Raw eggs: Dubai dinner cruise cook jailed after 5 women fall ill with salmonella

Posted on October 2, 2014 by Douglas Powell

A cook has been jailed for three months for risking the lives of five women who became sick with salmonella poisoning after serving them a bacteria-infected chocolate mousse at a dinner cruise.

The 42-year-old Indian cook, R.M., was said to have failed to store the chocolate mousse in an appropriately hygienic place before it got hit by the bacteria.

Then he endangered the lives of the five women, of different nationalities, who happened to be enjoying a group dinner on a floating restaurant at Dubai Marina when they consumed the contaminated sweet.

Dubai Municipality’s inspector testified to prosecutors that the chocolate mousse was unsuitable for human intake because it was infected with salmonella. The inspector mentioned in the report that the cook used unpasteurised eggs to make the chocolate mousse.

Jail time for man selling bad meat in Lebanon

Posted on December 15, 2013 by Douglas Powell

Government officials and business leaders stood together Friday in calling for stricter food safety measures as news broke that a man convicted of selling spoiled meat had been sentenced to one year in prison and ordered to pay a fine of LL50 million.

Arslan Sinno, vice chairman of the Lebanese-American Chamber of Commerce, told a gathering at the chamber’s offices in Sanayeh that Lebanon should update its laws to be in line with international standards.

“We want to nourish the Lebanese market and economy to give it international exposure,” Sinno said.

Industry Minister Vreij Sabounjian later took the floor, promising to “promote strategies aimed at improving food safety in Lebanon.”

Food-safety offenders to receive harsher penalties – in China

Posted on June 19, 2013 by Douglas Powell

Shanghai has stepped up its punishment for those found to be endangering food safety by removing ceilings for fines and allowing the death penalty for severe crimes, a high official from Shanghai’s top court said on Monday.

“The threshold for sending food-safety lawbreakers to prison has been lowered. Stiff penalties both legally and economically will ensure criminals do not dare to get involved in such crimes again,” said Zou Bihua, vice-president of the Shanghai High People’s Court, at a news conference.

China Daily reports the Supreme People’s Court and the Supreme People’s Procuratorate jointly issued a judicial interpretation on May 2, which legal experts said gives clearer definitions of criminal behaviors in the food safety sector.

“For example, the law only defines those who caused serious food poisoning incidents or the like as guilty, but it was hard for courts to determine whether a behavior had caused such incidents or sickness and then declare someone guilty,” said Xu Liming, a presiding judge at the criminal division of the Shanghai High People’s Court.

“The judicial interpretation listed five behaviors that can be defined as causing serious food poisoning or disease. The courts can sentence all those who display such behaviors,” he said.

These behaviors include producing and selling livestock, poultry and aquatic animals that die of diseases or fail inspection and quarantine tests; and producing and selling infant food containing nutrients that do not conform to food safety standards.

A more extensive crackdown on lawbreakers, including people who provide assistance to those who produce or sell poisonous and harmful food, will be implemented.

Anybody who provides funds, loans, invoices, permits — or facilitating conditions such as business sites, transportation, storage, online sales channels and advertising — will be deemed an accomplice, according to the judicial interpretation.

Pubic hair in meal means I’m not paying; except it’s mine; caught on video

Posted on June 9, 2013 by Douglas Powell

Forty-year-old UK man Lee Tyers was recently sentenced to 14 days in jail for trying to get out of paying the check at Jamal’s Indian Restaurant by putting his own pubic hair in his food.

According to The Mirror and summarized by Eater, Tyers and a friend worked their way through a £39.55 meal of two lamb bhunas, pilau rice, naan, drinks, a chapati and a shish kebab before complaining to a waiter about finding hair in his lamb bhuna. Unfortunately for Tyers, it’s 2013 and video recording technology is a very real thing.

The Guardian reports that the restaurant’s cameras caught him “adding the extra ingredient to his meal” before getting up to talk to staff. Since Tyers already owed owner Jamal Chowdhuryfor £110 in previously unpaid meals, the law got involved.

Once at Teesside Magistrates’ Court, Tyers fully denied the incident. According to Chowdury, “[Tyers] showed me his plate and I said: ‘I gave you a clean plate.’ He had eaten everything, but then on the side of the plate there was some brown hair. It was separate and not mixed into the food.” In the end, his point was simple: “I told him all the staff have black hair and this is brown, it’s not our hair.” The court decided in Chowdhury’s favor, finding Tyers guilty of fraud by false representation. He was sentenced to 14 days in prison and ordered to pay for the full amount of the meal.

Ex-Chicago contractor took bribes for food safety certifications, jailed for over 2 years

Posted on August 30, 2012 by Douglas Powell

WLS reports a woman who formerly worked as food inspector for the city of Chicago was sentenced to more than two years in prison Wednesday for taking bribes to obtain food safety certificates for people who had not taken required courses or passed tests.

