The U.S. Food and Drug Administration and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and state and local officials are investigating an outbreak of hepatitis A illnesses linked to raw scallops.
The FDA and CDC are supporting the Hawaii Department of Health (DOH) in an investigation of hepatitis A virus (HAV) infections linked to scallops supplied by Sea Port Products Corp. On August 17, 2016, Hawaii Department of Health reported that 206 people have been confirmed to have become ill with hepatitis A in that state.
On August 17, 2016, the FDA, Hawaii DOH, CDC and state partners informed Sea Port Products Corp that epidemiological, laboratory and traceback information indicates their scallops are the likely source of illnesses.
On August 18, 2016, Sea Port Products Corp initiated a voluntary recall of frozen Bay Scallops produced on November 23, 2015 and 24, 2015. The products were distributed to California, Hawaii, and Nevada. The FDA is working with the recalling firm to ensure their recall is effective and that recalled product is removed from the market.
Restaurants and other retailers should not sell or serve the recalled Bay Scallops. The recalled products were not sold directly to consumers. FDA advises consumers not to eat the recalled Bay Scallops. Consumers should ask the restaurant or retailer where their scallops came from to make sure they do not eat recalled Bay Scallops from Sea Port Products Corp.
The FDA’s traceback investigation involved working with Hawaii DOH to trace the path of food eaten by those made ill back to a common source. The traceback investigation determined that Sea Port Products Corp imported the scallops that were later supplied to certain Genki Sushi locations in Hawaii, where ill people reported eating.
On August 17, 2016, FDA laboratory analysis of two scallop samples, which were collected on August 11, 2016, were confirmed positive for hepatitis A. These samples were imported by Sea Port Products Corp.
I recycled an old op-ed in response, and still wondering why the same issues haven’t gained traction after 20 years of publicity in Australia.
The Advertiser editorial thingies wrote that irony can be really ironic, given that the government department charged with upholding and maintaining food standards in SA treats the public like mushrooms.
By keeping the public in the dark by refusing to release the names of the 621 food outlets in breach of hygiene rules last year, SA Health is denying consumers the right to make an informed choice.
While it is good enough for the NSW State Government to identify offending premises, those who water their gardens with human effluent, sell out of date food and have cockroach-infested kitchens in SA apparently deserve anonymity.
There is more than a whiff of double standards surrounding the secrecy of the data held by SA Health.
On one hand (who writes this crap?), the public is not allowed to know which of their local fast food outlets is cutting food hygiene corners by selling six-day-old schnitzels, and on the other, it wasted no time last week issuing a warning about NT- grown rockmelons being the apparent source of a food poisoning outbreak in SA.
Surely the public is allowed to know the identity of a food retailer that has been found guilty of a major breach of food standards that could potentially have the same impact as eating the dodgy rockmelon.
For a food outlet to be warned several times about using effluent to water gardens simply beggars belief.
SA Health’s repeated warnings to the business owner were akin to being slapped with a wet lettuce leaf.
If such a practice can continue for such an extended period of time, the public can only wonder just what sort of heinous breach of food safety regulations a business must commit to be jumped on immediately.
My response was:
I coach little kids’ (ice) hockey in Brisbane.
For that voluntary pleasure, I had to complete 16 hours of certification training, in addition to the 40 hours of training I completed in Canada to coach a travel team.
To produce or serve food in Australia requires … nothing.
Restaurants and food service establishments are a significant source of the foodborne illness that strikes up to 20 per cent of citizens in so-called developed countries each and every year.
After helping develop and watching the mish-mash of federal, state and local approaches to restaurant inspection and disclosure in a number of western countries for the past 15 years, I can draw two broad conclusions:
Anyone who serves, prepares or handles food, in a restaurant, nursing home, day care center, supermarket or local market needs some basic food safety training; and,
the results of restaurant and other food service inspections must be made public.
There should be mandatory food handler training, for say, three hours, that could happen in school, on the job, whatever. But training is only a beginning. Just because you tell someone to wash the poop off their hands before they prepare salad for 100 people doesn’t mean it is going to happen; weekly outbreaks of hepatitis A confirm this. There are a number of additional carrots and sticks that can be used to create a culture that values microbiologically safe food and a work environment that rewards hygienic behavior. But mandating basic training is a start.
Next is to verify that training is being translated into safe food handling practices through inspection. And those inspection results should be publicly available.
A philosophy of transparency and openness underlies the efforts of many local health units across North America in seeking to make available the results of restaurant inspections. In the absence of regular media exposes, or a reality TV show where camera crews follow an inspector into a restaurant unannounced, how do consumers — diners — know which of their favorite restaurants are safe?
