The West Australian reports the area is experiencing an explosion in stomach bug illnesses, with more than 4,000 cases so far this year and many of them caused by food.
New figures show 4076 cases of gastrointestinal disease have been reported this year — 31 per cent more than at the same time in the previous two years. The bacterial or viral infections are mostly caused by contaminated food and water or poor hygiene. Much of the surge has been fuelled by a rise in salmonella, with many of the 1566 cases this year associated with eating uncooked eggs.
There has been a big increase in other gastroenteric illnesses, with 358 cases of the viral infection rotavirus, which can make young children seriously ill.
Cryptosporidiosis, which is caused by a parasite, has been reported in 335 people — more than double the number at the same time last year. A WA Health Department spokeswoman said though notifications of salmonella gastroenteritis were declining as expected over winter, the increased levels were a concern.
“The department is concerned about food-borne illness rates in WA, including salmonella risks associated with eggs, and is implementing short and long-term reduction strategies,” she said. The department and local government authorities were focusing on safety surveillance across the food industry, from paddock to plate.
“Eggs are a good source of nutrition, but like many other foods they can be contaminated with bacteria, including salmonella,” the spokeswoman said.
“It is important people handle and prepare eggs safely to reduce the food poisoning risk.”
My next door-neighbour, Doug, the retired microbiologist (go figure) sent me this from his travels in the Northern New South Wales, which is somewhat close to us in Brisbane.
From a small museum in Tenterfield, in Northern NSW:
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.
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).
Linda Silmalis of the Courier Mail writes it has been dubbed Barf-gate — who chundered in a ministerial car, leaving the driver gagging and resulting in a clean-up bill costing hundreds of dollars?
The car was driven by a ministerial driver who transported NSW Nationals leader John Barilaro and Liberal MP Eleni Petinos (right, with Blues coach) from ANZ Stadium, where they had been watching the State of Origin match on Wednesday night.
The pair had watched the game with Mr Barilaro’s young daughter and one of his staffers.
Mr Barilaro was in a celebratory mode after a successful state Budget, tweeting from the game: “I spent today backing #NSW in small business AND State of #Origin! UP THE BLUES!!!!!”
By Friday, word was going around Parliament House of a driver fuming over what he had discovered in the car upon starting his shift hours — possible a day — later.
“The word is one vomited, and that set off the others,” a source close to the driver said.
Mr Barilaro, a married father of two, declined to answer any questions about the cost of the clean-up bill, nor who left the car in a mess.
A statement from his office confirmed Mr Barilaro and Ms Petinos were at Origin, but declined to confirm the figure to be repaid.
“The taxpayer will not have to bear any costs,” the statement said.
Jane Hansen of The Northern Star reports that when Amelia Liddy-Sudbury was pregnant with her third child, she was extra careful with her diet, never eating raw fish or soft cheese.
But she didn’t think twice when she bought some pre-cut rockmelon.
“I bought it, cut up and I think that was the source,” the 35-year-old Mosman mum said.
Thirty three weeks into her pregnancy, Mrs Liddy-Sudbury picked up a Listeria infection – one that could have killed her and her baby.
A fortnight later baby Theodore was delivered – five weeks premature – and would need weeks of intravenous antibiotics to stem meningitis.
“It is a deadset miracle he is alive, once you are diagnosed with listeriosis, that’s usually it, the baby is dead,” Mrs Liddy-Sudbury said.
Listeriosis, caused by the food-borne listeria bacteria, kills one out of every five unborn babies it infects.
Two weeks ago another pregnant mother tragically lost her baby to listeriosis.
The woman arrived at hospital with abdominal pain, headache and mild fever. Her baby was delivered by caesarean section but was stillborn as a result of the infection.
Including Mrs Liddy-Sudbury, it was the third pregnancy-related case this year in NSW, three times the usual rate.
NSW Health director Dr Vicky Sheppeard said the three cases represented a concerning spike.
“Around the country there have been more cases in the past six months as well,” she said.
Health authorities are now urgently reminding pregnant woman to be extra careful with their food choices.
Listeria bacteria is found in a variety of foods, including cold meats, cold cooked chicken, raw fish, soft-serve ice cream, soft cheeses and unpasteurised milk.
Most pregnant women know to avoid these foods, but the bacteria is also found in pre-cut fruit and pre-bagged salads, products that are highly popular in supermarkets and convenience stores.
“Those products are becoming more common and anything that has been cut and left is a risk, you have to wash and peel fruit and salad yourself if pregnant,” Dr Sheppeard said.
Uh, maybe.
There are benefits to having an abundant supply of fresh fruits and vegetables.
However, the evidence does lean toward pre-cut anything being a heightened risk.
So if cutting up a whole rockmelon at home, refrigerate immediately.
This makes a mockery of the supermarket chains and fresh produce venders who sell half-sliced melons or cut up produce, usually at room temperature, which in Brisbane, is warmer than most places.
As a former occupant of jail and a budding microbiologist, I know that booze can be made from anything that contains sugar or their carbohydrate predecessors.
According to Australian Food News, two Australian women on a mission to reduce food waste have launched a new vodka made using carrots.
The pair behind the drink, Gen Windley and Alice Gorman, came up with the idea knowing that carrots grown by their husbands were going to waste when they did not meet supermarket cosmetic standards.
Wanting to stop waste, the women joined with a wine maker, Jason Hannary of Flinders Park Winery, to create a vodka made from carrots.
