Tag Archives: louisiana

3 dead, 51 sick; Clostridium perfringens illness at a state psychiatric hospital — Louisiana, 2010

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On May 7, 2010, 42 residents and 12 staff members at a Louisiana state psychiatric hospital experienced vomiting, abdominal cramps, and diarrhea. Within 24 hours, three patients had died. The three fatalities occurred among patients aged 41–61 years who were receiving medications that had anti–intestinal motility side effects. For two of three decedents, the cause of death found on postmortem examination was necrotizing colitis. Investigation by the Louisiana Office of Public Health (OPH) and CDC found that eating chicken served at dinner on May 6 was associated with illness. The chicken was cooked approximately 24 hours before serving and not cooled in accordance with hospital guidelines. C. perfringens enterotoxin (CPE) was detected in 20 of 23 stool specimens from ill residents and staff members. Genetic testing of C. perfringens toxins isolated from chicken and stool specimens was carried out to determine which of the two strains responsible for C. perfringens foodborne illness was present. The specimens tested negative for the beta-toxin gene, excluding C. perfringens type C as the etiologic agent and implicating C. perfringens type A. This outbreak underscores the need for strict food preparation guidelines at psychiatric inpatient facilities and the potential risk for adverse outcomes among any patients with impaired intestinal motility caused by medications, disease, and extremes of age when exposed to C. perfringens enterotoxin.

Clostridium perfringens, the third most common cause of foodborne illness in the U.S., most often causes a self-limited, diarrheal disease lasting 12–24 hours. Fatalities are very rare, occurring in <0.03% of cases. Death usually is caused by dehydration and occurs among the very young, the very old, and persons debilitated by illness.

The full report is available from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control at http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/mm6132a1.htm?s_cid=mm6132a1_x.

14 sick with norovirus form Louisiana oysters

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 The oysters were relatively cheap and plentiful last weekend in Brisbane, so we went through two dozen.

I ate most of them.

Every time I visit the fishmonger, he asks if I want to sample a raw oyster to verify their quality and I say, no thanks. I prefer mine grilled.

Louisiana health officials say they closed a harvesting area and ordered a recall of oysters taken from there since April 26 after 14 people became ill with norovirus.

The closure started Tuesday and was expected to last at least three weeks.

The recall includes shucked, frozen, breaded and processed oysters and those for the half-shell market taken from Area 23 in Terrebonne Parish southwest of New Orleans. In addition to the New Orleans area, some of the oysters were shipped to Maryland, Texas and Georgia.

Health officials said the people became ill after eating oysters from that area at one New Orleans area restaurant April 28 or April 29.

As Jimmy sings, “Give me oysters and beer, for dinner every day of the year, and I’ll feel fine …
With a tin cup for a chalice, fill it up with good red wine, I’ll be chewing on a honeysuckle vine.” 

What if you build it and they don’t come? Louisiana restaurant disclosure still sucks

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 Matt Sigur of The Daily Advertiser writes that six months after an investigation detailed a series of broken promises and a culture of putting business interests ahead of the consumers it is charged with protecting, little has changed at the state Department of Health and Hospitals.

Louisiana remains one of the weakest states in the nation when it comes to making restaurant inspections understandable, relevant and accessible.

A website hastily launched during the final days of the paper’s original investigation sits largely unknown and unused.

At a press conference in August, DHH Secretary Bruce Greenstein proudly debuted Eat Safe as a commitment to transparency and public safety and promised that this was just the beginning, that a more complete and robust site was less than three months away.

Now six months after that promise, nothing has changed.

The site remains, but because of its limited usefulness and DHH’s decision not to promote it, the numbers argue it is dying a slow death. In August, the site recorded more than 560,000 page views. In October, the number fell to 52,000. In January, the number fell again, to 19,837. The Louisiana Restaurant Association, a powerful lobby in the state and a group whose mission is to look out for the best interests of restaurants, was granted multiple "stakeholder" meetings on what information the site would make available, and in Greenstein’s own words has a "collaborative and close relationship" with DHH.

Greenstein brushes off critics who argue he has no interest of making the site useful or successful and accuse him of just going through the motions to dodge pressure on the issue.

Stu Gonsoron, project manager for Bailey’s Catering, a full service offshore and inland catering company, says there’s no reason for the update delays or lack of marketing of Eat Safe.