Cities, counties and states are using a blend of web sites, letter or numerical grades on doors, and providing disclosure upon request. In Denmark, smiley or sad faces are affixed to restaurant windows.
Publicly available grading systems rapidly communicate to diners the potential risk in dining at a particular establishment and restaurants given a lower grade may be more likely to comply with health regulations in the future to prevent lost business.
More importantly, such public displays of information help bolster overall awareness of food safety amongst staff and the public — people routinely talk about this stuff. The interested public can handle more, not less, information about food safety.
Even in New South Wales and Queensland, results are only posted voluntarily.
So if an outlet sucks at food safety, they don’t have to tell anyone.
Toronto, Los Angeles and New York have had mandatory disclosure, on the doors for years.
Adelaide can figure it out.
And instead of waiting for politicians to take the lead, the best restaurants, those with nothing to hide and everything to be proud of, will go ahead and make their inspection scores available — today.
Katrina Stokes of The Advertiser reports the InterContinental Adelaide buffet breakfast that made at least 71 people sick from salmonella poisoning has been linked to cross-contamination from eggs.
An Adelaide City Council and SA Health joint investigation has identified the likely cause of the salmonella as cross contamination or inadequate cooking of raw eggs.
The total number of people struck down with symptoms including vomiting, diarrhoea, fever and headaches after eating the breakfast spread at the luxury hotel on Sunday, July 31, has risen to 71, including 21 people who were admitted to hospital.
InterContinental Adelaide general manager Colin McCandless said the investigation was “still ongoing”.
“What the Adelaide City Council has released is a likely cause (but) we’re still partnering with them fully to determine what the exact cause was,” he said.
That’s the same McCandless who last week said it was ‘absolutely safe’ to eat at the hotel.
SA Health chief medical officer Professor Paddy Phillips said the latest salmonella outbreak was another reminder of the potential risks associated with handling raw eggs.
The hotel’s $37 full breakfast buffet at the Riverside Restaurant includes scrambled eggs.
“We have people’s lives in our hands,” said Alexis Solomou, the owner of Seven Hills in San Francisco. “You could get people very, very sick very, very quickly.”
Solomou’s restaurant boasts a near perfect health inspection score – 98 out of a 100. He says he has worked hard for it and was upset to learn about a loophole that allows restaurant owners in San Francisco to essentially wipe away their old inspection records and health code scores from the city’s website.
“There’s no reason why anybody should hide their health inspection score or wipe it clean unless there’s something they’re trying to hide,” said Solomou.
Websites such as Yelp take restaurant inspection scores from the city’s public database and post them online to give customers easy access to the information. But those scores can’t get posted if the city erases the information from its online database.
In May, the Investigative Unit discovered that the San Francisco Department of Public Health deletes old health inspection records from its website if a restaurant files a change of ownership with the city. The application process costs restaurants roughly $600 in city fees but offers new owners a clean slate so they are not saddled with the old health inspection scores from the previous restaurant owner.
However, the Investigative Unit revealed that even after a restaurant files an ownership change with the city, the same people can continue to run the restaurant as long as the owners list a new corporation name as part of that application.
Even in situations when new restaurant owners are listed in the application, the Investigative Unit discovered those owners are still allowed to work for the same corporation that owned the restaurant previously. So while a restaurant may have strong ties to its previous ownership, San Francisco still agrees to delete that restaurant’s old inspection records from the city’s online database.
That’s exactly what happened at a dim sum restaurant in the Diamond Heights neighborhood. All Season Restaurant, which is officially known as Harbor Villa on city documents, had its history of repeated high-risk violations wiped clean online, even though inspectors found dead cockroaches on utensils and plates.
“It’s not for me to make sense of it; it is what the law requires us to do,” said Stephanie Cushing, director of San Francisco’s Department of Environmental Health.
Cushing and her team of 30 inspectors are in charge of permitting the roughly 7,400 restaurants and caterers throughout San Francisco. In May, Cushing told the Investigative Unit that state and local laws require her department to remove a restaurant’s old inspection records from the city’s website once they file a change of ownership application.
State Law on Restaurant Inspections
That’s simply not true, according to the California Department of Public Health. Nowhere in California’s retail food code does it state a local health department must delete a restaurant’s old health records from its website.
“The law doesn’t specify whether a historical record associated with a prior owner of a business goes with a new company or doesn’t go with a new company,” said Pat Kennelly, California’s Department of Public Health Food Safety Manager. “The law is silent on the issue.”
Kennelly said there is nothing to keep local health departments from shutting down a restaurant for repeated health violations.
