Tag Archives: Poisoning

How many food poisoners can you spot on this list?

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As Eddie Murphy said in the movie, 48 Hours, “A badge and a gun goes a long way. … There’s a new sheriff in town.”

That’s the impression the Obama Administration is trying to project with a spate of announcements to enhance food safety, which makes me feel it’s 1994 all over again … and look, there’s Michael Taylor back as a food safety advisor at the Food and Drug Administration (good choice, BTW).

For all the various announcements and endorsements today, the list of invitees to the White House is the most telling. How many food poisoners can you spot on this list, the ones who profit from selling food, have proven themselves incapable of providing safe food, and now have to ask for a babysitter?

Below is a list of expected attendees at today’s Food Safety Announcement, including representatives from consumer, industry, producer associations, public health, and academic organizations.
ADMINISTRATION OFFICIALS:
* Vice President Joe Biden
* Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services Kathleen Sebelius
* Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack
* Dr. Peggy Hamburg, Commissioner, FDA
* Dr. Joshua Sharfstein, Deputy Commissioner, FDA
* Melody Barnes, Director, Domestic Policy Council
* Dr. John Holdren, Director, Office of Science and Technology Policy
MEMBERS OF CONGRESS:
* Representative Rosa DeLauro (D-CT)
* Representative John Dingell (D-MI)
* Representative Bart Stupak (D-MI)
OTHER EXPECTED ATTENDEES INCLUDE
(in alphabetical order by last name)
* Brent Baglien, ConAgra Foods
* Andrew Bailey, National Turkey Federation
* Scott Becker, Association of Public Health Laboratories
* Georges Benjamin, American Public Health Association
* Ellen Bloom, Consumers Union
* Abigail Blunt, Kraft Foods
* Melane Boyce, Confectioners Association
* Thomas Bradshaw, American Frozen Food Institute
* David Buck, Center for Foodborne Illness, Research & Prevention
* Christine Bushway, Organic Trade Association
* Jonathan Cantu, Government Accountability Project
* Barry Carpenter, National Meat Association
* Anthony Corbo, Food and Water Watch
* Jo Ellen Deutsch- United Food & Commercial Workers International Union
* Caroline DeWaal, Center for Science in the Public Interest
* Orlo Ehart, NASDA
* Cathleen Enright, Western Growers Association
* Sandra Eskin, Georgetown University, Health Policy Institute
* Scott Faber, Grocery Manufacturers of America
* Gregory Ferrara, National Grocers Association
* Anthony Flood, International Food Information Council
* Molly Fogarty, Nestle
* Randall Gordon, National Grain and Feed Association
* Robert Green, United Egg Producers
* Sally Greenberg, National Consumers League
* Lisa Griffith, National Family Farm Coalition
* Robert Guenther, United Fresh Produce Association
* Margaret Henderson, National Fisheries Institute
* James Hodges, American Meat Institute
* Katherine Houston, Cargill, Inc.
* Jonathan James, Allen Family Foods, Inc
* Alice Johnson, ButterBall
* G. Chandler Keys, JBS
* Lonnie King, CDC
* Barbara Masters, Olsson Frank Weeda Terman Bode Matz PC
* Margaret Mellon, Union of Concerned Scientists
* Joel Newman, American Feed Industry Association
* Donna Norton, Mom’s Rising
* Erik Olson, Mars
* H. R. Bert Pena, Stinson Morrison Hecker LLP
* Robert Pestronk, National Association of County and City Health Officials
* Adam Reichardt, Association of State and Territorial Health Officials
* Tanya Roberts, Center for Foodborne Illness, Research & Prevention
* Welford Roberts, National Environmental Health Association
* Donna Rosenbaum, S.T.O.P. – Safe Tables Our Priority
* Marianne Rowden, American Association of Exporters and Importers
* Ruth Saunders, International Dairy Foods Association
* Bryan Silbermann, Produce Marketing Association
* Brian Snyder, Sustainable Agriculture Coalition
* Steven Steinhoff, Association of Food and Drug Officials
* Michael Taylor, George Washington University, School of Public Health and Health Services
* Mary Toker, General Mills, Inc.
* Omar Vargas, Pepsi-Cola North America
* Christopher Waldrop, Consumer Federation of America
* Deborah White, Food Marketing Institute
* Heather White, Environmental Working Group
* Andrea Yabulonsky, ConAgra Foods

Food poisoning strikes Birmingham police

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In 1984, the Pope visited the restored 350-year-old Jesuit mission of Ste. Marie-among-the-Hurons in Midland, Ontario. After departing, 1,600 hungry Ontario Provincial Police officers who had worked the ropes gathered for a boxed lunch. Of those 500 officers who chose ones with roast beef sandwiches, 423 came down with salmonella.