"There’s nothing to it, but to do it," Gonsoron said. "I don’t know if there’s too much red tape. There’s no excuse for them to not have made this more accessible and given consumers more awareness about this program. It is upsetting."

For Tyler Thigpen Cochran, a member of Acadiana Food Circle, which works to help consumers connect with local producers and educate the public on healthy, local food choices, the tardiness "doesn’t bode well" for DHH.

"It seems like the website should get priority," Cochran said. "If you want people to know about it, you put it on the web."

Doug Powell, a Kansas State professor and food safety expert, said the lack of promotion for Eat Safe is questionable.

"It’s a reflection of how serious the whole process is taken by elected officials and public servants," Powell said. "Some states and municipalities actively promote their disclosure systems. Others quietly put it up on the web, and those with a vested interest go digging."

Louisiana public dining in the dark

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Matthew Sigur of the Daily Advertiser reports in a Sunday feature that Louisiana has one of the poorest records in the country when it comes to making restaurant inspections available to consumers.

• Louisiana is one of only nine states that does not make at least some inspections, which are public record, available online. The State Department of Health and Hospitals, which oversees the inspections, first promised a website in 2005 but has so far failed to deliver. Only after weeks of questioning from the Advertiser — and four days before publication of this article — did the DHH announce plans for a site to go live Monday.

• Thirty-nine states allow for some kind of rating with each inspection to make it easier for consumers to know where a restaurant stands relative to others. Louisiana and 10 others do not. Many other states also insist inspections be posted at the restaurant itself; Louisiana does not.

• Restaurants have little motivation to rush to fix violations. A restaurant cited for violations has at least two months after the initial inspection before a fine can be levied. And not a single restaurant in Lafayette has been shut down by DHH using this process in the past five years.

• Several key stakeholders, including the powerful Louisiana Restaurant Association, openly oppose or sharply question the need for any change that allows the public more access to inspection reports.

• Taken together, these findings paint a troubling picture for consumers, particularly in Lafayette, where great restaurants are one of the city’s top calling cards and eating out is practically a way of life. The issue has taken on added urgency because of a rash of food-borne illnesses making headlines across the country, including an ongoing salmonella outbreak in 26 states that has killed one person and left more than 75 people ill. Closer to home, three patients died and 40 became ill from food poisoning from chicken salad served at Pineville’s Central State Hospital last year. States such as New York, New Jersey and Hawaii have taken recent steps to tighten health regulations in response to growing concerns, but our state has stood pat.

As of now, curious consumers have only one way to view inspection reports for a restaurant. The reports are kept at the local sanitarian services office, open from 8 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. weekdays on 220 W. Willow St. There, you may buy a sanitation report, usually only one or two pages in length, for 25 cents per sheet.

The site, to be called Eat Safe, will feature at-home food safety tips and a restaurant inspections database, Faust said. The site is expected to go live Monday and can be found at www.eatsafe.la.gov. (For this article, the Advertiser requested and received copies of local restaurant inspections since Jan. 1 of this year. A database of the results is available at theadvertiser.com.)

Stan Harris, president of the Louisiana Restaurant Association, believes a website won’t make much difference.

"Where you put the inspections doesn’t make a difference whether people come to your restaurant or not," Harris said. "I’m not certain any online system can make people understand."

"If the public sees this, some of these predefined statements and violations are so vague," local sanitarian Tamika Carron said, "it may not be as bad as it sounds."
Tenney Sibley, chief of sanitarian services for the DHH, said more information — such as ratings or grades — are unnecessary.

Although Louisiana doesn’t have restaurant ratings now, it wasn’t always that way. In 2005, when the ill-fated website launched, restaurants were graded on a scale of one to five pelicans.

Doug Powell, a Kansas State University professor, said a critical and non-critical system doesn’t give a clear distinction.

"Transparency of information is the only way to build confidence," he said. "The public health folks say, ‘It’s an extra burden.’ The bottom line is getting this information out there so people talk about it. It’s the biggest advantage, and it makes people more aware of food safety."

Without the pressure of transparency and public accessibility, however, business owners may not feel an urgency to address problems.

Filion, K. and Powell, D.A. 2009. The use of restaurant inspection disclosure systems as a means of communicating food safety information. Journal of Foodservice 20: 287-297.

Abstract?