U.S. District Judge Harry Leinenweber sentenced Mary Anne Koll to 2 1/2 years in federal prison on Wednesday, according to the U.S. Attorney’s office. She will begin her sentence on Dec. 31.

The 69-year-old Burr Ridge resident was convicted last year of conspiracy to commit bribery for accepting at least $96,930 in return for fraudulently arranging to provide bogus certificates for at least 531 people, federal prosecutors charged.

Koll, an independent contractor working as a food inspector for the Chicago Public Health Department, taught state-mandated food sanitation courses and administered exams to people seeking certification between 1995 and 2007, the Dept. of Justice said. The course required 15 hours of training on food safety and sanitation, and state law required all food service establishments to have at least one certified manager on site.

Between June 2004 and June 2007, Koll fraudulently obtained certificates for people who had not attended the course or passed the exam, prosecutors said. Koll, who has since retired, got the certificates by completing the forms herself and submitting them to the IDPH.

There was this one time, when I was in jail; 4 Arizona inmates hospitalized; botulism from homemade alcohol suspected

Posted on August 4, 2012 by Douglas Powell

Being in jail is a training school for how to get away with stuff.

I did 6 weeks dead time between conviction and sentencing in 1981 at the local jail – the equivalent of maximum security — and saw drugs enter daily. Since any visits were behind Plexiglas, the preferred method was via the exercise yard – we got 30 minutes a day in a small basketball-sized court surrounded by 20 feet of brick and topped with razor wire. People on the outside would flick half a cigarette, with the tobacco removed and filled with hashish, over the wall so it looked like another discarded butt.

At the minimum security institution, where visits involved contact, the preferred method was a long kiss and a balloon full of pills. I was just happy with some contact (thank you, Alison).

But, even wise guys can get it wrong.

The Arizona Republic reports that four state prison inmates were hospitalized with suspected botulism poisoning Friday after apparently drinking homemade prison alcohol,.

Three were reported in stable condition Friday night. The condition of the fourth was not known late Friday.

All four inmates had been housed in the maximum-security Eyman complex in Florence.

"It’s not an airborne illness," said Pinal County spokeswoman Heather Murphy. "It has to be ingested or injected. We cannot confirm it at this time, but we believe it to be contraband prisoner-made alcohol."

In some cases, inmates use fruit and bread from their food trays to ferment an alcohol concoction.

Barfield said that she once found about two gallons of homemade alcohol in a garbage bag.

"It’s that easy," Barfield said.

But because the smell is so overpowering, corrections officers can easily detect the contraband, which is flushed down the toilet, she said.

In 2011, 12 inmates at the Utah State Prison in Draper developed botulism after drinking a concoction made from fruit, potatoes, bread, water and sugar.

In 2004, four California inmates were hospitalized after contracting botulism from a two-gallon batch of prison-made alcohol.

New York convict claims food is killing him, files lawsuit

Posted on June 27, 2012 by Douglas Powell

I ate some bad food in prison: the worst was saltpeter and horse nuts, some sort of canned stone fruit in a syrupy moss.

And this was at the correctional facility that had its own canning plant to ship the horse nuts off to other patrons and guests of the Ontario government.

Guess it wasn’t as bad as a former Rikers inmate who is suing New York City for $80 million claiming that the prison food almost killed him. Michael Isolda, who weighed 460 pounds before he underwent gastric bypass surgery, says he was only given four minutes at a time to eat his measly prison meals—because of his surgery, that speed-eating caused him to vomit after every meal and eventually separated his stomach from his intestine. “For me, Rikers Island is a death sentence,” he said in his lawsuit. “It’s not a matter of surviving and worrying about inmates. I have to worry about the food killing me.”

Careful with that cow inmate: E. coli O111 infections associated with a correctional facility dairy — Colorado, 2010

Posted on March 8, 2012 by Douglas Powell

Excerpts from an article in today’s U.S. Centers for Disease Control Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report.

On April 20, 2010, the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment (CDPHE) was notified by correctional authorities regarding three inmates with bloody diarrhea at a minimum-security correctional facility. The facility, which houses approximately 500 inmates, is a designated work center where inmates are employed or receive vocational training. Approximately 70 inmates work at an onsite dairy, which provides milk to all state-run correctional facilities in Colorado. CDPHE immediately began an investigation and was later assisted by the High Plains Intermountain Center for Agricultural Health and Safety at Colorado State University and by CDC. This report describes the results of the investigation, which determined that the illnesses were caused by Shiga toxin–producing Escherichia coli O111 (STEC O111) infections.

