Consumers in most developed countries have greater access to safer food than ever before, yet the issue of consumer perception on the safety of the food supply, the control infrastructure and existing and new process technologies is often not positive.
A series of high profile food incidents, which have been ineffectively managed by both the regulators and the industry, and where there has been a failure to be open and transparent, have sensitised a proportion of consumers to scary stories about the food supply. There has been concomitant damage to consumer confidence in (i) the safety of food, (ii) the food industry’s commitment to producing safe food and (iii) the authorities’ ability to oversee the food chain.
Threats to consumers’ health and their genuine concerns have to be addressed with effective risk management and the protection of public health has to be paramount. Dealing with incorrect fears and misperceptions of risk has also to be addressed but achieving this is very difficult. The competencies of social scientists are needed to assist in gaining insights into consumer perceptions of risk, consumer behaviour and the determinants of trust.
Conventional risk communication will not succeed on its own and more innovative and creative communication strategies are needed to engage with consumers using all available media channels in an open and transparent way. The digital media affords the opportunity to revolutionise engagement with consumers on food safety and nutrition-related issues.
Moving from risk communication to food information communication and consumer engagement
Brae Surgeoner, Doug and I had a paper published in the September 2009 Journal of Environmental Health about some research we conducted in the Winter of 2006. The study came about because a whole bunch of kids in the University of Guelph’s residence system started puking from an apparent norovirus outbreak. There were lots of handwashing signs up and we wanted to know whether they changed hygiene behavior (especially if kids were using the tools available when entering the cafeteria). Turns out that the kids weren’t doing as good of a job at hand hygiene as they reported to us.
NC State’s press release is below (the Kansas State release is here):
As public health experts warn of potential widespread outbreaks of H1N1 flu this school year, a new study from North Carolina State University shows that students do not comply with basic preventative measures as much as they think do. In other words, the kids aren’t washing their hands.
“Hand washing is a significant preventative measure for many communicable diseases, from respiratory diseases like H1N1 to foodborne illness agents, such as norovirus,” says Dr. Ben Chapman, assistant professor of family and consumer sciences and food safety extension specialist at NC State. The new study, which examined student compliance with hand hygiene recommendations during an outbreak of norovirus at a university in Ontario, finds that only 17 percent of students followed posted hand hygiene recommendations – but that 83 percent of students reported that they had been in compliance. Norovirus causes gastrointestinal problems, including vomiting and diarrhea. Every year there are 30 to 40 outbreaks of norovirus on university campuses, affecting thousands of students.
Chapman, who co-authored the research, says this is the first study to observe student hygiene behavior in the midst of an outbreak. Previous studies examined self-reporting data after an outbreak – and the new research shows that the self-reporting data may be inaccurate.
“Typically, health officials put up posters and signs and rely on self-reporting to determine whether these methods are effective,” Chapman says. “And people say they are washing their hands more. But, as it turns out, that’s not true.
“The study shows that while health authorities may give people the tools we think they need to limit the spread of an outbreak, the information we’re giving them is not compelling enough to change their behavior. Basically, it doesn’t work. But we do it again with every outbreak, and we’re doing it now with H1N1.”
Chapman says the study shows that health officials need to target specific audiences, such as students in a particular dorm or who eat at a particular cafeteria, and tailor their information to those audiences. For example, telling them where the nearest washrooms are, or pointing out where hand sanitizer units are located. “The more specific the information is for an audience, the better off you are,” Chapman says.
Chapman adds that health authorities also need to use language appropriate to their target audience. “For example, don’t refer to something as a ‘gastrointestinal illness,’” he says, “instead, tell them ‘this could make you puke’ or ‘dude, wash your hands.’ The idea is to craft compelling messages that create discussion in that audience. Make them talk about it.”
Chapman also says that health officials should take advantage of social media, such as text messaging and Facebook, to raise awareness. “If your audience consists of students,” he explains, “you should use media that students use.
“Campuses need to expect outbreaks will happen and plan accordingly. Have the response tools in hand.”
Illness contributes to a decrease in student class attendance which can lead to increased academic stress. Decreasing the spread of illness among those living in residence halls is essential to academic success. The purpose of this systematic review was to identify interventions implemented in residence halls on college campuses to reduce the spread of illness. The PICO question directing the research for this study asks, “How do interventions affect the spread of illness in university residence hall populations?”. The research conducted was completed by means of a systematic review of literature including 20 peer reviewed articles published between 1999-2017 from the databases CINAHL Plus, PsychInfo, and PubMed. Findings from this review revealed a focus on three interventions used to decrease illness among college students living in residence halls: (1) hand washing, (2) lifestyle initiatives, and (3) education. Of the three, hand washing and educational measures were found to decrease the spread of illness, while lifestyle initiatives were found to have no direct correlation to the spread of illness.