On Saturday, July 4, 2009, more than 40 police officers in Birmingham, U.K., were stricken with food poisoning after consuming a boxed lunch of  a sandwich, packet of crisps, chocolate bar and piece of fruit, as they prepared to police a demonstration which passed off peacefully.

Dozens of fireman, police and ambulance staff rushed to the scene as British Transport Police shut the station at about 5pm on the advice of health agencies.

The station re-opened 50 minutes later.

Lizard droppings may have poisoned Bangladesh students

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Lizard droppings or similar contamination may have been the cause for scores of students falling ill after eating at a girls’ hostel of Bagerhat Government PC College, civil surgeon Subhash Kumar Saha said on Sunday.

Saha was making an inspection of the hostel’s kitchen after 63 students, who had taken lunch there on Saturday, underwent treatment for food poisoning at Bagerhat Sadar Hospital.

Of them, 31 were admitted in critical condition, said doctors, but all were treated and out of danger.

Poisoned Deviled Eggs

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Yesterday on Days of Our Lives, Kate tried to poison Daniel and Chloe with an undetectable substance that she put on a tray of deviled eggs. When she caught her son, Lucas, trying to snatch an egg, she freaked out.

As recounted by Prevuze:

Lucas opens his mouth (something he’s very experienced at) and prepares to snack on the delectable poison egg. Kate walks into the kitchen and sees him about to commit eggicide. As predicted by thousands of viewers, Kate dives across the room and slaps the egg away from him. The egg goes one way, the tray goes another and the people in the room dive for cover to avoid the shower of garbage. Lucas has a total conniption, but Kate doesn’t back off. She stomps on the offending egg and grinds it under her shoe. Daniel and Chloe walk in, all properly zipped up.

Lucas explodes, "WHAT DID YOU DO THAT FOR, HUH? WHAT? WAS IT POISONED OR SOMETHING?"

Finally Kate comes up with an excuse:

"I poisoned the eggs. I did it without thinking. I put mayonnaise in them and they sat under the hot TV lights."
Lucas echoes what all of us are thinking, "This is lame, Mom."

Lame for sure. As Doug has explained, the danger of leaving deviled eggs out in the heat is not from the mayonnaise which, if bought from the supermarket, should have pasteurized ingredients. If you’re making mayonnaise from scratch, however, it does contain raw egg. Whether it’s temperature abused or not, raw egg can contain Salmonella. Somehow I doubt that Kate or Aunt Maggie make their own homemade mayo.
 

Ramsay an ‘arrogant narcissist’

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Fresh off a bout of viral food poisoning that was miraculously cured by a penicillin shot to the butt, food buffoon Gordon Ramsey told a cooking session at the Good Food and Wine Show in Melbourne that a doctored picture of a woman with the features of a pig and multiple breasts was similar to television journalist Tracy Grimshaw. Ramsey called her a pig woman and a lesbian.

"I had an interview with her yesterday – holy crap. She needs to see Simon Cowell’s Botox doctor."

Grimshaw, an interviewer with A Current Affair, said,

"I’m not going to sit meekly and let some arrogant narcissist bully me. … Obviously Gordon thinks that any woman who doesn’t find him attractive must be gay. For the record I don’t and I’m not.”

Gordon Ramsey says he got food poisoning from a virus; penicillin fixed him

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Food buffoon Gordon Ramsey has once again demonstrated why celebrity chefs may be entertaining but really know nothing about biology – especially food and food safety.

The Daily Telegraph reports that celebrity chef Gordon Ramsay, the face of Melbourne’s Good Food and Wine Show this weekend, was forced to spend his first night in Melbourne after the 16-hour flight barfing in his hotel room because of food poisoning.

"I have had a severe food virus and I was constantly vomiting. But I had a jab in the butt and had some penicillin and I felt a lot better at three this morning."

Penicillin is an antibiotic, and completely useless against a food virus or whatever Ramsey thinks made him barf.

Thanks to the food safety dude in Dubai who forwarded the story, one of the tens of thousands of inspectors around the world who actually do know what they’re talking about.
 

Across the Sea, Fat Duck flails

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The Fat Duck fiasco reached public ears on Feb. 24, 2009, the day celebrity chef Heston Blumenthal decided that because of his “moral feeling” about 40 sick customers, he best close shop, even though he was losing a lot of money and maybe it wasn’t necessary.