The World Health Organization estimates that up to 30% of individuals in developed countries become ill from food or water each year. Up to 70% of these illnesses are estimated to be linked to food prepared at foodservice establishments. Consumer confidence in the safety of food prepared in restaurants is fragile, varying significantly from year to year, with many consumers attributing foodborne illness to foodservice. One of the key drivers of restaurant choice is consumer perception of the hygiene of a restaurant. Restaurant hygiene information is something consumers desire, and when available, may use to make dining decisions.
 

Stricken with E. coli, girl fighting

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A 5-year-old girl remains hospitalized in the Louisiana Health Sciences Center-Shreveport’s pediatric intensive care unit more than two weeks after contracting E. coli O157 while attending a party in Richland Parish.

Tom Sumrall, the girl’s grandfather, said as many as 15 children were sickened following an end-of-the-year Ouachita Christian School party last month on a farm between Start and Rayville.

OCS headmaster Bobby Stokes said the party was not put on by the school.

At least three children were hospitalized. A young boy was released from a Jackson, Miss., hospital last week and a young girl was released from LSU Health Sciences Center-Shreveport Thursday, Sumrall said.

Dr. Shelley Jones, the Louisiana Department of Health and Hospitals Region 8 director, suspects the children contracted the E. coli while playing in a mud pit. It was likely transmitted from the infected fecal matter of a cow.

"We do know based on preliminary analysis that the children who played in the mud pit more than five minutes were more likely to have symptoms," Jones said.

"But the state lab is unable to do environmental testing, so we’re probably not going to know definitively."

John Cooper, the 5-year-old girl’s father, said his daughter remains on dialysis and was just removed from a venilator on Thursday. Cooper said both of his daughter’s lungs collapsed.

Listeria in Louisiana hog head cheese, 2010; 14 sick, 2 dead

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In Aug. 2010, Veron Foods, LLC of Prairieville, La. recalled approximately 500,000 pounds of “ready to eat” sausage and hog head cheese products that ‘may have been’ contaminated with Listeria monocytogenes.

The problem was discovered through a foodborne illness investigation that resulted in a product sample testing positive for Listeria monocytogenes, but, like crappy food safety agencies here and there, the Louisiana types wouldn’t say how many got sick.

And everyone went back to sleep.

Until today, when the U.S. Centers for Disease Control issued its report about an outbreak of listeria associated with eating hog head cheese in Louisiana in 2010.

I’m guessing it was the same outbreak.

During January–June 2010, a total of 14 cases of laboratory-confirmed invasive listeriosis were reported to the Louisiana Office of Public Health (OPH). Isolates of Listeria monocytogenes from the blood samples of eight patients were identified as serotype 1/2a and had pulsed-field gel electrophoresis (PFGE) pattern combinations that were indistinguishable from one another. …

In-depth epidemiologic and environmental investigations of the cluster were initiated on July 26, including food history interviews of four patients. Three patients reported eating hog head cheese (a meat jelly made from swine heads and feet); the product was purchased at two grocery stores in Louisiana. A traceback investigation determined that a single brand of hog head cheese was common between the two grocery stores. L. monocytogenes serotype 1/2a was cultured from one of three product samples and from two of 16 environmental samples collected by LDAF at the processing establishment; the product and one of the two environmental samples yielded isolates with PFGE pattern combinations that were indistinguishable from the patient isolates. On August 14, LDAF coordinated a voluntary recall of approximately 500,000 pounds of hog head cheese and sausage because of possible contamination with L. monocytogenes.

This is the first published report of an invasive listeriosis outbreak associated with hog head cheese, which is a ready-to-eat (RTE) meat. USDA-FSIS has a "zero tolerance" policy for L. monocytogenes contamination of RTE food products (1), requesting recall of such products at any detectable level of L. monocytogenes contamination. LDAF imposes and enforces equivalent requirements in state-inspected establishments.

Louisiana OPH epidemiologists noted that 14 cases of invasive listeriosis had been reported during January–June 2010, which exceeded the state’s average of five cases reported during each January–June period during the previous 3 years. For this investigation, a cluster-associated case was defined as isolation of L. monocytogenes serotype 1/2a from a normally sterile site (e.g., blood or cerebrospinal fluid) or from placental or fetal tissue (in the setting of miscarriage or stillbirth) since January 1, 2010, and PFGE pattern combination GX6A16.0001 and GX6A12.0001.