JBS Tolleson, Inc., a Tolleson, Ariz. establishment, is recalling approximately 12,093,271 pounds of non-intact raw beef products that may be contaminated with Salmonella Newport, the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) announced today.
The raw, non-intact beef items, including ground beef, were packaged on various dates from July 26, 2018 to Sept. 7, 2018. The following products are subject to recall: [Products List (PDF) | Product Labels (PDF only)|
The products subject to recall bear establishment number “EST. 267” inside the USDA mark of inspection. These items were shipped to a retail locations and institutions nationwide.
After FSIS Recall 085-2018 on October 4, 2018, FSIS, CDC, and state public health and agriculture partners continued to investigate the outbreak of Salmonella Newport illnesses. The epidemiological investigation has identified 246 confirmed case-patients from 25 states with illness onset dates ranging from August 5, 2018 to October 16, 2018. An additional 16 case-patients have provided receipts or shopper card numbers for the product traceback investigations. Specific traceback for three case-patients have identified JBS Tolleson, Inc., EST. 267 ground beef products that were not part of the October 4, 2018 recall. FSIS will continue to work with public health partners and provide updated information should it become available.
FSIS is concerned that some product may be frozen and in consumers’ freezers. Consumers who have purchased these products are urged not to consume them. These products should be thrown away or returned to the place of purchase.
As my friend Farmer Jeff used to say, 20 years ago, if someone can make a living farming, even if it involves duping consumers, more power to the farmers.
I have a less charitable view and figure it’s primarily 21st century snake oil.
Ashley Nicole of Produce Retailer reports that 45 per cent of U.S. adults believe organic fruits and vegetables are healthier than conventional produce, according to a Pew Research Center survey.
That share has fallen from two years ago, when 55% of people responded that they viewed organic produce as better for them.
Groups that more heavily favor organic fruits and vegetables include younger people, people who care about the topic of genetic modification of food, and people who buy organic.
I’ve spent a good portion of my life on Interstate-75 heading south from Detroit to Sarasota, Florida.
Gramps had a mobile home in Englewood, where he would spend 6-months-minus-one-day every year, to escape the Canadian cold and be covered by insurance.
Amy and I had independently visited Venice, Florida before we met, and we’ve had a few retreats to Anna Maria Island.
A common sight on I-75 was the endless Cracker Barrel restaurants. They looked so appealing, with their ole’ timey messaging, but were no different than turtles, birds and backyard chickens: they were Salmonella factories.
One in southwestern Michigan will not reopen after a problem with salmonella.
The Kalamazoo County health department says it was told about the closing last week. The agency says private tests revealed significant contamination at the Kalamazoo-area restaurant. Results from state tests are expected this week.
The restaurant had reopened after closing in June due to health-code violations. Cracker Barrel, which is based in Lebanon, Tennessee, says the salmonella was not related to the food supply. But the chain says the restaurant has closed because it wasn’t confident that it could “prevent a reoccurrence.”
Amy B Wang of the Washington Post writes that officials at a preschool in Hawaii have apologized after young children were given Pine-Sol instead of apple juice to drink during a morning snack time, a mix-up that health officials said occurred because the two liquids were “the same color.”
The incident involving the household cleaning liquid took place on Tuesday at the preschool at Kilohana United Methodist Church in Honolulu.
A classroom assistant prepared the snacks — which should have been crackers and apple juice — in the preschool’s kitchen, according to an inspection report by the Hawaii State Department of Health.
Instead of juice, however, the assistant reportedly grabbed a container of Pine-Sol, a decades-old brand of household cleaner that comes in a variety of scents, though none particularly reminiscent of apple juice.
The preschool’s cleaning supplies are “stored below the kitchen sink and in the janitors room,” the report stated, while food items “are properly stored and labeled in the kitchen cabinets.”
“I think it’s extremely terrifying,” parent Turina Lovelin told KHON News. “It’s very, very scary, but it’s hard for me, or any of the people that I’ve spoken to, to understand how it happened in the first place.”
I never really knew him, but we all have our demons.
Everyone has problems, especially the ones who think they don’t.
