Tag Archives: Georgia

100 sickened with cyclospora at Georgia aquarium; it was the Wolfgang Puck food, not the fish

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Channel 2 Action News has learned health investigators are looking into why more than 100 people got sick at a major Atlanta attraction.

The one thing everyone had in common was they all ate catered food at the Georgia Aquarium over the summer.

In the week of July 24, three groups had catered events at the aquarium. Two had corporate conferences, and there was a wedding reception, officials said. One or two weeks later people started coming down with week-long bouts of diarrhea.

The Georgia Division of Epidemiology said it is still investigating but told Channel 2’s Jeff Dore that cyclospora made the people sick, totaling well over 100 guests and staff.

Officials said they haven’t pinned the exact cause of the breakout, but did say the common food served at all three events was salad mix, fresh basil and cherry tomatoes.

Basil has a history of cyclospora outbreaks.

Wolfgang Puck catering prepares all the food at aquarium events, and its CEO took an overnight flight from California to talk with Channel 2.

Nosestretcher alert: Georgia couple claim they found a used tampon in cereal

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That’s just gross; highly unlikely. Adults, eating Chocolate Chip Crunch cereal.

And the tampon.

A couple from Upson County, Georgia, is suing a grocery store chain in federal court, claiming that the husband found a used tampon in his bowl of cereal.

According to the complaint, Thomas and Lynn Roddenberry said they bought a box of Chocolate Chip Crunch cereal from the Save-A-Lot store in Thomaston in October 2008. A day after buying the cereal, Thomas Roddenberry said he discovered the tampon in his bowl after taking a bite of the cereal.

The man said he spit out the cereal, immediately became nauseated and went to an emergency room.

The suit was filed on Wednesday in U.S. District Court in Macon. A spokesman for Save-A-Lot declined to comment on the case on Friday, citing pending litigation.
 

Doyle was ready to take FSIS job; finances got in the way

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U.S. President Obama has been big on the food safety rhetoric but short on actions.

Sounds familiar.

I don’t expect much from government – providing safe food is the responsibility of producers and everyone from farm-to-fork, government is there to set a minimal standard – so I’m rarely disappointed. Like I tell Amy, the lower you set your expectations of me, the less likely you are to be disappointed.

Lyndsey Layton of the Washington Post reports this morning the Obama administration has had a difficult time filling the post of chief food safety official at the U.S. Department of Agriculture, and it wasn’t until this week — one year into his term — that the president nominated someone to assume that role.

Elisabeth Hagen, 40, a physician with four years’ experience in food safety, was not the first choice. Most of her career has been spent teaching and practicing medicine as an infectious disease specialist. She left medicine in 2006 and went to the USDA, where she was quickly promoted through the ranks of the department’s Food Safety and Inspection Service to become the chief medical officer last year.

Layton reports that last February, the administration approached Mike Doyle, a nationally known microbiologist who directs the Center for Food Safety at the University of Georgia. Doyle said he was offered the job and was vetted, but the day before the announcement was to be made in May, his nomination collapsed.

The White House wanted Doyle to divest his financial interest in a patented microbial wash for meat that he had developed. Doyle offered to defer his interests until his government service was completed but the administration refused, he said.

"It’s just an awful lot to ask for. I would have taken a more than 50 percent pay cut to go to Washington, and this would have been a very big financial hit."

The administration also sought out Caroline Smith Dewaal, the director of food safety at Center for Science in the Public Interest, but Dewaal’s nomination came to a halt in August because she was a registered lobbyist, which violated the administration’s policy against hiring lobbyists.

The Administration didn’t know that before?

Doyle did add this of Hagen:

"I don’t know of her personally. She’s got a steep learning curve."
 

Mike Doyle unfairly slammed by wannabe foodies

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I don’t really know Mike Doyle, other than the brief chats we have at meetings where our paths cross a couple of times a year and talk about our kids’ hockey-playing ambitions, or the time Amy and I ran into Mike and his wife at the local Orlando supermarket in 2006 cause I guess we were all too cheap to buy hotel food and went to stock up.

