Tag Archives: food safety

Raw is risky: Eating raw pig liver from Singapore market may increase risk of hepatitis E

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Danielle Ann of Alvinology reports researchers at the Singapore General Hospital have found definite similarities between the virus strains of Hepatitis E virus or (HEV) in pig liver and human liver.

This means that ingesting raw pork liver could mean you’re ingesting a strain of HEV that’s similar enough to human HEV that it could cause you get infected.

The same report said that people who have contracted HEV has risen steadily over the years. While the researchers could not say if the ingestion of raw pig liver is the main cause of the rise in cases, many local dishes feature this ingredient and do not cook the meat thoroughly.

The same report said that you can acquire the disease from eating contaminated food or substances. Ingesting water that is laced with the disease or accidentally drinking water that has trace amounts of faeces. Eating raw or half-cooked meat that is infected can also transmit the virus to you.

Virginia: Who pees on food?

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Bill Wyatt of the Martinsville Bulletin reports two men have been indicted on charges that one of them urinated on food product at Monogram Foods in Martinsville while the other made a video that was used in an attempt to extort money from the company.

Maurice V. Howard and Devin Jamar Stockton, employees of the janitorial company that services Monogram’s plant, were indicted Aug. 8 for tampering with consumer products, conspiracy to tamper with consumer products and extortion.

A three-count indictment issued by a Federal Grand Jury in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Virginia, Danville Division said that Stockton is alleged to have videotaped Howard urinating on food and on a door and doorjamb inside the Monogram manufacturing plant at 200 Knauss Drive in Martinsville on or about Feb. 21 and then attempted to extort money from Monogram and Packers Sanitation Services Inc. between March 1 and March 6.

The two men have been arrested and scheduled for trial in February in Danville.

An application for a search warrant filed Oct. 3 by FBI Special Agent Matthew S. Marlowe with the U.S. District Court Clerk’s Office in Roanoke linked the charges to an Apple iCloud account and describes how investigators used that account to build their cases against Howard and Stockton.

Funky duck: Processor goes full tilt on transparency

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The kids in my lab had me buy a video camera in 1999 so we could film stuff and put it on the Intertubes long before youtube existed (and film my 2000 Ivan Parkin lecture at IAFP when I got turned away at the U.S. border).

Twenty years later, Leesburg, Ind.-based Maple Leaf Farms is offering a behind-the-scenes look at its duck farms with its new #MLFarmToFork campaign that focuses on transparency and the company’s commitment to operating responsibly.

According to Rita Jane Gabbett of Meating Place, Maple Leaf Farms will highlight its farm-to-fork process on social media through behind-the-scenes videos, farmer interviews and more.

“We want consumers to know the story behind our duck and our desire for continuous improvement,” explained Maple Leaf Farms Duck Marketing Manager Olivia Tucker. “We’re proud of our animal husbandry practices, our facilities and our people, and we want to showcase how vertical integration allows Maple Leaf Farms to produce the highest quality duck on the market.”

To explain vertical integration and how it benefits the entire supply chain, Maple Leaf Farms has created an animated video that outlines the production process and how products get to consumers’ tables. You can view the video at www.tinyurl.com/MLFarmtoFork.

Food fraud: People are still drinking bleach and barfing

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The U.S. Food and Drug Administration says that unscrupulous sellers have sold “miracle” bleach elixirs for decades, claiming that they can cure everything from cancer to HIV/AIDS, hepatitis, flu, hair loss, and more. Some have promoted it to parents as a way to cure autism in children.

The health claims are false, not to mention abhorrent. When users prepare the solution as instructed, it turns into the potent bleaching agent chlorine dioxide, which is an industrial cleaner. It’s toxic to drink and can cause severe diarrhea, vomiting, life-threatening low blood pressure, acute liver failure, and damage to the digestive tract and kidneys.

Stocknews Brief reports that poison control centers across the country have seen 16,500 cases involving chlorine dioxide since 2014. At least 50 of those cases were deemed life-threatening. Eight people died.

FDA says that the products have been hard to scrub out because of claims on social media, where the drinks are promoted along with false health information.

Salmonella, E. coli O157, Listeria, Campy: 1.9 million foodborne illnesses in US per year

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In an ongoing effort to understand sources of foodborne illness in the United States, the Interagency Food Safety Analytics Collaboration (IFSAC) collects and analyzes outbreak data to produce an annual report with estimates of foods responsible for foodborne illnesses caused by pathogens. The report estimates the degree to which four pathogens – Salmonella, E. coli O157, Listeria monocytogenes, and Campylobacter – and specific foods and food categories are responsible for foodborne illnesses.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) estimates that, together, these four pathogens cause 1.9 million foodborne illnesses in the United States each year. The newest report (PDF), entitled “Foodborne illness source attribution estimates for 2017 for Salmonella, Escherichia coli O157, Listeria monocytogenes, and Campylobacter using multi-year outbreak surveillance data, United States,” can be found on the IFSAC website.

The updated estimates, combined with other data, may help shape agency priorities and inform the creation of targeted interventions that can help to reduce foodborne illnesses caused by these pathogens. As more data become available and methods evolve, attribution estimates may improve. These estimates are intended to inform and engage stakeholders and to improve federal agencies’ abilities to assess whether prevention measures are working.

Foodborne illness source attribution estimates for 2017 for salmonella, Escherichia coli O157, listeria monocytogenes, and campylobacter using multi-year outbreak surveillance data, United States, Sept.2019

CDC, FDA, USDA-FSIS

https://www.cdc.gov/foodsafety/ifsac/pdf/P19-2017-report-TriAgency-508.pdf?deliveryName=DM10264

Face the face: USDA to pay Tyson Foods $1 million settlement

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Tyson Foods has, according to KATV, negotiated a settlement with the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) for $1 million.

