Tag Archives: Risk Communication

It’s the Montgomery Burns Award for outstanding achievement: USDA edition

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The Association of Public and Land-Grant Universities (APLU) and the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s National Institute of Food and Agriculture (NIFA) today announced the recipients of their excellence in agricultural research awards. The awards will be presented at the 132nd APLU Annual Meeting, Nov.10-12 in San Diego, California.

Who writes this shit.

The awards honor research excellence in three categories – National Excellence in Multistate Research, Excellence in Research Leadership, and National Experiment Station Section Diversity and Inclusion. APLU, NIFA, and the Experiment Station Section of APLU’s Board on Agriculture Assembly present the awards annually.

“Research efforts of our nation’s land-grant universities develop and harness 21st century science-based knowledge and solutions required to improve crop yield and quality, nutritional value, food safety, the environment, and other advances that will drive rural prosperity and economic development,” said NIFA Director J. Scott Angle. “NIFA is proud to be a contributor to these successful research endeavors through our agricultural investments. It gives me great honor to congratulate this year’s award recipients.”

Who talks like this? No one.

The National Excellence in Multistate Research Award recognizes experiment station scientists who are conducting exemplary research and outreach efforts across multiple states. The 2019 award goes to a multidisciplinary team of researchers and extension educators from 39 institutions from across the United States whose work focused on enhancing microbial food safety using risk analysis. The group tackled complex problems across the food production and processing systems like examining foodborne pathogens and food contamination processes and developing devices to help improve food pathogen prediction and detection. The group has helped improve food safety policy, developed novel irrigation water quality assessment tools, and implemented interventions to protect produce from pathogens. They’ve also developed learning materials for the food industry and consumers.

The Excellence in Research Leadership Award recognizes individuals who have served with exemplary distinction, enhancing regional and national research missions, as well as the land-grant ideal. Individuals must have multiple extraordinary service activities, contribute to systematic efforts to enhance diversity and inclusion, as well as significant accomplishments in the agricultural sciences.

The 2019 Leadership recipients are:

Joe P. Colletti, Senior Associate Dean in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences at Iowa State University, for tireless advocacy for team science and science with practice;

Cameron Faustman, former Associate Dean College of Agriculture, Health, and Natural Resources and Associate Director of Storrs Agricultural Experiment Station at the University of Connecticut, for strong engagement and impact with the region’s research association;

Bret W. Hess, former Director of Wyoming Agricultural Experiment Station and Associate Dean for research, College of Agriculture and Natural Resources, University of Wyoming for enthusiastic and visionary advancements with strategic initiatives;

Saied Mostaghimi, Director, Virginia Agricultural Experiment Station and Associate Dean for Research and Graduate Studies, College of Agriculture and Life Sciences, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University as an advocate for interdisciplinary research collaborations in agriculture and natural resources; and

Mortimer H. Neufville, President and Chief Executive Officer, 1890 Universities Foundation known for creating and implementing mission-aligned academic, research and Extension programs.

The National Experiment Station Section Diversity and Inclusion Award recognizes an individual’s work to empower groups and effectively enhance inclusion within organizations. The award recognizes efforts that aspire to achieve consistent, holistic and inclusive excellence. The 2019 award goes to Jeff Jacobsen, North Central Regional Association Executive Director, for his leadership and team management in crafting and implementing strategies that champion a long-term diversity and inclusion agenda for the 1862 Experiment Stations (ES) and 1890 research programs at Land-grant Institutions. A permanent Diversity Catalyst Committee was created and consistently catalyzes a long-term change in ES culture that promotes diversity and inclusion with research leaders and their research communities.
 
 

So hard done by: Not

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I built this electronic community originally as the Food Safety Network beginning in Jan. 1993. I consider it one big food safety family.

I provided a health update, not because I sought sympathy, but because I thought I should let the family know what was going on and why my writing had declined.

Australia is currently burning, and every time someone who has just lost everything is interviewed, they talk about how grateful they are for what they have and how they will plunge ahead.

It’s the Australian way, and I am very much of that attitude.

I am not wallowing, I am grateful that Deb will be here in a few minutes for the next four hours (not sure we can go for a walk, there is so much smoke in Brisbane from the fires 100km away that health warnings have been issued).

I’ll continue to teach her about hockey (in Australia you have to call it ice hockey).

And look at these two. They have arrived in Paris, where it’s 5C, and they have no winter clothes, because we are spoiled in Brisbane.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

They’ll figure it out and have a great time.