He was awkward in a way I found familiar
Thing is, Bill could nail an outbreak in a heartbeat.
Emily Smith of Atlas Obscura writes about the home-canned beets killed someone. The freezer-aisle pot pies (there’s about 50 in Phebus’ freezer from 2007). The cheese, breakfast cereal, frozen pizza, tampons, tattoo ink and plastic bags have victims of their own.
These are a handful of the exhibits on display at the International Outbreak Museum in Portland, Oregon, which curators say is the world’s only museum of its kind. It features objects collected from outbreaks of infectious diseases that took place in Oregon and around the globe.
The museum is a single windowless room in a state office building that’s home to the Oregon Health Authority. This room was once the office of Bill Keene, an internationally respected disease investigator for the State of Oregon who assisted on cases around the world. He officially began collecting the mementos for a museum in 1993, though he started holding onto items a decade or more earlier. After his unexpected death in 2013, his colleagues have continued his efforts.
The small room is crammed with more than 100 exhibits that fill tall glass-encased cabinets and cover every surface. The beets and the box of Rely tampons are authentic. Others, like the papier-mache cantaloupes in a net that hangs from the ceiling, are carefully handcrafted representations.
Not every item in the collection represents a fatal outbreak. But every item hints at ailment: stomach cramps, fevers, chills, rashes—the often-agonizing symptoms that accompany an outbreak. And each exhibit hints at investigators’ quiet, crucial work to unravel the mystery of their cause.
On a shelf along the back wall, some tarot cards and mugs bearing the image of cult leader Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh mark a dark chapter for disease detectives, when a cult in rural Antelope, Oregon, perpetrated the largest bioterrorism attack in U.S. history. The goal was to suppress voter turnout in Wasco County, ensuring that cult members, known as Rajneeshees, could overtake locals in the November 1984 elections. They slipped liquid tainted with salmonella into salad-bar offerings at 10 restaurants and several other public places. The attack sickened 751 people, who ranged in age from newborn to 87.
The plastic milk jugs contained in a red plastic crate recall a yearlong case that stumped investigators as they pondered 25 cases of salmonella spread across Oregon, over the course of 12 months, with no clear link. The only detail the cases had in common was milk, which perplexed investigators because the milk was pasteurized. However, a trip to a beloved local dairy in Roseburg, southern Oregon revealed that while the milk itself was fine, a crate-washing machine at the facility was contaminated with salmonella bacteria. So, as crates of milk cartons moved through the facility, they were doused with a salmonella-infused solution. A thorough cleaning of the facility ended the yearlong outbreak.
The Outbreak Museum’s peanut-laced products including granola bars, cookies, and crackers serve as a reminder of Stewart Parnell, a corporate peanut peddler who was sentenced to 28 years in prison for knowingly selling contaminated products. Parnell, the CEO of the Peanut Corporation of America, famously wrote in an email, “Just ship it,” when he learned a shipment had been delayed pending salmonella testing. The shipped peanut-butter paste was linked to a 2008 outbreak that killed nine people and sickened more than 700 others.
In isolation, the stuff that fills this one-room museum is the same ordinary stuff that fills trash and recycling bins. It’s waxy paper boxes printed with company slogans and plastic wrappers bearing logos and nutrition facts. In some cases it’s convincing reproductions of raw meat you’d find shrink-wrapped and refrigerated in the grocery store or fresh strawberries you’d buy from a farmer’s market.
But in Bill Keene’s world, each exhibit stands for a smoking gun. This museum is the evidence of real, everyday items that harmed or killed—and that could have gone on to hurt more, if not for the scientists who solved these mysteries. Even before it was a museum, this room was a place where other investigators drew inspiration.
“You could come in here when you needed a break from your work, sit here and ask him about anything,” epidemiologist Tasha Poissant says.
Keene wanted this museum to commemorate the successes, remember the failures and demonstrate the importance of this work, Poissant says. He understood that outbreaks affect people’s lives in intimate and powerful ways, which means they also have the power to educate, to influence public opinion and change policy.
“When Bill passed away, we all wondered what are we going to do with this museum?” epidemiologist Hillary Booth says. “He didn’t get a chance to make it into the proper museum he wanted to.”
So his colleagues and family stepped in to bring some order to the collection he’d amassed. They installed the display cabinets in his office and catalogued exhibits on the museum website. They continue to collect artifacts, from their own work as well as from cases around the world. While the museum isn’t open to the general public, the curators show it off whenever the opportunity arises—when a public health conference comes to town or guests visit the office.