The settlement is linked to a lawsuit in which the meat processor said a federal meat inspector lied about inspecting hogs at its Storm Lake, Iowa, plant, forcing the company to destroy 8,000 carcasses and resulting in $2.4 million in losses and expenses.

Tyson Foods filed suit against the government agency in May after an inspector signed inspection cards for 4,622 hogs at the Storm Lake facility. The antemortem inspections were never actually conducted by the agency in person as the report stated.

The meat giant was able to show the courts the inspector never left her car but signed the cards without seeing the hogs.

Tyson Foods said it incurred losses of $2.48 million from the false reports. By the time it learned of the alleged actions, the negligently inspected hogs had been intermingled into a larger group of some 8,000 hog carcasses and therefore could no longer be positively identified and the entire group had to be destroyed.

“This was an unfortunate situation and we appreciate the USDA for working with us to address our losses. We take our commitment to food safety very seriously and look forward to a continued partnership with the USDA,” Tyson Foods spokesman Worth Sparkman told Talk Business & Politics in an email statement.

Don’t spread poop spread kindness

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So to the couple of readers who took me to task recently. I’ll say the same thing I did in 1986; go publish your own paper and stop complaining.

You want food safety for free?

Amanda Woods of the New York Post  writes the Windy City has its own “Mad Pooper.”

Ke Hu, 46, was busted on Oct. 15 in Chicago’s south side neighborhood of Bridgeport after authorities identified him as a man “wanted for using feces and food to deface vehicles and storefronts” back in June, The Chicago Sun-Times reported.

Police say Hu wore white gloves and carried a brown paper bag as he traipsed through the neighborhood in the early morning hours, smearing dung all over people’s property, the paper reported. Video posted to YouTube by Book Club Chicago catches the crappy culprit in the act — targeting a parked SUV.

He mostly defaced parked cars, but once sullied a storefront, according to the report. It was not immediately clear if the poop was Hu’s own.

Oh and most people in Brisbabe think that Canada ends in Banff.

Pete Townsend’s solo career was so much more interesting.

Australia: 15 people stricken with Salmonella after Core Powerfoods recall

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Emily Olle of 7 News reports 15 people have been struck with salmonella following a national recall of frozen meals sold at Coles and IGA supermarkets.

Core Powerfoods issued a recall of their frozen meals, including the 310g or 350g Going Nuts, Deep South Chilli, Muay Thai Meatballs, Holy Meatballs, Naked

SA Health’s Dr Fay Jenkins said South Australians should throw out their products, with three South Australians among those affected.

 “There have been 15 cases of Salmonella Weltevreden in people who ate these products nationally and we are urging anyone with these meals in their freezers to throw them away or return them to where they bought them,” Jenkins said.

“While this particular type of Salmonella is unusual, any kind of Salmonella poses serious health risks and symptoms of infection can begin anywhere between six and 72 hours after exposure and last for three to seven days.”

So hard done by: Not

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I built this electronic community originally as the Food Safety Network beginning in Jan. 1993. I consider it one big food safety family.

I provided a health update, not because I sought sympathy, but because I thought I should let the family know what was going on and why my writing had declined.

Australia is currently burning, and every time someone who has just lost everything is interviewed, they talk about how grateful they are for what they have and how they will plunge ahead.

It’s the Australian way, and I am very much of that attitude.

I am not wallowing, I am grateful that Deb will be here in a few minutes for the next four hours (not sure we can go for a walk, there is so much smoke in Brisbane from the fires 100km away that health warnings have been issued).

I’ll continue to teach her about hockey (in Australia you have to call it ice hockey).

And look at these two. They have arrived in Paris, where it’s 5C, and they have no winter clothes, because we are spoiled in Brisbane.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

They’ll figure it out and have a great time.

How blessed am I to have so much family?

 

I hate facebook

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I still can’t believe I get quoted on average once a day in the weirdest places.

Guess we did some neat work over the years.

The introduction of a new technology, such as a human enhancement technology, may induce apprehension and concern among the general public. Social media enable individuals to find information and share their insights and concerns regarding new technologies. This results in an abundance of viewpoints that guides the individual’s acceptance and decision-making. A relevant question for this special issue is to what extent attitudes toward human enhancement technologies are influenced by online cues that signal the views of other people without obvious relevant expertise, such as online comments (social proof). An online experiment focusing on the enhancement of human health and the functioning of the human body through the application of nanotechnology in food was conducted. The study investigated to what extent social proof impacted views on the application of nanotechnology in food.

The valence of comments on a fake Facebook image with four comments was manipulated (positive, negative, mixed). A representative sample of Dutch Internet users (n = 289) completed the study. Perceptions, feelings, behavior, and information need were measured. Results showed that comment valence had a significant effect on risk perception, benefit perception and attitude: the more positive the comments read by the participants, the lower risk perception, the higher benefit perception and the more positive the attitude toward nanodesigned food. Significant interaction effects of initial feelings of dread and comment valence were further found for risk perception and willingness to buy. In contrast, there were no significant interactions of initial feelings of optimism and comment valence. Implications for risk communication regarding human enhancement technologies are discussed.

Risk and benefit perceptions of human enhancement technologies: The effects of Facebook comments on the acceptance of nanodesigned food

Human Behavior and Emerging Technologies

Margot Kuttschreuter and Femke Hilverda

DOI: 10.1002/hbe2.177

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1002/hbe2.177

Couple of good Brantford,Ontario (that’s in Canada) boys in The Band.