Tag Archives: Lettuce

Hundreds sick as outbreaks of gastroenteritis linked to lettuce, Denmark, January 2010

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Eurosurveillance reports at least 11 linked outbreaks of gastroenteritis with a total of 260 cases have occurred in Denmark in mid January 2010. Investigations showed that the outbreaks were caused by norovirus of several genotypes and by enterotoxigenic Escherichia coli. Lettuce of the lollo bionda type grown in France was found to be the vehicle.

From 18 to 20 January 2010, a series of outbreaks of gastroenteritis were reported to Danish authorities. Outbreak investigations were initiated by the Danish food control authority in cooperation with Statens Serum Institut (SSI), the National Food Institute, the Food and Veterinary Administration as well as the medical officers and several clinical microbiological laboratories in Copenhagen. The epidemiological, microbiological and food investigation are still ongoing; here we report on the current status of the investigation of these outbreaks.

The link between lettuce and illness was discovered in the fourth week of January 2010 based on an analysis of five outbreaks. These outbreaks had been reported during week 3 to the regional food control authority, which covers the eastern part of Denmark. As of 8 February, 11 outbreaks have been included in the cluster. A further eight outbreaks in Denmark which are currently under investigation may also be associated with lettuce. Taken together, the 11 outbreaks comprised approximately 480 potentially exposed persons and approximately 260 cases with symptoms of gastroenteritis . The 11 outbreaks all took place in the eastern half of the country (on the islands of Funen and Zealand). Norovirus was initially suspected as the aetiology, but the Kaplan criteria were not fulfilled in all circumstances and attack rates were sometimes higher than expected for norovirus, indicating the possibility of the presence of more than one disease agent.
 

Over 200 sick with norovirus (Roskilde virus in Danish) linked to lettuce from France

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You can’t name a girl Sorenne. That’s what my Danish friends and colleagues told me when I asked about potential names for our daughter. Soren is too masculine in the Scandinavian world.

The Danes also can’t trust French lettuce.

Fodevarestyrelsen reports that Futura Copenhagen A/S initiated a recall of Lollo Bionda lettuce produced in France in Jan. 2010 and sold to wholesalers, restaurants and consumers in Denmark.

“There is a suspicion that the lettuce is contaminated with norovirus (Roskilde virus) and thus may be the cause of more than 200 people the past 14 days has been ill with sickness Roskilde.”
 

Salmonella, lettuce, and lousy public reporting; silence of the Salmonella

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U.S. Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Margaret Hamburg said in her Sept. 11 address to the United Fresh Produce Association’s Washington Public Policy Conference that FDA’s intent is to keep unsafe foods from reaching the market and part of that new push will be accomplished by expanding outreach.

Guess it didn’t reach all the lettuce growers. Or the consuming public.

That’s because The Oregonian reports today that federal and state health authorities are investigating a salmonella outbreak that peaked in Oregon in August.

This is the middle of September. This is not prevention. Or good news.

The good news is that it is over, said William Keene, senior epidemiologist at the Public Health Division in Oregon.

He said the first cases surfaced nationwide in mid-July and trailed off a month later.

At least 124 were sickened across the country, with a clustering of cases in the West.

Two people got so sick they had to be hospitalized, and one had severe symptoms, Keene said. They have now been released from the hospital. He said no one died in Oregon or elsewhere in connection with the outbreak.

Scientists from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Food and Drug Administration still do not know exactly what poisoned people, though shredded lettuce is a leading suspect, Keene said.

The silence of the Salmonella. It would help, as with the Salmonella in produce outbreak last summer, or the listeria in Canadian cold cuts last fall, if public health types would clearly articulate, when they go public and why. And let everyone see those guidelines.
 

Greens and melons and tomatoes – oh my. Will new guidelines make produce safer?

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Last Friday, U.S. regulatory types announced plans to increase testing of beef trim for E. coli O157:H7 and to strengthen safety protocols for fresh fruits and vegetables. The former got lots of attention, especially with a new Salmonella outbreak that has sickened dozens and is linked to ground beef; the latter, not so much.

