A memorial service for Kim Shaw, a member of Cross Pointe Free Will Baptist Church in Lancaster, Ohio was held today. Twenty-one illnesses have been confirmed; nine others are still showing symptoms.
With 20 confirmed cases, nine others showing symptoms, and the tragic death of Kim Shaw, lots of questions remain in the botulism outbreak linked to a potluck dinner at Cross Pointe Free Will Baptist Church. Like what food led to the illnesses? And preliminary analysis, according to the Columbus Dispatch, isn’t conclusive.
Twenty cases of botulism have been confirmed among those who attended the potluck at the Cross Pointe Free Will Baptist Church on Sunday, said Ohio Department of Health spokeswoman Michelle LoParo.
The foods that have preliminarily tested positive for botulism were three samples of potato salad, one sample of potato salad with egg, one sample of spaghetti pasta salad and one sample of macaroni and cheese, LoParo said.
The food samples, however, were taken from trash bags where other food was mixed in, likely resulting in cross-contamination, she said. Investigators will continue to try to pinpoint the source, LoParo said.
The state received more than 20 food-related samples from the Fairfield Department of Health, said Matt Giljahn, a spokesman for the state health department. The foods included home-canned items: beets, vegetable soup and two samples of pears.
There still are not a whole lot of details on what went wrong on Sunday at the Cross Pointe Free Will Baptist Church in Lancaster, Ohio. With the death of a 54-year-old woman an additional 23 folks hospitalized and on ventilators, this is a big deal. According to the Columbus Dispatch, a food vehicle has not yet been identified.
The person who died at a church potluck on Sunday in Lancaster has been identified as a 54-year-old woman, a spokeswoman for Fairfield Medical Center said at a noon press conference.
Everyone at the potluck has been personally contacted by health officials. In addition to the 23 people being treated for symptoms, others are under observation.
The botulism anti-toxin was requested at 10 a.m. yesterday, immediately after the illness was identified, said Dr. Andrew Murry, an infectious-diseases doctor at the Lancaster hospital. It arrived about midnight.
“We feel like it came and was administered in an appropriate time frame,” Murry said.
If administered within four days of infection, the anti-toxin can reduce the symptoms and length of the illness, he said.
Giving it to the dead woman sooner would not have saved her because she was so critically ill, he said.
“These people are really ill, and any time you’re on a ventilator for that amount of time, things could go badly,” he said.
Potlucks can be scary. I prefer to attend events organized and attended by other food safety nerds. They should at least know how to safely cook/prepare/transport/serve stuff.
If I attend a potluck in the real world, I typically stick to the bread products and high acid fruits. I’m trying to avoid the unknown.
Like botulism.
According to MyFox28, at least 21 attendees of a Lancaster, Ohio church potluck dinner have botulism. Tragically, one individual has died.
Health officials say all of the people who are ill attended a potluck at Cross Pointe Free Will Baptist Church Sunday.
Three of the patients are in critical condition, and 10 patients were taken to other hospitals.
Health officials 50 to 60 people attended the potluck.
The hospital says a neurologist determined a patient had botulism Tuesday morning, and a short time later, two other cases were identified. All 19 of the patients came in to the Emergency Department at Fairfield Medical Center.
The Fairfield Medical Center is reminding the community that botulism is not contagious, so there is no threat to the community. But medical officials are encouraging anyone who was at the potluck to come to the emergency department.
There’s no indication as to what food contained the botulinum toxin. It could be linked to home-canned foods (as most botulism cases in the U.S. are) or maybe baked potatoes wrapped in foil that were held at room temperature – something that I’ve seen at potlucks before.
One of the roles I inherited when I came to North Carolina is organizing the judges for annual home food preservation competition at the State Fair. I didn’t know a whole lot about preserving (other than the science) when I took over six years ago but I spent some time with experienced canners who taught me the hands on stuff.
Deviating from the prescribed steps can create the perfect environment for Clostridium botulinum spore outgrowth, germination and toxin production. Of the 20-30 cases of botulism in the U.S. every year, the majority are linked to improper home canning. It’s one nasty illness.
According to News West 9, two adults in New Mexico are being treated for symptoms that look like botulism.
The New Mexico Department of Health is cooperating with the Texas Department of State Health Services and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) on an investigation of two patients who are hospitalized in Texas with suspected botulism. The source is currently being investigated but is likely contaminated food. The patients are two adults from Lea County.
A range of pre-prepared Indian foods from the Mrs Unis brand have been recalled by the Food Standards Agency following concerns over the Edinburgh-based company’s procedures to control Clostridium botulinum.