Memorabilia from Keene’s work spills out of the museum and covers the walls leading to its door. Newspaper clippings, photos from his field work and quotes from Keene (Keene-isms) decorate the cubicle walls just outside.
“Your diarrhea is our bread and butter,” one quote reads.
Poissant offers a correction: What Keene actually said was, “Your vomit and diarrhea is our bread and butter.”
Either way, Keene’s words capture a genuine passion for this line of work that in some cases saves lives but almost always remains invisible.
That’s me and Madelynn in 1987, the photo I used for my science column (Madelynn is 31 and has a 5-year-old; our hair was, and still is fabulous; she went and saw the Grateful Dead when she was 6-weeks-old)
Channel News Asia reports that Lactalis, the world’s largest dairy group, on Friday (Nov 30) rejected media reports that salmonella had been detected in baby milk from a second production line at a French factory where contaminated milk led to dozens of babies falling ill last year.
The salmonella outbreak at the Craon plant in northwest France led Lactalis to recall millions of tins of baby milk in France and around the world, and drew criticism from politicians and consumer groups about a lack of transparency at the company, which is privately held by the Besnier family.
Oh, France.
Citing an internal report by French health authorities last December in the midst of the product recall, French media reported that two types of salmonella had been detected by Lactalis in products made in the second dryer at Craon.
The company denied this, saying in a statement that a sentence quoted by media was incorrect.
“We confirm that there was no positive test for salmonella in products from the dryer no. 2 before this dryer was halted in December 2017,” Lactalis said in its statement.
My five daughters were all breastfed, and I’m grateful for that. No formula ever touched their mouths.
A Petland store in Michigan is facing its third lawsuit this year after a man said he was hospitalized after buying a puppy later found to be sick from the store.
Doug Rose said he became infected with Campylobacter — a multi-drug resistant infection — after he and his wife Dawn purchased Thor, a beagle-pug mix puppy that the couple said was infected with parasites, suffered from coccidia and giardia, and had an upper respiratory infection, The Oakland Press reported.
The couple said the same veterinary clinic that gave the dog a clean bill of health through the Petland in Novi also diagnosed the puppy with a number of ailments.
Symptoms of Campylobacter infections can include abdominal pain, diarrhea, headache, fever, nausea and vomiting.
The couple is seeking monetary compensation after Doug Rose said he required multiple weeks of medical treatment.
Randy Horowitz, who owns the Petland in the Detroit suburb, told the newspaper the case would be resolved to “reflect the facts.”
A lawsuit filed by 17 plaintiffs against Horowitz was dismissed earlier this year. The lawsuit alleged that Horowitz knowingly sold puppies suffered from genetic defects.
A lawsuit was filed in April by nine families alleging that puppies they purchased suffered from a number of medical issues.
In January, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released results of a multi-state investigation that showed 113 cases of Campylobacter across 17 states linked to pet stores. A majority of people reported becoming sick after coming in contact with a puppy purchased from a Petland store or after coming in contact with another human who had recently purchased a dog from a Petland store.
I did not create this idea, nor will take credit (unlike lawyers, the credit belongs to Michele and Josh, just like the barfblog name belongs to Christian) but will run with it, using the barfblog forum.
Food safety professionals, we all know everyone messes up.
As we say in therapy, everyone has problems, especially the ones who think they don’t.
So rather than say food safety is simple, we’ve always said it’s hard.
And to show we’re all human, we professionals should confess to our failings (and like therapy, no last names will be used and establishing relationships is discouraged, and no physical contact with the counselliors).
I’ll start, e-mail yours to me or Chapman and we’ll get it posted.
I got religious about using a tip-sensitive digital thermometer for cooking about 2000, in the same way a reformed cigarette smoker is against cigs.
I didn’t like the religion. But there were times I was grilling and didn’t have a thermometer.
Usually I just cooked the shit (literally) out of it.
But I know there were occasions where I undercooked stuff, because of time and drunk pressures.
I also know I have left stock on the counter for days, creating a wonderful colony of Staph. Usually I throw it out, but not always, because I’m still a struggling grad student at heart, and would never turn down anything that was free.
A series of high profile food incidents, which have been ineffectively managed by both the regulators and the industry, and where there has been a failure to be open and transparent, have sensitised a proportion of consumers to scary stories about the food supply. There has been concomitant damage to consumer confidence in (i) the safety of food, (ii) the food industry’s commitment to producing safe food and (iii) the authorities’ ability to oversee the food chain. 