“They have the authority under existing law to be able to take action against them, to fine them, penalize them, impound their equipment, impound product, and ultimately suspend or revoke their permits if they can’t comply with the rules,” Kennelly said.
San Francisco’s Department of Public Health stopped including a restaurant’s previous ownership records online about 10 years ago. A spokeswoman for the department said consumers “only wanted to see the most current score.” She went on to say that posting the information now “would make it very difficult for people to navigate.”
That response frustrates Solomou.
“To say that San Francisco diners, in particular, are not savvy enough to digest that information is incorrect,” Solomou said. “I don’t know why anyone would want the wool being pulled over their eyes.”
Solomou said the issue is also one of fairness since his own restaurant’s inspection history is posted online, even though his violations were deemed “low-risk,” including a peeling wall. He wonders why restaurants with far more serious violations are allowed to wipe their records clean, regardless of how dirty those record may have been over the years.
“To think that someone can come in and change their name … and get any blemishes squashed is scary,” Solomou said. “It really is.”
Drive-through fast food vendor Sonic, known for their creepy television commercials, made the silver screen in a less appetizing way in Corpus Christi, Texas.
According to Jessica Hamilton of the Houston Chronicle, when the Cortez family pulled up to a Sonic Drive-In window on Saturday, they expected to be handed the four drinks they ordered. Instead, they arrived at the window to find their drinks were already being eyed by a furry friend.
In a viral video posted to Facebook, the family can be heard screaming as 14-year-old Christian Cortez records a mouse walking on the fountain drink machine at the Ayers Street location. An employee with a long stick attempts to move the mouse off the machine.
“I was really shocked to see it, especially since it was right next to our drinks,” Cortez said. “Once it went around the fountain machine an employee was still trying to give us our drinks. We told them we wanted a refund.”
The family got their money back.
A spokesperson for Sonic issued a statement Tuesday morning, stating the franchisee at the location has increased pest control measures, including two visits over the weekend.
“The drive-in is currently in good standing with the Health Department and the franchisee takes food safety very seriously. All food safety issues are acted upon immediately,” said Jason Cook, manager of communications for Sonic-In. “They appreciate the trust and confidence customers place in Sonic every day to serve them delicious and safe food. They take pride in being a good community partner and are proud of the service their employees provide to customers every day in Corpus Christi.”
A restaurant operator who was caught storing dodgy ice-cream balls and tenderising chicken at an ‘alarming’ temperature has been ordered to pay a hefty fine.
Minh Tri Nguyen, who operates the restaurant West End Garden, was last week fined $37,500 in the Brisbane Magistrates Court after he pleaded guilty to a string of food safety violations.
Brisbane City Council authorities inspected the restaurant after five diners suffered food poisoning in January 2015.
Council prosecutor Mark Thomas had previously told the court that authorities had found ice cream balls, a tea towel and dish cloth contaminated with salmonella.
He also said chicken and beef had been found tenderising in a sink at a dangerous temperature.
Nina Berglund of News in English.no reports inspectors from Norway’s state food safety agency Mattilsynet had little to smile about after their most recent visits to 1,100 restaurants in the Oslo area. Six out of 10 restaurants failed to earn the smiley face insignia that symbolizes good hygiene.
Norwegian Broadcasting (NRK) reported Thursday that only 41 percent of the eating places inspected by Mattilsynet in Oslo, Asker and Bærum were awarded the smiley face, which means they met the authorities’ standards for good hygiene.
“We of course wished that the results were better, but we’re not surprised,” Marit Kolle, division chief at Mattilsynet, told NRK. The results show a decline from national inspections earlier this year, when more than 60 percent did well and received smiley faces.
Kolle said that half the restaurants inspected most recently were given a straight face, after inspectors found deficiencies and errors in hygienic routines. “Those establishments get a warning from us that they must improve their routines,” Kolle said.
Another 9 percent were hit with a sour face symbol, meaning they flunked the hygiene inspection. Inspectors can close them on the spot if the violations are severe, or fine them.
The system of symbolizing the hygiene of restaurants was launched January 1 as a means of advising patrons about food safety inspection results. After an initial round of visits to 2,279 restaurants nationwide, around a third failed to win smiley faces.
The restaurants are obliged to post the smiley-, straight- or sour-faced symbols at their front doors. NRK reported earlier this year that Mattilsynet inspectors claimed many were failing to do so, thus “sabotaging” the program.
Restaurant inspection results are also made public on the state agency’s own website, matportalen.no/smilefjes.
That’s the message from the Centre for Health Protection (CHP) of the Department of Health today (August 4) as it reported its investigation into an outbreak of suspected food poisoning at an institution in Tseung Kwan O, and hence reminded the public to maintain personal, food and environmental hygiene to prevent foodborne diseases.
