Irrigation water standards associated with FSMA (are the indictors correct? are there geographical differences? Is the measure protective?) are being discussed in food safety meetings all over the place.
In the absence of good science and a whole bunch of variability I figure that folks will eventually just treat water (with something) instead of trying to test their way to safety.
Wash water can be trouble too.
I guess we could all move to New Zealand where, according to Newshub, campy has been spread through a municipal water system and local growers, who may or may not have been using the water, say ‘there are no risks because of the food safety systems.’
Growers are desperate to reassure the public it’s safe to eat fruit and vegetables from Hawke’s Bay, despite the region’s contaminated water supply.
“You need to have a fruit cut open… and for contaminated water to touch the cut-open bit of fruit for there to be a problem,” says chief executive Mike Chapman (no relation -ben). “It’s a long, long, long stretch for anything to be of concern to the public.”
However, many growers in the region are holding off on picking their crops as a precaution.
“Even if [they were], there are no risks because of the food safety systems we have,” says Mr Chapman.
There’s always a risk. Pathogens can internalize. Show me the data.
At least 200 people have been stricken by what appears to be Campylobacter in Havelock North, New Zealand, and residents say Hastings District Council knew the town’s water supply was contaminated hours before they told people to stop drinking it.
“The council knew about it on Friday morning but didn’t tell anyone.”
She had chosen to keep her child home for the day, but had called in for some voluntary work at Havelock North Primary School. “I think it’s dreadful, especially the elderly, it’s hurt the community.”
She commended the school’s ability to communicate with them as parents and update them as the saga worsened.
The outbreak has been linked to an underground bore which tested positive for E. coli.
Hastings District Council was unable to be reached for comment this morning.
Colleen Pascoe had just done the school run for her grandchildren while their mother lay sick at home.
“It’s disgusting the council didn’t tell us.”
She said her daughter, not knowing the sickness was waterborne, had focussed on keeping her fluids up drinking lots of water. Catherine Wedd, who had just dropped her child off at school, said she was angry about the lack of communication.
Hastings District Council issued a full page apology this morning for the contaminated water.
Hawke’s Bay Hospital confirmed two older people were critically ill in the intensive care unit. A death at a Havelock North rest home may also be linked to the illness.
Hawke’s Bay District Health Board today said 183 people went to their local doctor and 11 people went to hospital for treatment on Sunday.
“Groundwater is much less likely to be contaminated than surface water, but if it is campylobacter, based on previous experiences, it is most likely to have come from cattle and sheep and run-off of effluent or faeces,” said Massey University Infectious Diseases Research Centre director professor Nigel French.
He said the outbreak demonstrated even secure groundwater could become contaminated and testing and treatment was advised to ensure the best public health outcomes particularly if there had been a high-risk event such as heavy rainfall.
Hawke’s Bay District Health Board medical officer of health Dr Nicholas Jones said gastroenteritis affected older and younger people much more severely and older people needed to seek medical help early on if they weren’t getting better or couldn’t keep fluids down. The same applied to young children.
He said they encouraged the community to keep an eye out for older people living alone.
“The boil notice will remain until we are confident there is no other bug resistant to chlorination in the water, which is expected to take several days,” he said.
Hands needed to be washed thoroughly by using plenty of soap, cleaning under fingernails, rinsing hands well and drying on a clean towel: before and after preparing food, after going to the toilet or changing a baby’s nappy, after caring for sick people and after touching animals.
Steve Sayer of MeatingPlace, the home of all things meat, has much praise for Food Safety Scotland’s pink chicken advice, which is apparently grounded to “ensure that public information and advice on food safety, standards, and nutrition are accurate while being consumer-focused. It’s obvious that the FSS plucked the pink chicken mascot to warn Scottish consumers about the possibility of getting sick by consuming seemingly under-grilled/cooked chicken that’s still pink internally.
“However, the only exception was the insistence that the internal color of properly grilled chicken should never be pink.
“The USDA has long stated that reaching the internal temperature of 165 degrees F., (by measuring at the thickest part of the chicken) will kill pathogens and is safe to consume. The USDA has also claimed that the internal coloring is not always an accurate indicator whether chicken is properly cooked or grilled, which includes, you guessed it, the color pink.
“Don’t get me wrong, I think the Scot’s pink message bird is rather clever and its intent admirable, as it could very well lessen the amount of people undercooking their summer grilled chicken. But the fact remains it’s not completely accurate.”