Fresh fruits and vegetables are one of, if not the most, significant sources of foodborne illness today in the U.S. – and it’s been that way for over a decade. As consumers increase per capita consumption of fresh vegetables, methods of handling, processing, packaging and distributing produce locally and internationally are receiving more attention in terms of identifying and controlling microbiological, chemical and physical hazards.

That was essentially the prelude for FDA publishing its 1998 Guidance for Industry: Guide to Minimize Microbial Food Safety Hazards for Fresh Fruits and Vegetables. We took those guidelines, as well as others, and created an on-farm food safety program for all 220 growers producing tomatoes and cucumbers under the Ontario Greenhouse Vegetable Growers banner. And set up a credible verification system.

So why did regulators and industry make such a big deal about commodity-specific guidelines for tomatoes, melons and leafy greens that were published in the federal register last Friday – in 2009?

I looked at the 2009 CSGs and the 1998 FDA guidance document – and I can’t see much of a difference in the on-farm stuf. Maybe I’m slow on the uptake; maybe guidelines are meaningless without implementation and verification; maybe growers keep asking for government babysitters so when the next outbreak happens, they can say, but we followed FDA guidelines (good luck with that). One of the notices said the draft guidances were FDA’s first step toward setting enforceable standards for produce safety, so maybe it’s some lawmaking thing.

Tom Stenzel, president of the United Fresh Produce Association, said in a statement released July 31,

“Our industry has worked hard since 2004 to develop commodity-specific guidance documents in each of these areas, and now strongly supports FDA taking these efforts to a new level.”

2004? Why not 1998? And do the new and supposedly improved guidelines mean fewer sick people? No. Not unless an individual grower or groups of growers, or associations, take serious steps to implement and verify, something could have been done in 1998 and does not need government oversight. We did it – how hard can it be?

It’s not, and lots of growers do it on a daily basis. So maybe the talk from Washington was rightly shrugged off as no biggie.

But why did Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, in making the announcement, choose to highlight the “vital role” consumers play in ensuring the safety of the fresh produce they eat and offer a laundry list of questionable food safety advice that would do little to reduce contamination of tomatoes, leafy greens and melons that happened in the field? Especially with all the caveats featured in the introduction to the tomato commodity-specific guide, included below.

This guidance is intended to assist domestic firms and foreign firms exporting tomatoes to the United States (U.S.) by recommending practices to minimize the microbial food safety hazards of their products throughout the entire tomato supply chain. It identifies some, but not all, of the preventive measures that these firms may take to minimize these food safety hazards. This guidance document is not intended to serve as an action plan for any specific operation but should be viewed as a start­ing point. We encourage each firm from the farm level through the retail or foodservice level to assess the recommendations in this guidance and tailor its food safety practices to its particular operations by developing its own food safety program based on an assessment of the potential hazards that may be associated with its operations.

In addition, effective management of food safety requires that responsibility be clearly established among the many parties involved in the production of fresh produce. There may be many different permutations of ownership and business arrangements during the growing, harvesting packing, processing, and distribution of fresh and fresh-cut tomatoes. For this reason, it is important to identify which responsibilities rest with which parties, and to ensure that these responsibilities are clearly defined. For example, growers commonly contract with third parties to harvest their crops. Also, it is important that growers clearly identify which party is responsible for each applicable provision of this guidance, such as providing adequate toilet and handwashing facilities and worker training. Approaches to addressing responsibilities include delegating them to individuals within the firm and formally addressing them in contractual agreements when third parties are involved. Each party should be aware of its responsibilities to ensure microbial food safety hazards for tomatoes are minimized at each stage of the supply chain.

The commodity specific guidelines are available for leafy greens, tomatoes and melons. Guidance, however, does not mean responsibility. That’s up to industry, and it begins on the farm.

 

K-State food safety types contribute to new book on causes, solutions to produce contamination

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Anyone can bitch. My colleagues and I try to provide solutions.

