Tag Archives: Australia

Culture of indifference; 220 sick from Salmonella in latest Australian egg outbreak; microbial food safety problems on rise

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Australia has more than an egg problem – it has a microbial food safety problem.

And the public availability of food safety information is embarrassingly sparse, creating a culture of indifference.

As the number sickened by Salmonella linked to raw-egg based dishes at Torquay’s Bottle of Milk restaurant climbed to 220, OzFoodNet, the national foodborne disease monitoring American Hustle: Christian Bale, Amy Adams and Bradley Cooper walking in streetnetwork, reports the number of Australians struck down by food poisoning has leapt almost 80 per cent in a decade and the number of outbreaks linked to restaurants has more than doubled.

In the decade to 2011, the number of Australians affected by foodborne gastroenteritis increased 79 per cent. In 2011, 150 outbreaks affected 2,241 people compared with 86 affecting 1,768 people in 2001. The rate of hospitalization has trebled since 2001.

The figures capture only a fraction of infections since most victims don’t go to a doctor, experts say. A 2002 estimate of people affected by food poisoning put the number at 5.4 million cases of gastro and 120 deaths a year at a cost of $1.25 billion.

Martyn Kirk, a senior lecturer in epidemiology at the Australian National University and former OzFoodNet senior epidemiologist, warns that any foods prepared without the bacterial ”kill step” of cooking increase the risk of bacteria spreading, and that Salmonella is linked to multiple food sources.

”It’s definitely not always the chicken … We’ve had outbreaks of salmonella linked to rockmelon, papaya, cucumbers – and we know that’s just the tip of the iceberg,” he says.

Raw or minimally cooked eggs are the single largest cause of foodborne illness in Australia. But fresh produce has been increasingly implicated in outbreaks as health-conscious raw.eggsconsumers favour salads, raw vegetables and minimally processed foods with lower salt and fat contents.

In the Bottle of Milk outbreak, suspect eggs were traced back to the Green Eggs farm in Great Western. Sales have been restricted until food safety is improved.

In recent days a handful of salmonella cases have also emerged among diners at St Kilda’s Newmarket Hotel, which had also sourced eggs from the Green Eggs farm.

Victorian chief health officer Rosemary Lester said other salmonella cases not linked to the two restaurants had also emerged and were being investigated.

Late last year, Piccalilli Catering was identified as the Brisbane catering company at the centre of another salmonella outbreak, which contributed to the death of one elderly lady and 220 others falling ill.

“We are deeply upset and distressed by this outcome. We always pride ourselves on sourcing the freshest Australian ingredients for our kitchens. We feel very disappointed bottle.of.milk.feb.14and let down that the normally reliable fresh food supply chain has failed us – and our clients – on this occasion,” Piccalilli Catering co-owner, Helen Grace, said at the time.

Until someone develops Salmonella-spotting goggles, Australian food service needs to use pasteurized eggs in homemade mayonnaise and aioli, or commercial sources. Having this conversation with an Australian restaurant chef is like walking into 1978.

Gastro outbreak at Australian Sizzler

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There are a surprising number of Sizzler restaurants scattered around Australia. One in Booval, Queensland, west of Brisbane, is apparently the source of a suspected gastro outbreak.

Public health physician Dr Kari Jarvinen and Sizzler confirmed the Ipswich restaurant was being investigated after multiple reports of Sizzler Tagline Logogastro.

He said the venue was co-operating in the investigation and would be checked to assure the appropriate level of sanitation and cleaning had taken place.

Woodend mum Kellie Roussounis-Adams and her family became ill with a gastro illness after eating at the restaurant last Friday.

“The following day my entire family was sick, including my two children,” she said. “My husband, who works as a concreter, was forced to take a day off work.”

Mrs Roussounis-Adams became aware of the gastro outbreak through social media.

Sizzlers refunded the cost of the meal to Mrs Roussounis-Adams, which is helping Queensland Health identify the source.