It’s a f*ucking pink chicken and it’s wrong.
So how can anything else this science-based organization say be accepted as accurate?
Cattle are a natural reservoir of Shiga toxin–producing Escherichia coli (STEC) and have recently been recognized as a major source of Campylobacter jejuni contamination. While several factors are known to be associated with bacterial colonization, the underlying microbial factors have not been clarified.
In this study, we characterized the fecal microbiota of dairy cattle (n = 24) using next-generation sequencing to elucidate the intestinal bacterial communities and the microbial diversity in relation to the presence of the foodborne pathogens STEC and C. jejuni (STEC-positive samples, n = 9; STEC-negative samples, n = 15; C. jejuni-positive samples, n = 9; and C. jejuni-negative samples, n = 15). While no significant differences were observed in alpha diversity between STEC-positive and STEC-negative samples, a high diversity index was observed in C. jejuni-positive samples compared to C. jejuni-negative samples. Nine phyla, 13 classes, 18 orders, 47 families, 148 genera, and 261 species were found to be the core microbiota in dairy cattle, covering 80.0–100.0% of the fecal microbial community. Diverse microbial communities were observed between cattle shedding foodborne pathogens and nonshedding cattle. C. jejuni-positive cattle had a higher relative abundance of Bacteroidetes (p = 0.035) and a lower relative abundance of Firmicutes (p = 0.035) compared to C. jejuni-negative cattle. In addition, while the relative abundance of 2 and 6 genera was significantly higher in cattle-shedding STEC and C. jejuni, respectively, the relative abundance of 3 genera was lower in both STEC- and C. jejuni-negative cattle.
Our findings provide fundamental information on the bacterial ecology in cattle feces and might be useful in developing strategies to reduce STEC or C. jejuni shedding in dairy cattle, thereby reducing the incidence of STEC infection and campylobacteriosis in humans.
The fecal microbial communities of dairy cattle shedding Shiga toxin–producing Escherichia coli or Campylobacter jejuni
Foodborne Pathogens and Disease. July 2016, ahead of print. doi:10.1089/fpd.2016.2121.
Dong Hee-Jin, Kim Woohyun, An Jae-Uk, Kim Junhyung, and Cho Seongbeom
In this study, we investigated the presence of zoonotic enteropathogens in stool samples from 64 asymptomatic children and 203 domestic animals of 62 households in a semirural community in Ecuador between June and August 2014.
Multilocus sequence typing (MLST) was used to assess zoonotic transmission of Campylobacter jejuni and atypical enteropathogenic Escherichia coli (aEPEC), which were the most prevalent bacterial pathogens in children and domestic animals (30.7% and 10.5%, respectively). Four sequence types (STs) of C. jejuni and four STs of aEPEC were identical between children and domestic animals. The apparent sources of human infection were chickens, dogs, guinea pigs, and rabbits for C. jejuni and pigs, dogs, and chickens for aEPEC.
Other pathogens detected in children and domestic animals were Giardia lamblia (13.1%), Cryptosporidium parvum (1.1%), and Shiga toxin-producing E. coli (STEC) (2.6%). Salmonella enterica was detected in 5 dogs and Yersinia enterocolitica was identified in 1 pig. Even though we identified 7 enteric pathogens in children, we encountered evidence of active transmission between domestic animals and humans only for C. jejuni and aEPEC. We also found evidence that C. jejuni strains from chickens were more likely to be transmitted to humans than those coming from other domestic animals. Our findings demonstrate the complex nature of enteropathogen transmission between domestic animals and humans and stress the need for further studies.
Importance
We found evidence that Campylobacter jejuni, Giardia, and aEPEC organisms were the most common zoonotic enteropathogens in children and domestic animals in a region close to Quito, the capital of Ecuador. Genetic analysis of the isolates suggests transmission of some genotypes of C. jejuni and aEPEC from domestic animals to humans in this region. We also found that the genotypes associated with C. jejuni from chickens were present more often in children than were those from other domestic animals. The potential environmental factors associated with transmission of these pathogens to humans then are discussed.
Detection of zoonotic enteropathogens in children and domestic animals in a semirural community in Ecuador
Karla Vasco a, Jay P. Graham b and Gabriel Trueba a
A Microbiology Institute, Colegio de Ciencias Biologicas y Ambientales, Universidad San Francisco de Quito, Quito, Ecuador
B Milken Institute School of Public Health, George Washington University, Washington, DC, USA
Applied and Environmental Microbiology, Volume 82, Number 14, Pages 4218–4224, doi:10.1128/AEM.00795-16
The aim of this study was to genotype C. coli isolates collected in the Manawatu region of New Zealand from clinical cases, fresh poultry meat, ruminant feces, and environmental water sources, between 2005 and 2014, to study their population structure and estimate the contribution of each source to the burden of human disease.
