“Norovirus is much more contagious than people think,” said Doug Powell, professor of food safety at Kansas State University. “In the past, we’ve seen multiple outbreaks in group settings like cruise ships, care facilities, university residences, schools, sporting teams and restaurants. It’s a massive amount of barf.”
Even those who clean up vomit have to be especially careful because viral particles are dispersed in the air, Powell said.
“Many people say they routinely wash their hands, but even in an outbreak situation, observational research shows they really don’t,” Powell said. “And it’s not enough to say, ‘Wash your hands.’ There needs to be access to proper hand-washing tools — vigorous running water, soap and paper towels — as well as compelling behavioral messages, like ‘Don’t make others barf,’ to get people to wash their hands.”
After arriving in Brisbane this morning with a large bag of hockey equipment, it warmed my cockles – which didn’t need warming in the 85F heat and 8,000% humidity – to discover that a minor league hockey promotion went horribly awry after college students began puking on the ice after chugging beers as part of the “College Olympics” during intermission at the Rapid City Rush game in South Dakota.
According to the Rapid City Journal, two male students vomited on the ice in front of 5,000 fans after chugging four beers while running on the ice, riding a cooler and spinning around a hockey stick.
“It was meant to be fun, but it went completely wrong,” Rush General Manager Tim Hill told the Journal. “I apologize on behalf the organization. Obviously it was in poor taste. The intermission game was not appropriate, and it’s just something we will never do again.”
Furious passengers today spoke out about their ‘holiday from hell’ on the ‘plague ship’ as they stumbled ashore today after a 10-day cruise ruined by an unprecedented outbreak of norovirus.
The Mail Online reports holidaymakers demanded refunds as they disembarked in Southampton, Hampshire – but shockingly, the P&O ship was preparing to take to the seas again within hours, at 8pm this evening.
Passengers are expected to start checking in from 3pm for a 23-night trip to Portugal, Spain, Malta, Cyprus, Israel, Greece and Sicily.
Large parts of the ship were closed off to avoid the virus spreading further and passengers were quarantined as many were sick in corridors, theatres and restaurants.
Those who fell ill were ordered to stay in their cabins and miss stop offs as the crew battled to contain the highly contagious virus, which also causes diarrhea.
Angry cruise-trippers today spoke out about the nightmare journey on P&O’s Oriana and the foolishness of taking the boat back out again so soon.
Those on board said the epidemic spread quickly, with some travellers unable to report their sickness because staff reportedly stopped them from leaving the ship at its ports of call.
More crew were sent to join the ship to help with the containment and cleaning.
Passengers claim there was a lack of food and toilet paper following the outbreak of the vomiting bug, while others say they are still waiting for their laundry to be returned to them.
The virus engulfed the liner but crew tried to blame passengers for bringing it on board.
Chris Meadows, from Southampton, who attended a crisis meeting at the height of the outbreak, said the liner’s captain Thomas Lane admitted to passengers that the crew ‘could not cope’.
‘We had a show of hands of how many people were affected, which was filmed by many of the passengers that attended the meeting.’
The luxury liner’s owners Carnival UK have offered to waive fees for anyone who had to visit the on-board doctor.
After barfing for the sixth time, Sorenne has fallen back to sleep beside me on the couch, around 4 a.m.
For the second time this year, it appears like it’s classic foodborne illness, which means I’m wracked with guilt. I buy the food; I prepare the food; I make Sorenne’s lunch; I nag at the school about petting zoos and handwashing. And I got a PhD in this stuff.
So it’s probably my fault.
I still marvel that epidemiologists and public health types and are able to pinpoint the source of any foodborne illness, especially the obscure ones, and can apparently separate rigorous investigation from emotional tug strings.
Michéle Samarya-Timm, a registered environmental health specialist with the Somerset County Department of Health in New Jersey and one of those health types I’m thankful for, writes that Thanksgiving is more than eating. As noted in 1973 by Charlie Brown. We should just be thankful for being together. I think that’s what they mean by ‘Thanksgiving.’
This is the time of year to reflect and appreciate life’s blessings. For some families, this holiday is anything but traditional. Nearly 4 weeks after Hurricane Sandy left a path of destruction in the northeast, there’s a lot to think about, but there’s also much to be thankful for.