A Sizzler spokeswoman said customers had raised their concerns after the Friday night.

$104K fine for repeat Chinese restaurant failure in Australia

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This sounds about right for Australian time.

But at least they have decent penalties.

The Imperial Peking restaurant at Saint Peters in Adelaide was visited by health-types 12 times between 2006 and 2013 and served warning notices on each occasion. The Chinese takeaway was closed for eight Imperial Pekingdays in December 2012.

Prosecutor Paul Kelly told Magistrates Court that failures included insufficient hygiene training of staff.

“This is a significant food business over a number of years. The offending has occurred over a sustained period against a backdrop of warnings … and it continued after the business reopened in December 2012.”

He said the restaurant closure in 2012 saw a sign put up saying it was closed ‘due to a gas leak’.

He fined the company, MustWin Investments Pty Ltd, its cook manager Joel Zhuo Bin Guan, and one of its directors, Di Fei Huang, a total of $104,000 plus costs.

Safe school lunches

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Sorenne started school today, the equivalent of North American kindergarten and what is called prep here, every day, 9 a.m. – 3 p.m.

Because of the heat (Brisbane is the Tampa of Australia) and lack of lunch.box.jan.14refrigerators, cool packing is a must.

And it has to be pink for the princess (but ice hockey starts Sunday).

The humble lunchbox has taken on a life of its own with varieties now ranging from a basic $3 plastic container to an $85 stainless steel contraption.

And just as the choice of lunchbox shapes, colors and sizes is endless, so is the range of accessories.

Insulated carry cases, removable compartments, drink bottles and ice pack inserts are among the more practical extras.

We spent 10 minutes going over the various containers – frozen ice pack half-filled with juice, two compartments for morning fruit (grapes and apple slices) and a larger compartment below for lunch (salami and cheese sandwich on whole grain bread, with a peeled orange).

She’ll eat when she gets home. This was the fifth time I’ve sent a daughter off to school. No tears.

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Botulism in Australia: Lucas Whitelegg is going home after 241 days at Monash Children’s Hospital

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Lucas Whitelegg is finally ready to embrace the world with both arms after spending 10 months with his entire body paralysed by botulism.

Three days after celebrating his first birthday, Lucas will on Friday wave goodbye to the Monash Children’s Hospital staff who helped him through 241 days in intensive care and the gradual return of his movement from the pure form of Botox. For Lucas’ mother Bree Lucas WhiteleggBailey it will mark the end of nightmare that began when he was 8 1/2 weeks old and ingested a spore that sprouted botulism in his belly, which then spread through his bloodstream and paralysed his entire body.

One of only 13 cases of botulism in Victoria in the last five years, doctors had to retrieve a $100,000 antitoxin from the US to save Lucas and then wait for the paralysis to wear off.

It was weeks before Lucas could even open his eyes, three months before his fingers and toes wiggled, and eight months before his lungs and diaphragm freed up allowing him to breath without a ventilator.

Australia smallgoods maker Conroy’s breached food standards eight times in three months, court told

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Raw and cooked meat produced in same room.

Not a rigorous food safety plan.

But exactly what Peter and Patrick Conroy are charged of doing as their smallgoods firm, Conroy’s (think deli meat) faces a maximum $200,000 fine over allegations they breached the South Australia conroys-1.smallgoods-300x200food safety code eight times in three months.

Lawyers for the company and its directors, Peter Andrew Conroy and Patrick Kelly Conroy, appeared on their behalf in the Adelaide Magistrates Court today.

The company has yet to enter pleas to eight counts of breaching a condition of its accreditation under the Primary Produce (Food Safety Schemes) Act (2004).

In December 2005, Conroys goods were taken off store shelves due to a listeria outbreak.

Royal Adelaide Hospital patient Richard Formosa died as a result of eating infected Conroy’s products – seven years later, his family received $200,000 compensation.