How blessed am I to have so much family?

 

Somehow I lost my way

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Maybe it was Kansas.

A couple of weeks ago, my wife was helping me into a diaper.

The next day I was trying out a walker so I don’t fall so much.

That’s fairly humbling.

I haven’t been able to write as much as I used to, and don’t know if I ever will, because as my doctor told me recently, you’re a smart guy, you know what’s going on, and I do – most of the time.

Last Monday I was writing at home and developed a full-on seizure and could only speak gobbylgook. Amy asked me what’s her name and all I could mutter was, Bo.

I never call her Bo.

My capacity to speak returned after a couple of minutes, but I soon announced, I feel another one coming on. This time I lost consciousness, stopped breathing and woke up in the hospital. Spent the week there.

Amy and Sorenne are off to France in a few hours – she is a French professor – but somehow, we now live in this country (that would be Australia) that awarded my family support to pay for caregivers who make sure I don’t fall over when we walk to get groceries.

It’s cheaper to keep me in the home rather than an institution.

None of the money goes to us, but it means we get a weekly cleaner (who has the most fabulous tools) and I get about 3 hours of assisted care daily from these nice people. I’m getting extra hours while the family is in France.

Amy said, what kind of country do we live in?

A compassionate one.

 

 

Seek and ye shall find

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I have so many Larry stories that I’d probably get sued now that he’s a big shot.

But when I was teaching him and Kevin, about 1995 (I may have noticed Chapman joined my lab about 1999, it’s all a purple haze, but I got those 70 peer-reviewed papers out and made full-professor) so here’s Larry, now that he’s returned to Guelph (that’s in Ontario, Canada) and maybe you have a chat with Malcolm, see about getting my $750,000 returned and we can do some fun research.

And I won’t ever tell anyone about Atlanta.

Despite appearances, experts say a recent rise in major recalls is not a sign of food supply problems, but the result of a more active investigative body and better testing tools — though they add more can be done.

“This is proof that the system is working well,” said Lawrence Goodridge, a professor focusing on food safety at The University of Guelph, speaking about the recent meat recall.

Yet, he believes that “in Canada, we have to get to a place where we can actually stop the food from going to retail in the first place.”

Since Sept. 20, a investigation by the Canadian Food Inspection Agency into possible E. coli 0157:H7 contamination in some beef and veal products sold by Ryding-Regency Meat Packers Ltd. and St. Ann’s Foods Inc. has led to the recall of nearly 700 products.

The CFIA suspended the Canadian food safety license for St. Ann’s meat-processing plant, as well as Ryding-Regency’s slaughter and processing plant, both in Toronto, in late September.

No illnesses have been reported in association with the products, according to the CFIA, but symptoms of sickness can include nausea, vomiting, abdominal cramps.
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Bad, naughty, naughty parents: Outbreak of Salmonella saintpaul in a Scottish childcare facility: The influence of parental under-reporting

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Salmonella outbreaks in childcare facilities are relatively rare, most often occurring secondary to contaminated food products or poor infection control practices. We report an outbreak of Salmonella Saintpaul at a pre-school facility in Ayrshire, Scotland with atypical clinical and epidemiological features.

(me learning to drive a tractor, about 4-years-old)

Methods

Following notification of the initial two cases, the multi-disciplinary Incident Management Team initiated enhanced active case finding and two environmental inspections of the site, including food preparation areas. Parent and staff interviews were conducted by the Public Health department covering attendance, symptomatology and risk factors for all probable and confirmed cases. Microbiological testing of stool samples and the facility water tank was conducted. Whole Genome Sequencing (WGS) was performed for positive stool samples at the national reference laboratory. Infection control measures were introduced iteratively due to the atypical progression of the outbreak.

Results

There were 15 confirmed cases and 3 children admitted to hospital during the outbreak. However, 35.7% of cases reported extremely mild symptoms. The attack rate was 15.2%, and age of affected children ranged from 18 to 58 months (mean 35 months). All cases were the same Multilocus Sequence Type (MLST50). Epidemiological investigation strongly suggested person-to-person spread within the facility. Existing infection control practices were found to be of a high standard, but introduction of additional evidence-based control measures was inadequate in halting transmission. Facility staff reported concerns about lack of parental disclosure of gastrointestinal symptoms, particularly where these were mild, with 50.0% of cases having attended while symptomatic against public health advice. Voluntary two-week closure of the facility was implemented to halt transmission, following which there were no new cases. WGS results were unavailable until after the decision was taken to close the facility.