Eight patients had illnesses that met the case definition. Their median age was 64 years (range: 38–93 years). Six patients were men; no patients were pregnant. Six patients had one or more underlying medical conditions (i.e., human immunodeficiency virus [HIV] infection, alcohol abuse, cancer, and diabetes mellitus). Illness onsets occurred from February 18 to June 16. Signs and symptoms included fever (n = 6 patients), altered mental status (n = 3), diarrhea (n = 3), vomiting (n = 3), and weakness (n = 2). Seven patients were hospitalized; two patients died. …

The implicated brand of hog head cheese originated from a small, state-inspected processing establishment in Louisiana, which produces approximately 600 pounds of hog head cheese per week. This establishment was under federal inspection until January 2007. Routine FSIS microbiologic testing of products at the establishment detected L. monocytogenes contamination in October and December 2006; the company voluntarily recalled 290 pounds of hog head cheese in January 2007. Four L. monocytogenes isolates from USDA-FSIS samples collected in 2006 did not match the 2010 outbreak-related PFGE pattern combination. In addition, Listeria contamination was not detected in any of the 12 product samples collected by LDAF since 2007; analysis of routine environmental samples collected by the management of the processing establishment during January–July 2010 also did not detect Listeria. However, the outbreak strain was identified in environmental samples collected during the investigation, which was several weeks after the manufacture of the outbreak-associated products (Figure), suggesting that persistent environmental contamination in the processing establishment was responsible for product contamination and resulting illnesses.

Louisiana firm recalls meat products because of listeria contamination; people are sick

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Veron Foods, LLC of Prairieville, La. is recalling approximately 500,000 pounds of “ready to eat” sausage and hog head cheese products that may be contaminated with Listeria monocytogenes, the Louisiana Department of Agriculture and Forestry’s Office of Animal Health and Food Safety announced.

The problem was discovered through a foodborne illness investigation that resulted in a product sample testing positive for Listeria monocytogenes. But just like the Canadian Food Inspection Agency and salmonella-tainted green onions, no one is saying who or how many got sick.
 

deadly food poisoning; procedures weren’t followed, management clueless

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Three patients died, 42 other patients and 12 staff members got sick from Clostridium perfringens in improperly stored chicken salad, so the administrator and associate administrator at Central Louisiana State Hospital have, as they politely say in the South (and smile while the knife goes in), left the facility.

The appropriately named Town Talk reports today the investigations also revealed what the Louisiana Department of Health and Hospitals termed unacceptable process and management issues.

The investigations, ordered by DHH Secretary Alan Levine, found serious deficiencies in dietary services and concerns with the overall operation of the hospital.

Levine said,

“The day of these tragic deaths, I went to Pineville with Deputy Secretary Tony Keck to personally assess what had happened. We ordered a comprehensive investigation into the patient deaths, and asked other agencies to conduct expert reviews into various issues.

“The staff at CLSH was cooperative, and I’m grateful for that. But I have seen enough evidence of unacceptable performance that I am convinced major changes are necessary. Basic policies were not followed. Staff was not properly educated. The findings across the board raise real concerns related to overall management that go beyond the food service area.”

Hospital food kills 3, sickens 40 in Louisiana

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It’s bad enough to be in the hospital; it’s worse when the food at the hospital is what kills.

Louisiana state officials say they suspect food poisoning as the cause behind the weekend deaths of three patients at Pineville’s Central State Hospital.

Forty patients at the behavioral health hospital showed signs of gastrointestinal stress beginning around 6:30 a.m. Friday with the three deaths a 43-year-old woman, 41-year-old man and 52-year-old man happening late Friday night or early Saturday morning.

Two patients remain hospitalized at Huey P. Long Medical Center in Pineville. A total of 11 patients and four staff members were treated there for possible food-poisoning symptoms.

Raw oysters from Louisiana sicken 11 in Mississippi with norovirus

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The Louisiana state Department of Health and Hospitals has closed a large section of east bank Plaquemines Parish waters to oyster fishing through at least mid-April, after 11 people in Mississippi – at a seafood conference, repeat, at a seafood conference — became sick after eating oysters believed to be traced to that area.

The Times-Picayune reports the state has also issued a recall of any oysters harvested from that area since March 6, meaning wholesalers must review their records and contact any restaurants, brokers or other buyers who bought oysters from those waters. Under Food and Drug Administration and state health guidelines, oyster dealers are required to have a recall plan in effect.