Listeria was detected at Conroy’s again in August 2006.

Prosecutors later would tell a court the company had ignored the “fundamental rules” of the meat industry by packing raw and cooked meat in the same room.

Conroy’s was fined $8000 for that offence, which the company’s lawyer dubbed “a once-off.”

In June this year, the company was fined $8000 after pleading guilty to four breaches of hygiene standards.

Blaming consumers, Australia edition

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Australians are equally able to blame consumers for foodborne illness.

And equally dumb about it.

Within chapter 5 of the National Food Plan for the Commonwealth of Australia is the assertion that most other countries proclaim — although they can’t all be correct – that “Australia has one of the safest food supplies in the tourism-australia-3world, with a world-class system to manage safety across the food supply chain.”

The report says ”by 2025 we would like to see Australia as one of the top three countries in the world for food safety, improving the wellbeing of Australians and increasing the already good reputation of our exports.”

Kansas State University has one of those 2025 plans and why I tell my 4-year-old, less talk, more action.

Within the bureaucratic rhetoric, the authors felt it necessary to remind readers that “about a third of all food poisonings come from food handling mistakes in the home.”

No reference. No data. No special mention of what causes the other 70 per cent.

 

Good on ya, Tom; McMeekin receives Australian award for risk modeling work

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Tom always reminded me of my uncle Larry – gregarious and quick with a quip for Douggie whenever I saw him.

ABC News reports that University of Tasmania Emeritus Professor Tom McMeekin has been made an Officer of the Order of Australia for his tom.mcmeekin.jun.13distinguished service to science particularly in the development of food safety standards and education.

Tom was the Professor of Microbiology at the School of Agricultural Science at UTAS and was instrumental in the establishment in the Australian Food Safety Centre of Excellence.

The work he and a group of four other scientists did established new systems of predicting food safety around the world.

“We can do safety and we can do shelf life. We can also predict how a pro-biotic organism will grow in a particular medium like a yoghurt, or if it will die out.”

Tom McMeekin says the model has been adopted in Australia and around the world.

“The biggest breakthrough in application we had was with Meat and Livestock Australia who negotiated with AQIS on behalf of the Australian meat industry to change the way meat was tested.

Prior to these predictive models meat in a chiller in an export abattoir had to be cooled and then tested for the e coli or whatever. So retrospective, holding your product until you are sure nothing has grown on it.

Now we can use the model as a surrogate for that testing, and the model gives you an answer in real time.

That is now mandated in the export control orders and that is what monitors safe chilling process in Australian export abattoirs.

CCTV for live animal exports? ‘If there’s nothing to hide let the public see’

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The use of closed circuit television or some form of video surveillance is increasingly being used to monitor animal welfare procedures at slaughterhouses – who wants to be held hostage by the last plant hire who may be recording stuff for an activist group – and is starting to be used to enhance food safety techniques.

Australia has a significant business involving life animal export for overseas slaughter.

The Brisbane Times reports that People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals has written to the Australian Livestock Exporters Council offering to pay for cameras on export boats and an.welfare.videoapproved international slaughterhouses in a bid to stamp out cruelty.

The trade has been plagued by frequent revelations of inhumane treatment of animals.

The group’s director of campaigns, Jason Baker, wrote to the livestock council chief executive Alison Penfold with the offer to ”pay to install and monitor surveillance cameras on each ship that transports animals from Australia to be slaughtered overseas as well as in all the slaughterhouses approved by the Exporter Supply Chain Assurance System’.’

Under the plan the footage would be available on the Internet on a live stream. He said video would also make it easier to identify and attend to animals that become sick or injured on board the ships.

”If there is nothing to hide, why not let the public see what life is like for animals on live-export ships?” Mr Baker wrote.

Ms Penfold said the matter was one for individual export supply chain participants. She said a focus on training and support was ”the best investment to changing practices and behaviors towards livestock and will deliver lasting improvements to animal welfare outcomes.”