Campylobacter isolates were identified by PCR and typed by multilocus sequence typing. C. coli accounted for 2.9% (n = 47/1,601) of Campylobacter isolates from human clinical cases, 9.6% (n = 108/1,123) from poultry, 13.4% (n = 49/364) from ruminants, and 6.4% (n = 11/171) from water.
Molecular subtyping revealed 27 different sequence types (STs), of which 18 belonged to clonal complex ST-828. ST-1581 was the most prevalent C. coli sequence type isolated from both human cases (n = 12/47) and poultry (n =44/110). When classified using cladistics, all sequence types belonged to clade 1 except ST-7774, which belonged to clade 2. ST-854, ST-1590, and ST-4009 were isolated only from human cases and fresh poultry, while ST-3232 was isolated only from human cases and ruminant sources. Modeling indicated ruminants and poultry as the main sources of C. coli human infection.
Importance
We performed a molecular epidemiological study of Campylobacter coli infection in New Zealand, one of few such studies globally. This study analyzed the population genetic structure of the bacterium and included a probabilistic source attribution model covering different animal and water sources. The results are discussed in a global context.
Molecular epidemiology of Campylobacter coli strains isolated from different sources in New Zealand between 2005 and 2014
Antoine Nohra a,b, Alex Grinberg b, Anne C. Midwinter a,b, Jonathan C. Marshall a, Julie M. Collins-Emerson a,b and Nigel P. French a,b
A Molecular Epidemiology and Veterinary Public Health Laboratory (mEpiLab), Infectious Disease Research Centre, Hopkirk Institute, Massey University, Palmerston North, New Zealand
b Infectious Diseases Group, Institute of Veterinary, Animal and Biomedical Sciences, Massey University, Palmerston North, New Zealand
Applied and Environmental Microbiology, Volume 82, Number 14, Pages 4363-4370, doi:10.1128/AEM.00934-16
I’m guessing she doesn’t like my it’s still a f*cking pink chicken approach.
But color is a lousy indicator of safety, only a thermometer can do that (right, safe chicken, and this photo has been around for 20 years)
Coral Beach of Food Safety News however, thinks the f*cking pink chicken is brought to you by an unidentified genius in the PR department at Food Standards Scotland, and its new summer barbecue food safety campaign has a catchy slogan and a hilarious super villain.
Dubbed simply Pink Chicken, the super villain is scheduled to travel the hills and dales of the tiny nation for three months, visiting beach partiers and backpackers while “creating mayhem and ‘spoiling’ summer” according to the Scottish food safety agency.
Since I’m an American and write in American English, I can say this without fear of profanity filters blocking me: It’s bloody brilliant.
No, it’s a f*cking pink chicken and it’s dumb.
It also goes against evidence- or science-based reasoning.
Guess that’s where we differ.
And I’m not an educator, I provide information. People make their own choices. Education is up to individuals.
I like the train. Some of my most memorable conversations happen on the train.
The three of us bid adieu to Montpellier and returned to Paris for a couple of days before the pilgrimage back to Australia, home of carp herpes and koala chlamydia (see next post, when I write it).
The shaggy-haired dude sitting beside me finally spoke up in perfect London English, and said, I couldn’t help but overhearing, but yes, you should move your knapsack, let me help you.
You speak English?
Turns out Dr. Mark has a PhD in the maths, and is post-docing in Montpellier on the maths.
He was off to the Glastonbury music festival, worried about trenchfoot, I told him to watch out for Campylobacter and E. coli O157, and Amy told him that one of this years’ headliners, Muse, has complaints about Salmonella and bird shit. Something about Sorenne being a product of science also came up.
When we needed a conversational hiatus, I returned to watching John Oliver skewer his native UK for wanting to leave the European Union (warning, video hilarious but extremely not suitable for family viewing).
And even the Brits don’t want to stay together, what with Scotland doing its own thing, including a Food Standards Scotland agency.
Scottish independence was supposed to be something about Celtic pride, or pride in Sean Connery impersonations on mock Jeopardy, but if Food Standards Scotland attempt at independent food safety communications – if it’s not Scottish, it’s craaaaaaap – are an indicator, bring on the whiskey and go back to sleep.
