42 now sickened from E. coli O121 linked to flour

Posted on July 3, 2016 by Douglas Powell

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control reports that as of June 28, 2016, 42 people infected with the outbreak strain of Shiga-toxin producing E. coli O121 have been reported from 21 states.

On July 1, 2016, General Mills expanded its recall to include additional lots of Gold Medal Flour, Signature Kitchens Flour, and Gold Medal Wondra Flour.

STEC O121 was isolated from samples of General Mills flour collected from the homes of ill people in Arizona, Colorado, and Oklahoma.

Four more ill people have been reported from four states. The most recent illness started on June 8, 2016. One new state, Indiana, has been added to the list of states with ill people.

Illnesses started on dates ranging from December 21, 2015 to June 8, 2016. Ill people range in age from 1 year to 95, with a median age of 18. Eighty-one percent of ill people are female. Eleven ill people have been hospitalized. No one has developed hemolytic uremic syndrome, a type of kidney failure, and no deaths have been reported.

Guidance from the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and CDC continues to warn that consumers should refrain from consuming any raw products made with flour. E. coli O121 is eliminated by heat through baking, frying, sautéing or boiling products made with flour. All surfaces, hands and utensils should be properly cleaned after contact with flour or dough.

E. coli O121 in flour: One bite of cookie dough left Spokane teen fighting for life

Posted on June 4, 2016 by Douglas Powell

Alyssa Donovan of KXLY reports that Sydney Rypien was a healthy Spokane teenager and a three-sport athlete. Then she took a bite of raw cookie dough and ended up in the hospital soon afterward fighting for her life.

Rypien, 17, was baking cookies back in February when she took a bite of raw cookie dough.

“They say it’s just one bite. Just one tiny bite,” Rypien said.

A week after she ate the dough the teen had such bad cramps she could hardly stand.

“They ran a couple tests and within a day they knew it was E. coli,” she said.

She spent a week at Sacred Heart Medical Center where doctors told her if it weren’t for her athletic build this illness likely would’ve killed her.

“I was shedding like stomach lining, yeah it was bad. I lost a lot of weight in a week that was an unhealthy amount of weight to lose,” Rypien said.

Instead she is slowly recovering but it could be months before she fully recovers.

“I still don’t feel normal,” Rypien said.

This week Rypien learned how she contracted the deadly strain of E. coli. Health officials have tied Rypien’s E. coli and more than 30 others nationwide to General Mills flour. Today, 10 million pounds of flour have been pulled from the shelves. Rypien says a handful of the people sickened were young girls right around her age.

Missing more than 3 months of school the high school junior is still catching up.

“I’m doing fine and my teachers are really understanding so they are giving me a little leeway with that too and I’m doing my work. I’m cramming it out as much as I can,” she said.

Outside the classroom everyday tasks are harder now than they’ve ever been.

“Everything that was easy for me to do like volleyball or sports or activities or going out and hanging out with friends or visiting grandparents or family, it’s harder to do, my energy is just drained,” she said.

The effects of the illness could last up to a year but she’s grateful the recall will stop others from feeling the pain she is still dealing with.

“This is by far the worst pain I have been in in my entire life.”

Rypien says as she has recovered she’s had to be very careful about what she eats. She plans to continue eating healthier so that she never has to feel anything like that excruciating pain again. She also hopes this helps educate people that E. coli is not your typical foodborne illness. Its more dangerous, more painful and the effects can be long term.

CDC confirms it: Multistate outbreak of Shiga toxin-producing Escherichia coli O121 infections linked to flour

Posted on June 2, 2016 by Douglas Powell

CDC is collaborating with public health and regulatory officials in multiple states and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to investigate a multistate outbreak of Shiga toxin-producing Escherichia coli O121 (STEC O121) infections.

Public health investigators are using the PulseNet system to identify illnesses that may be part of this outbreak. PulseNet, coordinated by CDC, is the national subtyping network of public health and food regulatory agency laboratories. PulseNet performs DNA fingerprinting on STEC bacteria isolated from ill people by using techniques called pulsed-field gel electrophoresis (PFGE) and whole genome sequencing (WGS). CDC PulseNet manages a national database of these DNA fingerprints to identify possible outbreaks.

Thirty-eight people infected with the outbreak strain of STEC O121 have been reported from 20 states. A list of the states and the number of cases in each can be found on the Case Count Map page. WGS showed that isolates from ill people are closely related genetically. This close genetic relationship means that people in this outbreak are more likely to share a common source of infection.