Thousands of folks were hit hard by this Frankenstorm, and still have challenges ahead. Despite the stereotypes promoted by television, folks in New York and New Jersey are among the most resilient around. among other things, they turned to MREs as a solution to food supply and food safety problems. Warm, safe food in an empty stomach truly fosters a feeling of thanks.
The Meal, Ready-to-Eat – commonly known as the MRE or heater meal – is a self-contained, individual buffet of food. Shelf stable, the packaging is required to maintain a minimum shelf life of three and a half years at 27 °C (81 °F), nine months at 38 °C (100 °F), and short durations from −51 °C (−60 °F) to 49 °C (120 °F). Unopened, they can be tossed around or dropped like a Bowl-Game football without damage — MREs are designed to withstand parachute drops from 1,250 ft, and non-parachute drops of 98 ft.
Spreading the warmth is made easy — MREs come packaged its own method of heating. The flameless heater uses a simple chemical reaction to provide sufficient energy to warm the food – 165ºF is the standard – in a nearly foolproof way (if you follow the easy directions, that is).
These culinary delights are a blessing when there is no power, no unspoiled fresh food, no [legally] open restaurants, and when the Doritos and canned beans have run out. Unlike the packaged rations of Grandpa’s day, these MREs have a reasonable menu selection – like roast beef, vegetable lasagna, and Ratatouille. And during natural disasters, anything that comes with a serving of chocolate is welcome.
Luckily, MREs are NOT on the menu here tomorrow. On a sheltering oversight call this morning, the American Red Cross assured that a traditional Thanksgiving meal – turkey, mashed potatoes and stuffing — will be provided on all their feeding routes tomorrow.
Much gratitude to them and all the folks who stepped up to supply, feed, and serve the victims, responders, and public health professionals. Everyone brought their A-game, and these folks continue to assure food is readily available and safe.
In the aftermath of disaster, and on a routine day, food safety is assured by many dedicated professionals, who truly deserve our thanks.
At the table this year, let’s echo Peppermint Patty — Are we going to have a prayer? It’s Thanksgiving, you know.
10. “Is there a janitor in the house?”
9. “Not my worst review.”
8. “I’ve never been a fan of audience participation.”
7. “I was hoping for a standing ovation; instead I got projectile vomiting.”
6. “Who says the golden age of theater is dead?”
5. “You got to be kidding me. Right before my big vomiting scene?”
4. “I’ll never complain about a cell phone ringing again.”
3. “Up till now, I’ve never elicited more than a loud belch.”
2. “What is this? The Ed Sullivan Theater?”
1. “Guess I’m not the only one who’s drunk.”
The only thing I’ve taken from the bad reality-real-housewives-of trash-town shows that Amy watches is that if I ever coach girls rep hockey again, Heidi Klum gets to tell 8-year-old girls to pack their skates and go home.
At least Amy doesn’t watch the musical ones.
According to TMZ, the X Factor live show was sabotaged by tuna sub sandwiches that left several contestants vomiting, and one rushed to hospital.
Sources close to the production tell TMZ, Drew from the group Emblem3 went to the set, but had to be hospitalized within the last hour because he couldn’t stop heaving up his guts. We’re told he’s currently on an IV drip at an L.A. hospital, and may not be back for the live broadcast. We’re told the vomit-fest started last night when a bunch of contestants and crew members ordered take out to their Hollywood Hills pad — and almost everyone who ate the tuna salad subs were up sick all night.
Total casualties: 6 crew members out sick, Camilla from the group 1432 is on set, but yacking non-stop … and of course, Drew is down for the count.
An essay in Sunday’s New York Times argues that foodie stuff has not led to art, but replaced art.
Foodism has taken on the sociological characteristics of what used to be known — in the days of the rising postwar middle class, when Mortimer Adler was peddling the Great Books and Leonard Bernstein was on television — as culture. It is costly. It requires knowledge and connoisseurship, which are themselves costly to develop. It is a badge of membership in the higher classes, an ideal example of what Thorstein Veblen, the great social critic of the Gilded Age, called conspicuous consumption. It is a vehicle of status aspiration and competition, an ever-present occasion for snobbery, one-upmanship and social aggression.
