Cyclospora on produce and how to prevent it.
Unfortunately, the state of the art for preventing foodborne, produce-associated cyclosporiasis had changed little since the 1996 outbreak despite the relatively frequent occurrence of such outbreaks.
Thirty-two years after that first Guatemalan raspberry-associated outbreak — and a year after produce-associated cyclosporiasis outbreaks that were linked to U.S.-grown produce — we have taken a major step forward in our understanding of these outbreaks and how to prevent them. After Fresh Express produce was identified in one of the 2018 outbreaks, I was asked by the company leadership to bring together the best minds’ around all aspects of produceassociated cyclosporiasis. The goal was to establish a Blue-Ribbon Panel to summarize state-of-the-art advancements regarding this public health challenge and to identify immediate steps that the produce industry and regulators can take to prevent future outbreaks. The panel was also formed to determine what immediate steps can be taken for any future outbreaks to expedite the scientific investigation to prevent further cases and inform public health officials. The Blue-Ribbon Panel comprises 11 individuals with expertise in the biology of Cyclospora; the epidemiology of cyclosporiasis, including outbreak investigation; laboratory methods for identifying C. cayetanensis in human and food samples and the environment; and produce production. In addition,16 expert consultants from academia, federal and state public health agencies (including expert observers from the FDA, CDC, U.S. Department of Agriculture, and California Department of Public Health), and industry, including producers and professional trade association science experts. The collaboration and comprehensiveness of this effort was remarkable. Many hundreds of hours of meetings and conference calls took place to determine our findings and establish our recommendations.
This document, “Interim Report: Blue-Ribbon Panel on the Prevention of Cyclospora Outbreaks in the Food Supply,” summarizes the state-of-the art practices for the prevention of C. cayetanensis contamination of produce and priorities for research that will inform us as we strive to further reduce infection risk. Also, we make recommendations on how to more quickly identify and more effectively respond to produce-associated outbreaks when they occur. We greatly appreciate all the organizations represented on the panel and the expert consultants. The report does not, however, represent the official policy or recommendations of any other private, academic, trade association or federal or state government agency. Fresh Express has committed to continuing the Blue-Ribbon Panel process for as long as it can provide critical and actionable information to prevent and control Cyclospora outbreaks in the food supply.
Table: Summary of U.S. foodborne outbreaks of cyclosporiasis, 2000–2017
I try not to be prescribtive and just tell people about risks and let them make their own decisions, but in this case, don’t eat slugs (those are slugs going after my basil in Kansas, below).
Health officials in Hawaii are warning residents and visitors to avoid slugs, snails, and rats after the US Center for Disease Control (CDC) found that three travellers visiting the state were recently infected with rat lungworm disease. One visitor got the disease because the individual ate a slug.
The notice, issued late last month, warns people to inspect produce and wash fruit and vegetables that could have small slugs or snails. These gastropods get the rat lungworm parasite (also known as an Angiostrongylus Infection) by eating rat faeces, and rats eat the infected slugs and snails, forming a continuous vile circle. Sometimes, humans get looped in by eating an uncooked snail. Once the parasite has infected a host, it can move to the brain and cause a type of meningitis, and eventually lead to death. There is not a treatment for rat lungworm disease, according to the CDC.
The recent Hawaii health department notice states that it does inform travellers visiting Hawaii about the disease through signage, but acknowledges it needs to do better. “We recognise that there is more work to be done in educating residents and visitors and making sure they know how to prevent the spread of this disease,” the notice reads.
A survey with six information treatments was developed. Empirical results show that both loss-framed and gain-framed messages were persuasive in influencing safety perceptions of the two technologies under low issue involvement. Under high issue involvement, however, only the loss-framed message influenced consumers’ safety perceptions. High issue involvement also heightened concerns about foodborne infections.