So Ben, Casey and I jumped at the chance to write the concluding chapter  for a new book, "The Produce Contamination Problem: Causes and Solutions," slated for release July 15 from Academic Press.

"We should eat fresh produce because it’s good for us, but it’s also a significant cause of foodborne illness," said Doug Powell, an associate professor of food safety at Kansas State University.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recently reported that when leafy vegetables are counted with fruits and nuts, they account for the majority of foodborne disease outbreaks in 2006. Together, these types of produce are blamed for 33 percent of outbreaks. In comparison, poultry was the culprit of 21 percent of outbreaks that year.

One of the main things the authors convey is that the tomato grown in your home garden is as likely to make you sick as is the tomato purchased at a big-box grocery store or discount chain.

"Everyone is big on their local garden, but it’s no different whether I have a thousand acres or a little plot in my backyard," Powell said. "You have to keep dog, cat and bird poop out of the product you eat."

Although factory farms often take the blame for outbreaks, Powell points out that the contaminated spinach circulating in 2006 came from a farm with a 70-head cattle operation.

"It was nothing near to being a factory farm, but cattle were kept next to the spinach," he said.

"With produce, anything that comes in contact with it has the potential to contaminate, whether it’s people’s hands, irrigation water or manure.”

The authors suggest that changes in food safety practices have to begin with producers.

"Other than asking questions about food safety practices, there isn’t much consumers can do," Powell said. "Contamination has to be prevented on the farm."

FDA chief focuses on produce safety

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Dr. Margaret Hamburg, the new chief of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, said a couple of weeks ago she was going to focus on preventing contamination of fresh fruit and vegetables.

That’s good, because this year has brought a new crop of unrealistic expectations about the microbial safety of fresh produce, created primarily by the largest producer of fresh produce, California.

While the industry is busy blowing itself over the steps it finally took after the 29th outbreak involving leafy greens, a cone of silence has apparently fallen over any outbreak involving fresh produce. How hard is it to traceback lettuce? Apparently that depends on who wants to know the answer.

Meanwhile, a bunch of Taco Bell franchisees won damages from their insurance company over a 2006 E. coli O157:H7 outbreak involving California bagged lettuce when the judge ruled that the lettuce should be considered an ingredient, which would be covered by the policy, instead of a product, which would not be covered.

The Onion, in this satirical-but-a-little-to-close-to-reality piece, has the perfect solution for Taco Bell.
 

Taco Bell’s New Green Menu Takes No Ingredients From Nature

Outstanding achievement in the leafy greens field of excellence

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There must be awards for everything.

Whenever a university or company talks about recreating itself to be more excellent, I’m reminded of Homer Simpson winning the First Annual Montgomery Burns Award for Outstanding Achievement in the Field of Excellence.

Homer is awarded $2,000 and agrees to loan the money to his bitter half-brother, Herb Powell (no relation) who becomes rich again by making a machine to translate a baby’s babbling into actual English. Amy figures she’s already mastered the sounds of baby Sorenne and can differentiate the cries for “I need to be fed” and “I just had a huge dump.”

With that in mind, California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger was honored yesterday with the California Leafy Greens Marketing Agreement “Golden Checkmark” Award for his leadership and support of mandatory government inspection of food safety systems within the produce industry. 

Joe Pezzini, a leafy greens farmer and chairman of the California Leafy Greens Marketing Agreement Board said that with the creation of the California Leafy Greens Marketing Agreement, a system is now in place which involves mandatory government inspections to ensure food safety practices are being followed by California leafy greens farmers.  Since the LGMA’s inception in April 2007 nearly 1,000 audits of California leafy greens farms have been conducted by government inspectors. 

The same government inspectors that visited Peanut Corporation of America in Georgia? Or William Tudor’s butcher shop in Wales?

I thought it was the producer’s job to provide a safe product, not the babysitter’s.