Illnesses started on dates ranging from December 21, 2015 to May 3, 2016. Ill people range in age from 1 year to 95, with a median age of 18. Seventy-eight percent of ill people are female. Ten ill people have been hospitalized. No one has developed hemolytic uremic syndrome, a type of kidney failure, and no deaths have been reported.

Collaborative investigative efforts of state, local, and federal health and regulatory officials indicate that flour produced at General Mills’ Kansas City, Missouri facility is a likely source of this outbreak. This investigation is ongoing.

In interviews, ill people answered questions about the foods they ate and other exposures in the week before they became ill. Sixteen (76%) of 21 people reported that they or someone in their household used flour in the week before they became ill. Nine (41%) of 22 people reported eating or tasting raw homemade dough or batter. Twelve (55%) of 22 people reported using Gold Medal brand flour. Three ill people reported eating or playing with raw dough at restaurants.

In an epidemiologic investigation, investigators compared the responses of ill people in this outbreak to those of people of similar age and gender reported to state health departments with other illnesses. Preliminary results of this investigation indicate an association between STEC O121 infection and someone in the household using Gold Medal brand flour to make something to eat.

Federal and state and local regulatory officials performed traceback investigations using package information collected from ill people and records collected from restaurants where ill people were exposed to raw dough. These investigations indicated that the flour used by ill people or used in restaurant locations was produced in the same week in November 2015 at the General Mills facility in Kansas City, Missouri. General Mills produces Gold Medal brand flour.

On May 31, 2016, General Mills recalled several sizes and varieties of Gold Medal Flour, Gold Medal Wondra Flour, and Signature Kitchens Flour due to possible E. coli contamination. The recalled flours were produced in the Kansas City facility during a time frame identified by traceback and sold nationwide. CDC recommends that consumers, restaurants, and retailers do not use, serve, or sell the recalled flours.

We will update the public when more information becomes available. CDC and state and local public health partners are continuing laboratory surveillance through PulseNet to identify additional ill people and to interview those people about foods they ate before they got sick.

Blame the consumer, flour edition: 38 sick with E. coli O121 linked to General Mills

Posted on May 31, 2016 by Douglas Powell

Amy was cooking some gluten-free pie shit the other night and she asked me what the temp should be – we have conversations like that in our family – and I said I’m not too concerned about the interior fruit filling, but make sure the pastry exterior hits 165F.

That was because of past outbreaks.

And now this.

General Mills is recalling about 10 million pounds of flour after an E. coli outbreak associated with flour sickened 38 people in 20 states.

Mike Hughlett of the Star Tribune reports the Golden Valley-based packaged food giant on Tuesday announced the voluntary recall of some lots of its signature Gold Medal flour, along with flour sold under the Wondra and Signature Kitchens brands. Signature Kitchens is a store brand sold at several major U.S. grocery chains including Safeway, Albertson’s, Jewel, Vons and Acme.

The federal Centers for Disease Control (CDC) said Tuesday there have been 10 hospitalizations associated with the outbreak, but no deaths have been reported.

The CDC has not yet released names of states affected by the recall, but the Minnesota Department of Health confirmed that three of the 38 people sickened lived in the Twin Cities area. All three — two adults and a child — have since recovered, and none were hospitalized, said Doug Schultz, a health department spokesman.

State and federal health authorities have been investigating an outbreak of E. coli O121 from Dec. 21 to May 3, General Mills said in a statement. The Minnesota health department said the Minnesota cases occurred in January and March.

The Centers for Disease Control found that about half of the 38 sickened people reported making homemade food with flour before becoming ill. Some reported using a General Mills brand of flour. Some also might have consumed raw dough or batter.

General Mills said it has not found E. coli O121 in any of its products or at its flour facilities, nor has it received any illness reports directly from consumers. The flour involved in the recall was mostly produced at General Mills’ Kansas City plant.

But Liz Nordlie, president of General Mills Baking division, did say, Consumers are reminded to not consume any raw products made with flour. Flour is an ingredient that comes from milling wheat, something grown outdoors that carries with it risks of bacteria which are rendered harmless by baking, frying or boiling. Consumers are reminded to wash their hands, work surfaces, and utensils thoroughly after contact with raw dough products or flour, and to never eat raw dough or batter.