“Upon notification from the department concerned yesterday afternoon (August 3), our Outbreak Team immediately commenced epidemiological investigations. We have alerted the Food and Environmental Hygiene Department to the incident and will work with relevant departments on the investigation,” a spokesman for the CHP said.
The outbreak at this stage involved 75 persons, comprising 74 men and one woman aged from 20 to 33, who developed diarrhoea and abdominal pain about one to 28 hours after dinner on August 2 at the institution. All affected persons did not seek medical attention and required no hospitalisation. They are now in a stable condition. To prevent food-borne diseases, institutions are advised to:
Choose and monitor food suppliers carefully; and
Hot foods should be kept at above 60 degrees Celsius while cold foods should be kept at four degrees Celsius or below. The CHP reminded members of the public to maintain personal, food and environmental hygiene at all times. When dining out:
Eat thoroughly cooked food;
Proper handling, storage and thorough cooking of all food-stuff derived from animal sources, in particular meat, poultry, eggs and their products;
Food handlers should immediately stop handling food if they develop gastrointestinal symptoms such as diarrhoea or vomiting;
Do not leave cooked food at room temperature for more than two hours;
Patronise only reliable and licensed restaurants;
Do not patronise illegal food hawkers;
Drink boiled water;
Always wash hands before eating and after going to the toilet;
Avoid eating raw seafood;
Be a discerning consumer in choosing cold dishes, including sashimi, sushi and raw oysters, at a buffet;
Use two sets of chopsticks and eating utensils to handle raw and cooked food; and
Do not try to use salt, vinegar, wine and wasabi to kill bacteria as they are not effective.
In the wonderful way the Intertubes can be used to reinforce pre-existing biases, a new paper in PLOS Currents Outbreaks validates what I – and anyone who knows anything about food safety – have been saying for a long time: Fancy food ain’t safe food.
Methods: All foodborne disease outbreaks in England reported to the national database from 2000 to 2014 were used to compare the Top 50 restaurants (2015) to other registered food businesses using the Public Health England (PHE) outbreak database. Health Protection Teams were also contacted to identify any outbreaks not reported to the national database. Among Good Food Guide Top 50 restaurants, regression analysis estimated the association between outbreak occurrence and position on the list.
Results: Four outbreaks were reported to the PHE national outbreak database among the Top 50 giving a rate 39 times higher (95% CI 14.5–103.2) than other registered food businesses. Eight outbreaks among the 44 English restaurants in the Top 50 were identified by direct contact with local Health Protection Teams. For every ten places higher ranked, Top 50 restaurants were 66% more likely to have an outbreak (Odds Ratio 1.66, 95% CI 0.89–3.13).
Discussion: Top 50 restaurants were substantially more likely to have had reported outbreaks from 2000-2014 than other food premises, and there was a trend for higher rating position to be associated with higher probability of reported outbreaks. Our findings, that eating at some of these restaurants may pose an increased risk to health compared to other dining out, raises the question of whether food guides should consider aspects of food safety alongside the clearly important complementary focus on taste and other aspects of the dining experience.
Taste and safety: Is the exceptional cuisine offered by high end restaurants paralleled by high standards of food safety?
02.aug.2016
Sanch Kanagarajah, Piers Mook, Paul Crook, Adedoyin Awofisayo-Okuyelu, Noel McCarthy
PLOS Currents Outbreaks. August 2016. Edition 1. doi: 10.1371/currents.outbreaks.007219ac3b9a2117418df7ab629686b6.
After more than a month, a handful of lawsuits and 68 customers affected from E. coli, Ashok Selvam of Eater reports Chicago’s health department has ruled that Carbón Live Mexican Grill can reopen.
However, DNAinfo reported that the health department couldn’t determine the source of the bacteria that sickened customers. The Bridgeport restaurant had been closed since late June’s outbreak.
The owners of Carbón haven’t publicly commented since their restaurant closed, and there’s no mention on their social media channels. The health department did day that they fully cooperated with officials. They temporarily closed their West Town location and also withdrew as a vendor at The Taste of Chicago as cautionary measures.
Attorneys circled around affected customers, looking for new clients to represent in lawsuits against the restaurant. There haven’t been any updates on those cases.
The FDA and CDC are supporting the Hawaii Department of Health (DOH) in an investigation of hepatitis A virus (HAV) infections linked to scallops supplied by Sea Port Products Corp. On August 17, 2016, Hawaii Department of Health reported that 206 people have been confirmed to have become ill with hepatitis A in that state.