By March 3, 2009, chef Heston declared tests  ruled out food poisoning after up to 40 customers reported feeling unwell and that,

“It has been awful. We have done our own food testing for the last four years. Everything is tested from the food coming out of the ground, from the farm into the kitchen and to the customer.

"When we started getting telephone calls we took it very seriously. … We’ve had staff tested, some customers tested and so far it is categorically not food poisoning. We are now looking at the possibility of an airborne virus. This could have come from a customer, a staff member not showing symptoms or from outside the restaurant. A customer called me to say they came in with a table of four, three of them got ill, but then their children got ill so they are convinced it is a virus."

At the time I wrote that a lack of positive test results proves nothing. Chapman and I e-mailed each other about the pitfalls of armchair epidemiology. Oh, and I’d be interested to know the nature of those tests for everything. Testing is one of those words that is supposed to make folks sound like they are on top of things – Maple Leaf does thousands of tests – but it’s sorta meaningless in the absence of a protocol.

Today the Fat Duck remains closed. The number of sick is now estimated at 400. The Independent reported yesterday that more than 1,000 people face medical checks after health officials widened their investigation into the Fat Duck illness. And the story has gone international.

The New York Times reports this morning that Britain’s Health Protection Agency is testing the food, testing the people who had become ill and conducting a “risk assessment of all food storage, preparation and cooking processes.” It is testing for bacteria, viruses, patterns in the sick people’s symptoms and in the food they ate and, for good measure, testing other diners, whether or not they got sick.

“… Mr. Blumenthal is perhaps best known for items like snail porridge and “nitro-scrambled egg and bacon ice cream” (served with tea jelly).

His Sound of the Sea dish includes seafood, foam and what some reviewers have called “edible sand.” It is served alongside a conch shell with an iPod in it, so diners can listen to wave and seagull sounds as they eat.

And the individual stories are emerging. Boxing promoter Frank Warren was one of 400 diners who fell ill after dining at the Fat Duck, and said he was "very disappointed" with his treatment after becoming sick following his visit.

"Everything was fabulous about the evening – the food, the setting, the service, it was unbelievably good but unfortunately, afterwards, all of us were ill. … Since then we have not heard anything from the restaurant at all. I am very disappointed and I know that the people I went with are very disappointed with the feedback."

As I’ve already written, check out the staff. And handwashing facilities. And suppliers. And places chefs rarely think to go when it comes to basic microbiology, from farm-to-fork.

And what a fab excuse for a Weezer video, Across the Sea.

Typo in food magazine recipe poisons Swedes

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Ten thousand copies of a food magazine were recalled in Sweden last month after a mistake in one of its recipes left four people poisoned.

Matmagasinet’s chief editor Ulla Cocke told AFP,

"There was a mistake in a recipe for apple cake. Instead of calling for two pinches of nutmeg it said 20 nutmeg nuts were needed.”

When Matmagasinet first discovered the mistake it immediately sent out letters to its 50,000 subscribers and placed a leaflet inside the copies sold in the store, cautioning that "high doses of nutmeg can cause poisoning symptoms."

"We publish 1,200 recipes each year, and of course there have been times when they’ve had a bit too much butter or too little flour, but we have never experienced anything like this before," Cocke said.

In large doses, nutmeg is a mild hallucinogen.
 

The long-term effects of food poisoning

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In 1984, the Pope visited the restored 350-year-old Jesuit mission of Ste. Marie-among-the-Hurons in Midland, Ontario. After departing,1,600 hungry Ontario Provincial Police officers who had worked the ropes gathered for a boxed lunch. Of those 500 officers who chose ones with roast beef sandwiches, 423 came down with salmonella.

Those officers have shown, over the years, that a touch of the flu — as foodborne illness is often mistakenly called– is more than a couple of days praying at the porcelin goddess of foodborne illness. Some 5-10 per cent of those police officers have developed reactive arthritis that will plague them for life.

Lauren Neergaard of Associated Press writes today about foodborne illness: the gift that keeps giving, sometimes years later.

Donna Rosenbaum of the consumer advocacy group STOP, Safe Tables Our Priority, said,

"We’re drastically underestimating the burden on society that foodborne illnesses represent."

The story says this month,  STOP is beginning the first national registry of food-poisoning survivors with long-term health problems – people willing to share their medical histories with scientists in hopes of boosting much-needed research.