I have no idea if Doyle, the Director of the Center For Food Safety at the University of Georgia, is even interested in the job of director of the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Food Safety and Inspection Service (although I know others who have had the job and it’s not a dream posting) but his name is getting slogged through the mud that is the Intertubes in a manner that does nothing but confirm that journalism shouldn’t be dead just yet. Sometimes it’s important to check things.

Obama Foodorama, a blog apparently set up to fascinate on all things foodie about the new President, says that,

“Dr. Mike Doyle is Ag Secretary Tom Vilsack’s leading contender to head USDA’s Food Safety and Inspection Service. … Those in the know on the pick say the choice of Doyle is a step backward for Sec. Vilsack, who has so far put together a swell team at USDA. … The word "shill" has been used frequently in e mails about Doyle.”

If shill means talking straight about microbial food safety, sign me up.

“How invested is Doyle in the economics of food safety? He actually holds patents on a number of microbiological solutions for disease outbreaks.”

Uhm, professors are supposed to get outside funding. And patents. And speak their mind in a way that can be validated. Doyle has published about 500 peer-reviewed journal articles, which is 500 more than any of his critics

I don’t really know the dude, but I know Doyle’s consistent on food safety.
 

Peanut Corp. president keeps quiet amidst accusations that he put profits before safety

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After e-mails released in today’s U.S. Congressional oversight and investigation subcommittee hearing revealed the sentiments of Peanut Corp. of America’s president, Stewart Parnell, toward the company’s microbial testing, the Associated Press reported,

Parnell sat stiffly, his hands folded in his lap at the witness table, as Rep. Greg Walden, R-Ore., held up a clear jar of his company’s products wrapped in crime scene tape and asked him if he would be willing to eat the food.

"Mr. Chairman and members of the committee, on advice of my counsel, I respectively decline to answer your questions based on the protections afforded me under the U.S. Constitution," Parnell said.

After repeating the statement several times, he was dismissed from the hearing.

Sammy Lightsey, his plant manager also invoked his right not to testify when he appeared alongside Parnell before the subcommittee.

As the hearing opened this morning, the Atlanta-Journal-Constitution reported,

Rep. Phil Gingrey, R-Marietta, admonished company executives sitting in the crowd, saying they could invoke their Fifth Amendment rights not to testify, but that doesn’t protect them from justice if they’re found guilty of wrongdoing.

Henry Waxman, chairman of the House Committee on Energy and Commerce, was quoted as saying, “This company cared more about its financial bottom line than it did about the safety of its customers.”

According to the AP, the president of one company that tested products for Peanut Corp. spoke to the House panel.

Charles Deibel, president of Deibel Laboratories Inc., said his company was among those that tested Peanut Corp. of America’s products and notified the Georgia plant that salmonella was found in some of its peanut stock.

"It is not unusual for Deibel Labs or other food testing laboratories to find that samples clients submit do test positive for salmonella and other pathogens, nor is it unusual that clients request that samples be retested," Deibel said. "What is virtually unheard of is for an entity to disregard those results and place potentially contaminated products into the stream of commerce."

Georgia considers forcing plants to disclose positive test results

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While Peanut Corp., the state of Georgia, and the federal government come under fire for letting salmonella get into roasted peanuts and those peanuts get into hundreds of products, a debate is stirring on the value of revealing the results of microbial testing.

Doug and Ben want manufacturers to show their results to the public, but Georgia’s Senate Agriculture Committee just wants them to tell the state.

The Associated Press reported two days ago that the Senate Agriculture Committee was discussing a bill that would "require food makers to alert state inspectors within a day if internal tests show a contaminant in a plant."

According to a New York Times article that day,

Dr. Steven M. Solomon, an official in [FDA’s] Office of Regulatory Affairs, said the agency has viewed such disclosures as a “double-edged sword” that might inhibit some companies from testing in the first place.