The resulting drink has been described as a clear, slightly-sweet vodka that has a subtle hint of carrot.
“Not having done anything with vegetables before was a bit daunting, but after a few experiments we got a great result,” said distiller Jason Hannary.
It is not the first time the women and their families have found unique ways to use leftover carrots from their farms. In 2015, one of the women’s husband created carrot beer sold at a Queensland brewery.
“Alice and I have four loud and energetic sons so we decided this was the year to create an alcoholic vegetable drink for ourselves!” Gen Windley said.
Carrot Vodka will be launched at the Winter Harvest Festival which is part of the Scenic Rim Eat Local Week. The week is dedicated to promoting food and wine from the Scenic Rim region in South East Queensland.
For casual-corporate barf, nothing beats the South Bank Surf Club.
The South Bank Parklands, which were established on the former site of World Expo 88, are one of Brisbane’s most popular tourist attractions.
Approximately 11,000,000 people visit the South Bank Parklands each year.
On Sept. 23, 2015, Brisbane’s South Bank Surf Club allegedly made up a large batch of raw-egg-based aioli sauce and served it for seven days.
At least 29 diners were sickened.
At the time, the manager of the club said the cause was “a bad batch of eggs’’ provided by a supplier. They said the eggs had been used in sauces served with seafood platters.
“We’ve been caught out, unfortunately. Our customers’ wellbeing is our priority and anyone with concerns can get in touch with us,” they said. “To rectify the problem, we are not making sauces in-house.’’
Guess they were too busy courting biz-cas types to worry about microbiology.
Lawyers for the restaurant on Thursday entered guilty pleas to 22 charges of serving unsafe food over eight days.
The charges did not arise from unhygienic practices and the company had no knowledge the food was unsafe, the court heard.
Really?
Western Australian hockey player Kelli Reilly had snacked on buffalo wings with aioli sauce with her team at the restaurant the day before they were due to play in the final of a masters competition in Brisbane.
They won gold at the tournament but soon after, Ms Reilly was hospitalised for three days and still suffers from the salmonella poisoning.
She has not been able to play hockey since and has sworn off aioli.
‘I’ve been through a lot, I’d probably not like to comment on it all because it has impacted me a lot and my family,’ she said outside court.
I just read an interview about Bill Maher, who likes unpasteurized goat’s yoghurt and a raw egg shake.
Rocky was a movie, not real life.
For someone who comes off as somewhat intelligent (and a lot smirky) he knows shit about microbiology.
With his seed diet, he’s no better than the swarmy folks he skewers.
Western Australian health types have confirmed a surge in salmonella cases has now peaked, and have urged locals to manage their risk of infection.
The WA Health Department said there had been 713 cases of the infection by the end of April- nearly four-and-a-half times the level expected by officials at this time of year.
The confirmation follows three confirmed cases in Busselton over recent weeks linked with uncooked egg products including chocolate mousse, aioli and hollandaise sauce.
A department spokesperson said there had been a large spike in the number of cases, and health officials have advised WA residents how to manage their risk.
“Notifications of Salmonella gastroenteritis are currently at record levels in WA… two molecular subtypes, PFGE1 and PEGE43 are currently causing most of this increase.
These subtypes are most commonly found in uncooked eggs, and the department said investigations into a number of localised outbreaks found a strong correlation between the infection and eating raw or runny eggs.
The department also confirmed the increase wasn’t just in WA, with a number of states around the nation also experiencing localised outbreaks.
If you experience severe or prolonged symptoms you should visit a doctor.
The NSW Food Authority (that’s in Australia) reports a woman has been fined a total of $28,000 and ordered to pay professional costs of $25,000 after she pleaded guilty to four charges relating to the sale of unpasteurised or ‘raw’ milk in Goulburn Local Court.
On Thursday 8 June 2017, Julia Ruth McKay from Bungonia on the southern tablelands was fined under section 104 of the Food Act 2003 for selling milk which was not pasteurised in contravention of Food Regulation 2010, and for conducting a food business without a licence as required by the Regulation.
She also pleaded guilty to two charges under section 21 of the Act for selling unpasteurised milk that exceeded acceptable microbiological limits for standard plate counts and Listeria.
NSW Food Authority CEO Dr Lisa Szabo said Food Authority officers found that Ms McKay was operating a ‘herd sharing’ business whereby a person enters into a contract and purchase shares in a herd or individual cow and consequently receives raw milk produced by that herd.
“Claims that this doesn’t constitute the sale of food are false, the operation of a herd share arrangement can constitute food for sale under the Food Act,” Dr Szabo said.
“Milk for sale in NSW needs to be licensed with the NSW Food Authority to ensure it is subject to the stringent safety requirements of the Dairy Food Safety Scheme.”
Dr Szabo said statistics show that raw milk is a high food safety risk.
“Nationally and internationally raw milk products account for a small proportion of sales but a very large proportion of outbreaks,” she said.
“Unpasteurised milk could contain harmful bacteria such as E.coli, Salmonella and Listeria that can result in illness or even death.
The prosecution resulted from an investigation of Ms McKay by the NSW Food Authority in 2015 where samples of raw milk taken from an animal that was part of her herd share arrangement returned positive for the presence of Listeria.
The operation was immediately shut down by the NSW Food Authority and the Prohibition Order remains in place.
Dr Szabo said consumers need to be aware of claims that raw milk has superior nutritional value are unfounded.
Australia has an egg problem.