The brand, headed by veteran businesswoman Shaheen Unis, dubbed “Scotland’s curry queen”, was ordered to withdraw a range of ‘atmosphere packed’ products – including six different tyypes of pakora – from sale as a “precautionary measure”. The FSA said that there was “not enough evidence” to show that the products are safe to eat, warning that the process controls at the company’s factory at the Peffermill industrial estate, which provides foods for the retail, catering and wholesale market, were not effective in their ability to prevent the growth and toxin production of the bacterium.
Last fall a neighbor told me about a how he was making kimchi, a fermented cabbage, carrot and onion concoction, in his kitchen. He wanted to pickle vegetables for health reasons and remembered what his grandmother had done.
His steps were fairly rudimentary, and a recipe for botulism: he put some vegetables into a mason jar, added some water, put the lid on it and tightened it as hard as it could go. Then he left it on the counter for a week.
According to AzerNews, home canned food has been linked to a death a handful of illnesses.
We are accustomed to hear about food poisoning in summertime and may neglect winter’s main danger – botulism -which may strike us down.
In the first month of this year, 64 cases of food poisoning were registered in Azerbaijan. The total number of victims of these poisoning cases reaches 92 people, said Imran Abdullayev, Head of Hygiene and Epidemiology Center Department of the Health Ministry.
Moreover, six cases of botulism were registered last month, which harmed nine people leaving one dead. The poisoning was due to homemade pickled tomatoes.
Everyone and especially those who love homemade pickles should remember storage precautions in winter.
The Centre of Hygiene and Epidemiology urges people to follow hygiene rules at home and buy food from reliable catering outlets and grocery stores to avoid food poisoning. Special attention should be paid to children’s’ nutrition.
To avoid food poisoning, one must simply follow hygiene rules at home and buy food in reliable catering outlets and grocery stores.
Prevention of botulism is simple: combining a refrigeration temperature with salt content and acidic conditions. This combination stops the growth of the bacteria and toxin.
Commercial canned goods are made by food business that require recipes to be evaluated for safety and receive inspections from food safety folks. Ingredients, acidity and canning processing procedures can all impact the safety of the final product.
Home canned are amongst the riskiest foods for botulism. In addition to botulism, acid tolerant pathogens such as E. coli O157 can persist in canned foods and lead to illnesses if the products aren’t processed correctly. The good folks at the National Center for Home Food Preservation has a massive database of recipes and processing times at http://nchfp.uga.edu.
The mother of an 11-week-old baby who was left fighting for his life after contracting terrapin-related botulism said nobody knew what was happening at the time because “no one had seen anything like it.”
Kris Edlund Gibson, the mother of the first child in Ireland to be diagnosed with the disease, said her newborn son Oliver was hospitalized in December 2010 when he began struggling to breathe.
“The experience was torturous to us,” said Ms Gibson. “It is impossible to put into words how painful it is to see one’s newborn in that state. It was equally as painful to have to walk away and leave him there night after night.
“I wanted to get rid of the turtles before Oliver was born because I thought they smelled awful and I was worried about salmonella. The only reason we ended up keeping them was because we couldn’t find anyone to take them. I didn’t want to just take them to a pond and dump them so we kept them.”
They may be bullshitting, but at least there’s a basic effort.
Elite Salads International is recalling Elite Salads brand White Fish from the marketplace because it may permit the growth of Clostridium botulinum. Consumers should not consume the recalled product described below.
Recalled products
| Brand Name | Common Name | Size | Code(s) on Product | UPC |
| Elite Salads | White Fish | 200 g | Best Before Mar. 15, 2015 | 7 77739 00060 0 |
This recall was triggered by the Canadian Food Inspection Agency’s (CFIA) inspection activities. The CFIA is conducting a food safety investigation, which may lead to the recall of other products. If other high-risk products are recalled, the CFIA will notify the public through updated Food Recall Warnings.
The CFIA is verifying that industry is removing recalled product from the marketplace.
There have been no reported illnesses associated with the consumption of this product.
Two newborns were left fighting for life after contracting terrapin-related botulism, it has emerged.
Both babies were just 11 days old when they were rushed to hospital with the disease, which is linked to pet turtles.
The cases are the first of their kind in Ireland, the Irish Daily Mail reports.
The first case was recorded here in December 2010, and the second in March of 2013.
In the first case, the baby boy lived in a home where there was a pet yellow-bellied terrapin.
In the second case, the baby had been in the home of a relative who had pet turtle, and was held and fed by the owner.
Both infants fully recovered from the infection, following rapid treatment by medics.
The botulism-causing toxin was found in the tanks of both turtles.
The HSE has advised owners to ensure they wash their hands thoroughly after handling and feeding turtles, as well as ensuring they remain in their tank and can’t roam freely around the house.