Conclusions

This is the first reported instance of a Salmonella Saintpaul outbreak at a childcare facility, or where person-to-person transmission is indicated. Clinicians should consider the influence of parental under-reporting on gastrointestinal outbreaks in childcare settings, particularly where perceived severity is low and financial or social pressures to attend work may reduce compliance. WGS cannot yet replace conventional microbiological techniques during short, localised outbreaks due to delays receiving results.

Balloon-wiping teacher goes viral in video teaching critical bathroom-wiping skills

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Kristi Pahr of Yahoo writes that parents expect their kids to learn a number of things in preschool—the alphabet and number sense, maybe how to write their name, socialization and the beginnings of conflict resolution. But not many parents expect their kids to learn how to, ahem, wipe their butts in preschool. That’s usually the kind of thing we expect to teach at home. Handwashing? Yes. Butt-wiping? Doesn’t happen at my kid’s preschool.

A video, that appears to be of a classroom abroad, shared widely on social media showed us what we’ve been missing. This absolutely brilliant teacher came up with the best wipe-teaching hack ever. By attaching two balloons to a small chair, she showed kids the perfect front-to-back technique, while showing them how to balance on the potty. We all stress the importance of proper handwashing, cough covers, and nose-blowing and expect those to be, if not taught in preschool, at least brushed-up on and practiced. Maybe it’s time for bottom-cleanliness to take center-stage in American preschools as well.

The origins of the video are unknown, but various versions shared online have been fairly well-received, with parents around the Twittersphere acknowledging the sheer genius of the balloon models.

Girl, 4, left fighting for life after getting E. coli O157 on Isle of Wight trip

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A four-year-old girl was left fighting for her life after contracting the deadly E.coli infection after a trip to the Isle of Wight.

Isla Grainger had to be put in an induced coma in intensive care after the harmful bug caused her kidneys to fail.

Pippa Allen-Kinross of the Mirror reports Isla spent 17 days in hospital and is now recovering at home, but is still not well enough to go to school.

She began to have diarrhoea and sickness after a weekend trip to the Isle of Wight with her mum Lauren Aspery, 21, and mum’s partner Lewis Keith.

The family visited a petting zoo, arcades and a beach in Sandown on the island before Isla became unwell.

But, as yet, they do not know where the infection came from.

Mum Lauren, who lives in Whiteley near Fareham, also had painful stomach aches and nausea.

After Isla stopped eating and struggled to go to the toilet for three days, Lauren took her daughter to the emergency department at Southampton General Hospital.

The little girl was rushed into emergency surgery to insert a catheter and begin urgent dialysis after tests revealed she had E.coli O157.

Medics realised the E.coli had developed into hemolytic uremic syndrome, affecting Isla’s blood cells and vessels and resulting in kidney failure.

She had to undergo surgery to remove a twisted catheter and was later moved to intensive care and placed in an induced coma.

Devastated Lauren was left terrified she would lose her daughter, as Isla’s condition quickly became a “matter of life or death”.

She said: “It was terrifying. I thought the worst and that we were going to lose our little girl.

  “I really believed this was just a bad case of sickness.

“The doctor took a breath and told us that ‘Isla is very, very poorly, much more sick than we thought’.

24 now sick from shiga-toxin producing E. coli in Newfoundland and Labrador

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Newfoundland and Labrador’s provincial health department is advising residents of an outbreak of E. coli bacteria.

There have been 22 cases of E.coli confirmed in the province, according to an advisory issued last Friday afternoon.

Another two suspected cases have since emerged.

Dr. Janice Fitzgerald said some of the cases are connected to an advisory issued by Memorial University last week, saying Eastern Health was investigating reports of students experiencing gastrointestinal illness.

The university said Wednesday that test results indicated one student living in residence “may have contracted the E. coli bacteria” and 21 students had reported similar symptoms.

Fitzgerald said it’s too early in the investigation to determine a cause of the outbreak.

Raw is risky: Eating raw pig liver from Singapore market may increase risk of hepatitis E

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Danielle Ann of Alvinology reports researchers at the Singapore General Hospital have found definite similarities between the virus strains of Hepatitis E virus or (HEV) in pig liver and human liver.

