Tag Archives: Death

Teachers run away after 21 kids die from poisoned lunches at Indian school

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The N.Y. Times reports that 21 children died and more than two dozen were hospitalized Tuesday after being poisoned by an insecticide-laced lunch served at a primary school in the eastern state of Bihar.

The children complained that the food — rice, beans and potato curry — tasted odd and soon suffered severe vomiting and diarrhea, officials said. india.children.die.jul.13After the children’s complaints, the school’s cook tasted the meal and promptly fell ill as well, according to P. K. Shahi, minister of human resource development in Bihar.

School meal programs in India, like many government programs, are rife with fraud. Corruption has long been endemic in Bihar, one of India’s poorest states.

After seeing the children get sick, the school’s teachers and administrators fled the school, according to Dr. Shambhu Nath Singh, the deputy superintendent of the government hospital in Bihar’s Saran District. Parents brought the sickened children to the hospital. Seven were dead on arrival and seven died soon after getting to the hospital, Dr. Singh said.

The local police opened an investigation into the incident and have been searching for the school’s headmistress, but she has fled, Abhijit Sinha, the district’s chief civil servant, said by telephone.

Charges laid over NZ listeria deaths

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Charges have been laid against a company connected to a listeria outbreak that claimed the life of one woman and contributed to the death of another.

The Dominion Post understands Napier company Bay Cuisine will this month face the charges in the Napier District Court.

The Ministry for Primary Industries confirmed charges under the Food Act were laid last month, but would not say how many, and would not name the listeriacompany charged. A spokesman said the ministry would make no further comment as the matter was before the court.

The charges follow a ministry investigation sparked after the two deaths between May and July last year. Listeria was found in pre-packaged ready-to-eat meats that had been supplied to Hawke’s Bay Hospital.

Listeria was also found at Bay Cuisine, the sole supplier of pre-packaged meats to the hospital.

The company issued a recall notice for affected products.

The ministry’s investigation sought to establish whether there was any link between the company and the infections.

Mother speaks of infant loss to E. coli

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Heartbroken mum Samantha Waller today spoke of the tragic loss of her seven-week-old baby to E. coli poisoning.

And she said little son Henley was now “my guardian angel.”

Samantha, 25, of Percy Street, Middlesbrough, told the Gazette she thought about her treasured son every day.

A Teesside coroner’s inquest earlier heard Henley McLeod’s life had barely begun when he fell victim to a serious E. coli infection.

The beloved tot was found lifeless at his home.

Just the day before he died, he’d been unwell and his worried mum had taken him to the doctor’s surgery.

But an examination found nothing untoward and Samantha was allowed to take him home.

Tragically, next morning on February 3 2012, Samantha found her baby son motionless and not breathing.

Teesside coroner Michael Sheffield said every effort was made to revive the baby “tragically to no avail.” He recorded a verdict of natural causes.

FDA says 500 dogs killed by jerky treats

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JoNel Aleccia of NBC News reports some 500 dogs and nine cats may have died after eating chicken jerky pet treats made in China, according to updated complaints logged by federal veterinary health officials.

A new tally of reports filed with the Food and Drug Administration shows the agency has received 2,674 reports of illness involving 3,243 dogs, including 501 deaths. The agency also has received reports of Purina-Waggin-Train-Yam-Good-Treatsnine illnesses in cats, including one death, the FDA said.

That’s up from an estimated 2,200 reports of illness, 360 dog deaths and one cat death reported last summer. So far, though, FDA has not been able to confirm a link between the treats and the ailments. 

The new figures come less than a week after two of the largest retailers of pet chicken jerky treats issued voluntary recalls of several popular brands after New York state agriculture officials detected unapproved antibiotics in the products.

Nestle Purina PetCare Co. recalled its popular Waggin’ Train and Canyon Creek Ranch brand dog treats, and Del Monte Corp. officials recalled their Milo’s Kitchen Chicken Jerky and Chicken Grillers home-style dog treats from shelves nationwide.

30 sick; Christmas Day diner dies from C perfringens in UK

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A woman has died and 30 people have fallen ill following a Christmas Day lunch at an east London pub.

BBC News reports Della Callagher died two days after eating at the Railway Hotel in Hornchurch.

The Health Protection Agency (HPA) began an inquiry after the Clostridium perfringens bacterium was found in samples from the clostridiumperfringens_a200pxaffected diners.

Mrs Callagher’s husband John said he took her to hospital on Boxing Day but is angry doctors told her to go home.

He said she got worse the next day and was taken to hospital where she died.

“If she was rolling around on the floor they would have admitted her – but because she was dignified she wasn’t,” he said.

The couple, who live in Hornchurch, have a 14-year-old daughter and Mrs Callagher’s funeral takes place on Saturday.

Dr Mike Gill, medical director for Barking, Havering and Redbridge University Hospitals NHS Trust, said the patient was given appropriate treatment and advice.

“The trust followed accepted medical practice,” he said. “We will be fully reviewing the case.

A spokeswoman for The Railway Hotel, which remains open, offered condolences to the family.

She added: “We are fully co-operating with the environmental health and Health Protection Agency teams while they conduct a thorough investigation.

“However until this investigation is complete we can’t speculate about the possible cause or source.”

A Havering Council spokesman said: “Our initial findings indicate that this seems to be a serious but isolated incident.

Failure to communicate: 20-year-old Tunisian dies after eating 28 raw eggs as a dare

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Paul Newman was so cool, that stuff he did in a movie 50 years is being reenacted long after his death, and killing people.