In my best John Oliver voice, the new FSS mascot is a pink chicken.
A f*cking pink chicken.
Read this, if you can.
Foodborne illness remains an important public health problem for Scotland, resulting in disruption to the workforce and burdens on health services which have consequences for the Scottish economy.
Prior to the establishment of Food Standards Scotland (FSS), we worked as part of the Food Standards Agency to develop, implement and evaluate interventions for improving the safety of the food chain and help consumers to understand the steps that they need to take to protect themselves and their families from foodborne illness.
We’re now consulting on a draft of our proposal for a new Foodborne Illness Strategy for Scotland which sets out the approach we think we will need to take over the next five years to protect the safety of foods produced and sold in Scotland and reduce the risks of foodborne illness to the people of Scotland. … It will take a targeted approach by developing interventions for containing and eradicating contaminants at the key foodborne transmission pathways that have the potential to lead to illness in humans. Workstreams will be developed to evaluate the impact of interventions at all stages, based on uptake and evidence for efficacy.
It’s still a f*cking pink chicken.
Did the PR team get loaded and watched Dumbo and woke inspired by pink elephants?
“Check chicken is steaming hot right through before dishing up.
“Looks can deceive. Charred chicken on the outside may still be pink inside. Check it’s cooked right through.
“Turning chicken regularly helps it cook evenly. And you’ll impress your guests with your fancy tongs action.
“You’re good to go when the chicken is steaming hot in the middle, there’s no pink chicken to be seen and the juices run clear.
“To make sure, use a meat thermometer. Chicken should be a minimum of 75 °C in the centre.”
The thermometer is an after thought to tong juggling and piping hot, but is the only way to determine if that bird is safe to eat (75C).
FSS also threw in this line, apparently written by a Scot who migrated to the Ozarks and returned home with the word “reckon” in his or her vocabulary.
At least 6000 people in Scotland suffer Campylobacter poisoning every year. Some reckon the number could be 9 times that. It’s the most common cause of food poisoning.
And it’s still a f*cking pink chicken.
Best wishes at Glastonbury, Dr. Mark, and figuring out what you’ll do if Britain does leave the EU.
A total of 56 cases of gastroenteritis, including seven laboratory-confirmed cases of Campylobacter jejuni infection, were identified in 235 eligible respondents. Univariate analysis showed a significant association with a chicken liver pâté entrée [relative risk (RR) 3·64, 95% confidence interval (CI) 2·03–6·52, P < 0·001], which retained significance after adjustment for confounding via multivariable analysis (adjusted RR 2·80, 95% CI 1·26–6·19, P = 0·01). C. jejuni and C. coli were also isolated in chicken liver pâté recovered from the college’s kitchen.
Subsequent whole genome multilocus sequence typing (wgMLST) of clinical and food-derived C. jejuni isolates showed three genetically distinct sequence types (STs) comprising ST528, ST535 (both clinically derived) and ST991 (food derived).
The study demonstrates the value of utilizing complementary sources of evidence, including genomic data, to support public health investigations. The use of wgMLST highlights the potential for significant C. jejuni diversity in epidemiologically related human and food isolates recovered during outbreaks linked to poultry liver.
A large outbreak of Campylobacter jejuni infection in a university college caused by chicken liver pâté, Australia, 2013
During 2015, we studied preferences of chefs and the public in the United Kingdom and investigated the link between liver rareness and survival of Campylobacter. We used photographs to assess chefs’ ability to identify chicken livers meeting safe cooking guidelines.
To investigate the microbiological safety of livers chefs they preferred to serve, we modeled Campylobacter survival in infected chicken livers cooked to various temperatures. Most chefs correctly identified safely cooked livers but overestimated the public’s preference for rareness and thus preferred to serve them more rare.
We estimated that 19%–52% of livers served commercially in the United Kingdom fail to reach 70°C and that predicted Campylobacter survival rates are 48%–98%. These findings indicate that cooking trends are linked to increasing Campylobacter infections.
Restaurant cooking trends and increased risk for Camplyobacter infection
Emerging Infectious Disease Journal, Volume 22, Number 7, July 2016, DOI: 10.3201/eid2207.151775
A.K. Jones, D. Rigby, M. Burton, C. Millman, N.J. Williams, T.R. Jones, P. Wigley, S.J. O’Brien, P. Cross