Young men once headed to the Ivy League to acquire the patina of high culture that would allow them to move in the circles of power — or if they were to the manner born, to assert their place at the top of the social heap by flashing what they already knew. Now kids at elite schools are inducted, through campus farmlets, the local/organic/sustainable fare in dining halls and osmotic absorption via their classmates from Manhattan or the San Francisco Bay Area, into the ways of food. More and more of them also look to the expressive possibilities of careers in food: the cupcake shop, the pop-up restaurant, the high-end cookie business. Food, for young people now, is creativity, commerce, politics, health, almost religion.
A good risotto is a fine thing, but it isn’t going to give you insight into other people, allow you to see the world in a new way, or force you to take an inventory of your soul.
Yes, food centers life in France and Italy, too, but not to the disadvantage of art, which still occupies the supreme place in both cultures. Here in America, we are in danger of confusing our palates with our souls.
I don’t care about people’s lifestyle choices: my job is to make it safe and limit the barfing.
I’m full of empathy because I barf when you do. But not always.
There was this one time, as the plane from Tampa landed in Kansas City, and daughter Courtlynn decided to spew. I had the barfbag ready and carried it off the place like a pro.
Then there was this other time, and me and Amy and Sorenne and Katie were driving back from Florida to Kansas, and after 24 hours in the car with only an hour to go, Sorenne spewed all over the back seat.
And then I pulled over and barfed.
According to NBC News, if seeing someone hurl makes you gag, too, and then launch into a puffed-cheek, double-hands-to-the-mouth, chest-heaving dance before you either toss your own cookies or scurry safely (and dryly) away, well, we owe you a compliment.
People who feel the urge to barf when witnessing another person throw up are both compassionate and highly evolved, say two medical experts on the stomach-turning topic.
“There’s good news and bad news about why upchucking causes other people in the immediate vicinity to upchuck,” said Amy Morin, who teaches psychology at Kennebec Valley Community College in Fairfield, Maine and works a licensed clinical social worker.
“The good news is, if it happens to you, it means you have empathy,” Morin said.
In human brains, scientists have discovered “mirror neurons” that cause some people to feel the same emotions as others around us. This explains why you might tear up when you see someone in the room cry.
If that sounds like you, when you see someone vomit, your brain feels empathy and causes you to actually feel that disgust with the other person, and so the food in your gut wants to come out, explained Morin, who also writes for about.com at discipline.about.com.
“The bad news is, there’s not much you can do about it. If you are prone to upchucking or gagging at the site, smell, or mention of vomit, your brain is likely fairly hard wired to react by doing so,” she added.
This wretched reaction is, in fact, still laced into our brains from ancient times – as a pure survival instinct, said Dr. Jennifer Hanes, an emergency physician at Northwest Hills Surgical Hospital in Austin, Texas.
Little Rock School District spokeswoman Pamela Smith told KLRT-TV that the parents of 82 Pulaski Heights Middle School said their children wouldn’t be in class on Friday.
Smith says another 55 students left school early after complaining of stomach problems.
Fox Sports Southwest reports that Cole Beasley, an undrafted rookie out of SMU battling for a spot on the Dallas Cowboy’s depth chart, is trying to make the most of his opportunity and leaving it all on the field — literally.
Beasley had a breakout game Saturday night against the San Diego Chargers with seven catches for 104 yards. After being tackled in late in the fourth quarter, Beasley made his way to the sideline, but not before losing his lunch on the field.
By Saturday afternoon, the video had gone viral.
“I was tired, but the reason I came off was because I landed on the ball, and the ball knocked the wind out of me and made me have to throw up a little bit,” Beasley told The Dallas Morning News. “Tired had a little bit to do with it, but it was more the ball knocking the air out of me.”
But, should Beasley make the team, evidently we should expect this from him.
"You’ll probably see me throw up a lot more than just then," Beasley said. "I throw up a lot before the games, too. I’m not ashamed of it at all."
viral particles are dispersed in the air, Powell said.
Middle School said their children wouldn’t be in class on Friday.