“As a leading provider of flour for 150 years, we felt it was important to not only recall the product and replace it for consumers if there was any doubt, but also to take this opportunity to remind our consumers how to safely handle flour.”

Yup, it happens: Salmonella in flour

Posted on April 6, 2015 by Douglas Powell

Navajo Agricultural Goods Business close to Farmington, New Mexico, has issued a voluntary recall of flour that may perhaps be contaminated with salmonella.

The Each Day Times in Farmington reports the tribal company mentioned Thursday that bleached, all-objective flour labeled with an expiration date of March 16, 2016 must not be applied.

NAPI initially put out a recall of extra than 42,000 pounds of flour from customers in Arizona, New Mexico, Texas and Utah.

The flour is sold below the company’s Navajo Pride label. It comes in five-pound, 25-pound and 50-pound cloth bags.

It was the hemp seed flour from the Dutch; dietary supplement sickens 15 with Salmonella Montevideo in Germany, 2010

Posted on December 15, 2011 by Douglas Powell

"There are only two things I can’t stand in this world. People who are intolerant of other people’s cultures and the Dutch."

Michael Caine in Austin Powers, Goldmember

The freaky dekey Dutch got some salmonella in their groovy hemp seed flour and it made a bunch of Germans sick.

In March 2010 the Rapid Alert System for Food and Feed (RASFF) was used to inform about Salmonella Montevideo in a herbal food supplement, formulated in capsules, distributed under a Dutch label in Germany.

Simultaneous to the first RASFF notice, in the last two weeks of March 2010 an unusual number of 15 infections with S. Montevideo was notified within the electronic reporting system for infectious diseases at the Robert Koch Institute. Adult women (median age: 43, range: 1–90 years) were mainly affected.

An outbreak was suspected and the food supplement hypothesised to be its vehicle. Cases were notified from six federal states throughout Germany, which required efficient coordination of information and activities. A case–control study (n=55) among adult women showed an association between consumption of the specific food supplement and the disease (odds ratio (OR): 27.5, 95% confidence interval (CI): 3.1–infinity, p-value=0.002). Restricting the case–control study to the period when the outbreak peaked (between 29 March and 11 April 2010) resulted in an OR of 43.5 (95% CI: 4.8–infinity, p-value=0.001).

Trace-back of the supplement’s main ingredient, hemp seed flour, and subsequent microbiological testing by pulsed-field gel electrophoresis supported its likely role in transmission. This outbreak investigation illustrates that information from RASFF may aid in hypothesis generation in outbreak investigations, though likely late in the outbreak.

The authors note in the discussion that, “while investigations of the food safety authorities were thorough, without delay, and strictly following regulations, it is worth noting that the process from the beginning of the analysis of the first positive sample from an opened package to the recall took more than five weeks. In potential outbreak situations, strength of evidence for a suspected food product ought to be weighed against the potential harm to the consumers posed by the suspected food.

"Interestingly, in the end there was no international aspect to this outbreak (as the Dutch label on the product did not correspond to sales in the Netherlands). … In Germany, unfortunately, currently there is no general requirement to communicate non-international food contamination events to the public health authorities."

China adding pulverized lime to flour – report

Posted on April 8, 2010 by Douglas Powell

The courthouse where Amy and I got our wedding license

in downtown Manhattan (Kansas) is built of limestone (right, exactly as shown) and featured, along with a picture of the Great Pyramid of Gaza (below, left) on the Wikipedia page about limestone.

Who knew that ancient Egypt and Manhattan (Kansas) were connected in such a manner? And if it’s on wiki it must be true.

Me, I love the limestone buildings all around Manhattan (Kansas) and the bottom half of our house (Notre maisonette en ville — our cottage in the city).

I want to look at limestone in buildings, not eat the pulverized form into flour.

But, according to media reports, that is exactly what is going on in China in the latest food fraud BS scandal.

Pulverized lime, which can lead to gradual damage to the lungs and eventually the entire respiratory system if consumed, has been added to bleaching agents widely used in flour production in China.

Bleaching agents, usually made from cornstarch, are added to flour to shorten the time needed for whitening. Substituting cheaper and heavier lime for cornstarch cuts the cost of producing the bleaching agent, which is sold by weight.

The price of corn has risen to an all-time high on China’s futures markets this year, possibly inspiring the substitution by companies competing to cut selling prices.

Flour is mostly used to make noodles, dumplings and steamed buns in China, especially in the north.

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