According to Huffington Post, a  20-year-old Tunisian man Dhaou Fatnassi died after completing a dare to eat 28 raw eggs, French-language radio station Shems FM reported. According to CoolHandLuke_116PyxurzNews.com.au, Fatnassi’s friends had promised to give him “an undisclosed sum of money” if he swallowed all 28 of the raw eggs whole. (One assumes that did not include the shells, but you can never be sure.)

After doing so, Fatnassi reportedly started to feel pains in his stomach. He headed toward the Hopital les Aghlabides in Kairouan, Tunisia, to receive medical attention, but died in transit.

Over the years, many have surely wondered whether the famous egg-eating scene in “Cool Hand Luke” was replicable in real life, and whether it was really possible to eat 50 eggs and live to tell the tale, as Paul Newman’s character did (his were hard-boiled eggs, not raw).

Outbreak over: 4 dead, one miscarriage, 18 sick in Listeria outbreak linked to ricotta cheese from Italy

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The U.S. Centers for Disease Control says a nasty Listeria outbreak appears to be over.

A total of 22 persons infected with the outbreak-associated strain of Listeria monocytogenes were reported from 13 states and the District of Columbia.

20 ill persons were hospitalized. Four deaths were reported. Public health officials determined that two of these deaths were related to listeriosis. One fetal loss was reported.

Collaborative investigation efforts of local, state, and federal public health and regulatory agencies indicated that Frescolina Marte brand ricotta salata cheese imported from Italy and distributed by Forever Cheese, Inc. was the likely source of this outbreak.

On September 10, 2012, Forever Cheese, Inc. initiated a voluntary recall of this cheese with a single lot number and/or production code.

On September 13, 2012, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration placed the exporter of the recalled cheese, Fattorie Chiarappa S.R.L.of Conversano, Italy, on Import Alert. This means that Fattorie Chiarappa cheese will be denied admission into the United States unless the importer shows that the cheese product is not contaminated with Listeria.

On September 14, 2012, Forever Cheese, Inc. issued an expanded recall of all lots and production codes of Frescolina Marte brand ricotta salata cheese and issued a market withdrawal of all cheeses they received that were produced by the Italian cheese exporter.

Nurse in Brazil accidentally kills hospital patient with coffee injection

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Grub Street New York reports a student nurse was just three days into her training at a Rio de Janeiro clinic when she injected an elderly woman with milky coffee by mistake.

The coffee entered the patient’s heart and lungs, drowning her within hours.

The student nurse has been charged with manslaughter.

North Carolina fair linked to toddler E. coli death

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Not only is this tragic, it’s infuriating.

Gage Lefevers, a toddler who had visited the Cleveland County Fair died from E. coli Friday afternoon.

Gage was one of 16 people in four counties who may have been sickened with the bacteria.

“I can’t imagine what that family is going through,” said Beth McNair, who has a son being treated for E. coli. Jordan McNair is said to be slowly improving.

Family members of other E. coli victims told WBTV that they are all gathered in support at the hospital tonight.

One of the Gaston County residents with E. coli is a 12-year-old boy who has been hospitalized since Monday.

A table of petting zoo outbreaks is available at http://bites.ksu.edu/petting-zoos-outbreaks.

Erdozain G, Kukanich K, Chapman B, Powell D. 2012. Observation of public health risk behaviours, risk communication and hand hygiene at Kansas and Missouri petting zoos – 2010-2011. Zoonoses Public Health. 2012 Jul 30. doi: 10.1111/j.1863-2378.2012.01531.x. [Epub ahead of print]

Outbreaks of human illness have been linked to visiting settings with animal contact throughout developed countries. This paper details an observational study of hand hygiene tool availability and recommendations; frequency of risky behavior; and, handwashing attempts by visitors in Kansas (9) and Missouri (4), U.S., petting zoos. Handwashing signs and hand hygiene stations were available at the exit of animal-contact areas in 10/13 and 8/13 petting zoos respectively. Risky behaviors were observed being performed at all petting zoos by at least one visitor. Frequently observed behaviors were: children (10/13 petting zoos) and adults (9/13 petting zoos) touching hands to face within animal-contact areas; animals licking children’s and adults’ hands (7/13 and 4/13 petting zoos, respectively); and children and adults drinking within animal-contact areas (5/13 petting zoos each). Of 574 visitors observed for hand hygiene when exiting animal-contact areas, 37% (n=214) of individuals attempted some type of hand hygiene, with male adults, female adults, and children attempting at similar rates (32%, 40%, and 37% respectively). Visitors were 4.8x more likely to wash their hands when a staff member was present within or at the exit to the animal-contact area (136/231, 59%) than when no staff member was present (78/343, 23%; p<0.001, OR=4.863, 95% C.I.=3.380-6.998). Visitors at zoos with a fence as a partial barrier to human-animal contact were 2.3x more likely to wash their hands (188/460, 40.9%) than visitors allowed to enter the animals’ yard for contact (26/114, 22.8%; p<0.001, OR= 2.339, 95% CI= 1.454-3.763). Inconsistencies existed in tool availability, signage, and supervision of animal-contact. Risk communication was poor, with few petting zoos outlining risks associated with animal-contact, or providing recommendations for precautions to be taken to reduce these risks.

Missouri boy’s death linked to E. coli

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The Columbia Daily Tribune is reporting a 2-year-old Howard County boy died yesterday as a result of E. coli poisoning.

The Boone County Medical Examiner’s Office confirmed this morning the victim was Coy Boley of the New Franklin area, and it also confirmed the boy’s death was linked to E. coli. An autopsy had not yet been conducted.

The boy died around 7 a.m. yesterday at Women’s and Children’s Hospital in Columbia.

The New Franklin Police Department said the boy’s home was not within city limits, and the Howard County Sheriff’s Department could not be reached for comment to confirm whether it is conducting a death investigation.