This means that ingesting raw pork liver could mean you’re ingesting a strain of HEV that’s similar enough to human HEV that it could cause you get infected.

The same report said that people who have contracted HEV has risen steadily over the years. While the researchers could not say if the ingestion of raw pig liver is the main cause of the rise in cases, many local dishes feature this ingredient and do not cook the meat thoroughly.

The same report said that you can acquire the disease from eating contaminated food or substances. Ingesting water that is laced with the disease or accidentally drinking water that has trace amounts of faeces. Eating raw or half-cooked meat that is infected can also transmit the virus to you.

What foods are most likely to cause illness by shiga toxin-producing Escherichia coli (STEC) and how best to control secondary infections

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Two abstracts attempt to provide guidance to these important questions to reduce the toll of STEC.

FAO and WHO conclude shiga toxin-producing Escherichia coli (STEC) infections are a substantial public health issue worldwide, causing more than 1 million illnesses, 128 deaths and nearly 13 000 Disability-Adjusted Life Years (DALYs) annually.

To appropriately target interventions to prevent STEC infections transmitted through food, it is important to determine the specific types of foods leading to these illnesses.

An analysis of data from STEC foodborne outbreak investigations reported globally, and a systematic review and meta-analysis of case-control studies of sporadic STEC infections published for all dates and locations, were conducted. A total of 957 STEC outbreaks from 27 different countries were included in the analysis.

Overall, outbreak data identified that 16% (95% UI, 2-17%) of outbreaks were attributed to beef, 15% (95% UI, 2-15%) to produce (fruits and vegetables) and 6% (95% UI, 1-6%) to dairy products. The food sources involved in 57% of all outbreaks could not be identified. The attribution proportions were calculated by WHO region and the attribution of specific food commodities varied between geographic regions.

In the European and American sub-regions of the WHO, the primary sources of outbreaks were beef and produce (fruits and vegetables). In contrast, produce (fruits and vegetables) and dairy were identified as the primary sources of STEC outbreaks in the WHO Western Pacific sub-region.

The systematic search of the literature identified useable data from 21 publications of case-control studies of sporadic STEC infections. The results of the meta-analysis identified, overall, beef and meat-unspecified as significant risk factors for STEC infection. Geographic region contributed to significant sources of heterogeneity. Generally, empirical data were particularly sparse for certain regions.

Care must be taken in extrapolating data from these regions to other regions for which there are no data. Nevertheless, results from both approaches are complementary, and support the conclusion of beef products being an important source of STEC infections. Prioritizing interventions for control on beef supply chains may provide the largest return on investment when implementing strategies for STEC control.

Second up, in 2016, we reviewed preventive control measures for secondary transmission of Shiga-toxin producing Escherichia coli (STEC) in humans in European Union (EU)/European Free Trade Association (EEA) countries to inform the revision of the respective Norwegian guidelines which at that time did not accommodate for the varying pathogenic potential of STEC.

We interviewed public health experts from EU/EEA institutes, using a semi-structured questionnaire. We revised the Norwegian guidelines using a risk-based approach informed by the new scientific evidence on risk factors for HUS and the survey results.

All 13 (42%) participating countries tested STEC for Shiga toxin (stx) 1, stx2 and eae (encoding intimin). Five countries differentiated their control measures based on clinical and/or microbiological case characteristics, but only Denmark based their measures on routinely conducted stx subtyping. In all countries, but Norway, clearance was obtained with ⩽3 negative STEC specimens. After this review, Norway revised the STEC guidelines and recommended only follow-up of cases infected with high-virulent STEC (determined by microbiological and clinical information); clearance is obtained with three negative specimens.

Implementation of the revised Norwegian guidelines will lead to a decrease of STEC cases needing follow-up and clearance, and will reduce the burden of unnecessary public health measures and the socioeconomic impact on cases. This review of guidelines could assist other countries in adapting their STEC control measures.

Mapping of control measures to prevent secondary transmission of STEC infections in Europe during 2016 and revision of the national guidelines in Norway

Cambridge University Press vol. 147

  1. Veneti(a1)(a2), H. Lange (a1), L. Brandal (a1), K. Danis (a2) (a3) and L. Vold 

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/S0950268819001614
https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/epidemiology-and-infection/article/mapping-of-control-measures-to-prevent-secondary-transmission-of-stec-infections-in-europe-during-2016-and-revision-of-the-national-guidelines-in-norway/1990D2338B220F80F0E683DF6F622A40