 

UK Subway worker filmed putting lettuce leaves up his nose in sandwich shop… before putting them back on display

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A sandwich bar worker was sacked after footage of him stuffing lettuce leaves up his nose – before he put them back in their serving tray – was posted on YouTube.

Except I can’t find the video, so there’s just this crappy picture (if someone has it, please send along the url).

The Daily Mail reports that Richard Shannon, who also put salad leaves in his mouth before spitting them out, was arrested after a ‘disgusted’ customer recognised the 22-year-old on the Internet.

Shannon was arrested after the irate woman went to a branch of Subway in Brownhills, West Midlands, and hurled a chair at him, Walsall Magistrates’ Court heard today.

The defendant admitted a single charge of contaminating or interfering with goods with intent to cause economic loss, alarm or injury.

He claimed the incident, filmed by a friend on a mobile phone early last year, had been a prank and that the lettuce, which went back into a tray used to make customers’ sandwiches, had been discarded.
 

N.Y. Times food safety editorial misses the point

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The New York Times wrote in an editorial Saturday that the Food and Drug Administration is right to focus on imported foods and it is encouraging that the agency has already hired staff for new offices in China and India that will try to ensure the safety of food products before they are exported.

Yes, imported foods can be problematic. But so can homegrown foods. The silence surrounding California lettuce as a possible source of E. coli O157:H7 outbreaks in Michigan and Ontario is beyond disturbing. And the more fingers are pointed to imports, the fewer questions are asked about domestic supplies.

The Times did get this part of their editorial right:

“The goal is to root out tainted food — whether produced abroad or in this country — at the earliest stages of the production and distribution process while being ready to respond quickly if pathogens start reaching consumers.”

They just couldn’t follow through with a meaningful statement and say, providing safe food actually depends on a culture of food safety from farm-to-fork, wherever that food comes from.
 

Silence of the lettuce

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If there’s one result from the Salmonella Saintpaul outbreak this summer it’s this: public health types sure are reluctant to finger fresh produce in outbreaks of foodborne illness.

On Tuesday, a spokesman for the bureaucrats club know as the Canadian Food Inspection Agency confirmed they are looking to U.S. suppliers of E. coli-infected romaine lettuce that has been linked to 153 illnesses across southern Ontario, “but he had few other details.”

On Monday, something called the Produce Safety Project, an Initiative of The Pew Charitable Trusts at Georgetown University concluded in a report that weaknesses in food safety policy, organization and communications were all displayed during this summer’s outbreak of Salmonella Saintpaul.

The report, "Breakdown: Lessons to Be Learned from the 2008 Salmonella Saintpaul Outbreak," represents an in-depth review of the public record of last summer’s Salmonella Saintpaul outbreak that caused illnesses in more than 1,400 people across the country.  For a full copy of the report and the executive summary click here: http://www.producesafetyproject.org/reports?id=0001

Highlights and recommendations from the report include:

The need for the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to use its existing statutory authorities to establish mandatory and enforceable safety standards for fresh produce.  While FDA officials said the outbreak showed the need for these standards, they said Congress needs to pass legislation to grant it explicit authority to do so.  However, the report notes that FDA has already used existing authorities to put in place preventive safety standards for seafood in 1995 and for juice in 2001.

The need for organizational reforms throughout the public health system for a more coordinated outbreak response. The report raises questions about how timely and effectively data was shared between public health agencies and if it contributed to a delayed identification of jalapeno and serrano peppers as a vehicle for Salmonella Saintpaul.

The need to have established and unified risk communication plans in place before an outbreak. The report documents "dueling" public health messages from various agencies announcing the outbreak, and questions why the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention changed its presentation of data numerous times in the middle of the outbreak.

I haven’t read the report in detail but will get to it.  And while everyone is pointing fingers, recall that epidemiology is a messy thing, but it can prevent people from barfing. Self-censorship could be worse.

Both CFIA and FDA need to establish clear and transparent protocols on when to go public in outbreaks of foodborne illness. No one will be happy, but it will provide a basis for discussion and a way to move forward; once it’s written down, it can be improved.