An AP report yesterday said the committee’s chairman, Sen. John Bulloch, "delayed a vote on the measure until later this week as he waits for more industry response."

Meanwhile, Georgia Agriculture Commissioner Tommy Irvin urged Congress to adopt similar requirements. He told members of a House food safety panel,

"We could have a strong law in Georgia, but if it’s not followed by Congress, we could find ourselves in a position of driving out business."

History shows that companies caught without a culture of food safety don’t stay in business, anyway. Smart companies know food safety is good business and should be happy to brag about it.

Peanut Corp. president urged shipping tainted nuts

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It’s as bad as it gets.

Early reporting from today’s U.S. Congressional oversight and investigation subcommittee hearing where Peanut Corp. of America President Stewart Parnell was forced to appear and is expected to take the Fifth Amendment and not testify, depicts a company focused on profits rather than food safety.

E-mails between Parnell and Sammy Lightsey, manager of the company’s Blakely plant, were released as part of a congressional hearing that started at 10 a.m. Wednesday.

• In one e-mail, Lightsey wrote Parnell discussing positive salmonella tests on its products, but Parnell gave instructions to nonetheless “turn them loose” after getting a negative test result from another testing company.

• In another e-mail, Parnell expressed his concerns over the losing “$$$$$$” due to delays in shipment and costs of testing.

• Parnell in another company-wide e-mail told employees there was no salmonella in its plants, instead accusing the news media of “looking for a news story where there currently isn’t one.”

On Jan. 19, Parnell sent an e-mail to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, pleading with the agency to let it stay in business.

He wrote that company executives “desperately at least need to turn the raw peanuts on our floor into money.”

Other revelations underpinning the Salmonella outbreak:

• The Georgia Department of Agriculture conducted two inspections of the company’s Blakely, Ga. plant in 2008, but did not test for salmonella on its own on either occasion — despite an internal agency goal to conduct such tests once a year.

• The company’s largest customers, including Kellogg’s, engaged contractors to conduct audits, but they did not conduct their own salmonella tests.

*The FDA did not test for salmonella at the plant, despite the 2007 salmonella outbreak traced to the Con-Agra plant about 70 miles from Peanut Corp. of America’s Blakely plant.

Texas peanut plant closed after Salmonella possibly found

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"It is clear that Peanut Corp. of America is not a producer that companies could — or can — rely on for a safe product.”

That’s what Seattle lawyer Bill Marler said after private lab tests show there may have been salmonella at a second plant operated by PCA in Plainview, Texas.

The Texas Department of Health said in a statement the plant temporarily closed Monday night at the request of health officials after the tests found "the possible presence of salmonella" in some of its products.

The Texas closing comes a day after the FBI raided the company’s plant in Georgia, hauling off boxes and other material. Agents executed search warrants at both the plant and at Peanut Corp.’s headquarters in Lynchburg, Va., according to a senior congressional aide with knowledge of the raids.

Also today, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control upped the sick form Salmonella numbers to 600 in 44 states, along with at least eight deaths.
 

Would a single food agency have stopped Salmonella peanut outbreak?

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In apparent good news for the rest of the American food industry, the folks at Peanut Company of America appear to be douchebags acting on their own after Food and Drug Administration types on Friday said the Blakely, Ga., plant actually shipped Salmonella-positive products without even shopping for a second negative result.

The company has denied any wrongdoing in the salmonella outbreak linked to at least eight deaths and 575 illnesses in 43 states. The Justice Department has opened a criminal investigation. More than 1,550 products have been recalled.

Also on Friday, U.S. Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack said the recall of salmonella-tainted peanut products shows the need to modernize the U.S. food safety system and ultimately create a single inspection agency.

“We need a single agency that’s working in a modern framework. We don’t have that today.”

The push for a single food agency is a political distraction: the only actions that matter are the ones that will reduce the number of sick people.