During April–July, 2010, 10 inmates at the facility received a diagnosis of laboratory-confirmed STEC O111 infection, and a retrospective prevalence study of 100 inmates found that, during March–April, 14 other inmates had experienced diarrheal illness suspected of being STEC O111 infection. Pulsed-field gel electrophoresis (PFGE) testing indicated that STEC O111 isolates from inmates matched STEC O111 isolates from cattle at the onsite dairy. An environmental investigation determined that inmates employed at the dairy might have acquired STEC O111 infection on the job or transported contaminated clothing or other items into the main correctional facility and kitchen, thereby exposing other inmates. To prevent similar outbreaks in correctional facilities, authorities should consult with public health officials to design and implement effective infection control measures.

CDPHE staff also inspected the correctional facility’s kitchens and living areas and identified the following conditions conducive to STEC O111 transmission: poor adherence to standard food-service protocols and hygiene practices, including food handlers working while ill with diarrhea; inconsistent availability of hand soap throughout the facility; dairy employees wearing soiled work clothes into the kitchen and living areas; and transport of potentially fecally contaminated lunch coolers and water containers from the dairy into the kitchen.

CDPHE hypothesized that the outbreak was associated with environmental contamination and propagated by person-to-person transmission, possibly through food preparation. On learning of these results, the correctional facility immediately implemented the following public health recommendations: 1) prohibiting potentially contaminated material (e.g., lunch coolers, water containers, and work clothing from the dairy) in the kitchen area, 2) excluding from work all food handlers reporting diarrheal illness since April 1, 3) requiring food handlers with a confirmed STEC O111 test result to have two consecutive negative stool specimens before returning to work, and 4) limiting transfers of inmates to other facilities until they were cleared by the medical staff.

The complete report is available at: http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/mm6109a1.htm?s_cid=mm6109a1_x

Calgary’s egg man off to jail for contempt of court

Posted on February 17, 2012 by Douglas Powell

An Alberta farmer will serve 37 days in jail for contempt of court after he refused to stop selling filthy, low-grade eggs on Calgary street corners despite repeatedly being ordered to stop.

Elmar Augart, 75, has already paid $14,000 in fines and served two weeks in jail for ignoring a decade’s worth of orders from the courts and health inspectors that he stop selling eggs without a permit.

“What will it take to finally get Mr. Augart to obey health and safety legislation, or court orders?” Rob O’Neill, a prosecutor for Alberta Health Services, asked court. “It’s clear he needs to go back to jail for a longer time to get the message across.”

Court of Queen’s Bench Justice Stephen Hillier did not hesitate to agree to a jail sentence.

“It is clear that prior penalties have not engaged the attention of Mr. Augart,” Hillier said.

Augart’s trouble with illegal eggs began in September 2002 when he was convicted of selling them without a permit. That was followed by a second conviction in March 2003. He paid a total of $14,000 in fines.

Then in August 2003, Augart was caught selling eggs out of cardboard boxes on a street corner in Calgary’s Chinatown. He used no refrigeration and the eggs he sold were reaching 31 C while waiting to be sold. In that incident, health officials seized and destroyed 2,000 eggs.

O’Neill said that the eggs Augart sold were discoloured, misshapen and covered with feathers and bird feces. They were low-grade eggs rejected from other sources and sold as “farm-fresh” by Augart.

In November 2010, he was again caught selling eggs in Calgary’s Chinatown. He was also found to be selling eggs to restaurants, cafes and catering companies.

Augart’s eggs were linked to a salmonella outbreak in Calgary in late 2010. More than 4,000 eggs were seized from four catering companies and traced back to him.

He was caught twice more, in December 2010 and March 2011. His truck was seized and impounded. Augart was asked where the eggs came from and where he planned to deliver them.

In a recent affidavit to court, Augart tried to explain himself.

“I estimate I’ve broken even selling eggs,” he wrote. “I have continued for pleasure because I have sold eggs in and around Calgary since 1957.”

As bad as the pepper steak at the Cook County jail; foodborne poisoning affects 90 percent of ND county jail inmates

Posted on November 29, 2011 by Douglas Powell

About 90 percent of the 184 inmates at the Cass County Jail in North Dakota became ill Sunday night and early Monday morning with a potential foodborne illness, Sheriff Paul Laney said.

None of the inmates had to be taken to a hospital for medical treatment, though nurses from Fargo Cass Public Health did treat those whose symptoms were most severe, the jail’s Chief Nurse Heidi McLean said.

Doug Jensen, a registered sanitarian with Fargo Cass Public Health said all aspects of food supply, storage and preparation will be examined to determine where the illness came from.

There have been no reports of illnesses among staff, Laney said, though many of those who had been on duty overnight were at home.

Inmates were served a chili macaroni casserole, corn and cornbread for supper Sunday, Laney said.

The jail has contracted its food services for nearly five years with CBM Food Service of Sioux Falls, S.D., Laney said.

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