Tag Archives: School

Do you know where that finger’s been? The risks of potlucks

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Yesterday was the departmental Xmas potluck.

I didn’t go.

Not cause of the newborn, I just, on those rare occasions I get invited, avoid potlucks. There’s the ‘Hey, Food Safety Man, would you eat this,’ to which I politely smile and say sure, the biggest risk is not eating at all, cause I’m trying to be publicly polite, and meanwhile I’m not touching the sprout salad, the unpasteurized juices, the raw oysters (a big hit in Kansas) and the beef that’s been sitting at room temperature for 14 hours.

Besides, once I start pontificating, I can’t shut up. Maybe I just like to hear myself talk.

Some middle school students in Birmingham, Alabama, found out the hard way – meaning they barfed a lot – the risks of potlucks.

The Birmingham News reports that nearly half of the students in a Smith Middle School language arts class became ill Friday after tasting meals that students had prepared as part of an assignment.

Birmingham schools spokeswoman Michaelle Chapman said the students were to write about their favorite dish and how it was prepared. The teacher allowed them to make and bring the dish to class if they wished.

Of the 18 students, 16 of them brought in dishes and eight students got sick after tasting them.

After seeing this story, one colleague wrote his daughter’s principal, asking if there was a policy about bringing food into schools to share with others. I did the same years ago after my daughter was almost exposed to unpasteurized cider as part of a class trip to the farm.
 

Montana mom brings rabid bat to school, 90 kids to get rabies shots

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About 90 children at Stevensville Elementary School in Montana have started a series of six shots of anti-rabies vaccine after a local schoolmom gave show-and-tell-and-touch presentations in five classrooms involving a dead bat.

The bat was subsequently confirmed to be diseased.

School officials say they will use liability insurance to pay up to $70,000 for the exposed children to be vaccinated. The overall cost could surpass $150,000.

The school has since set a policy requiring that anyone visiting the school obtain a visitor pass.

Cockroach sandwich? Calls to name and shame dirty school canteens

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The Australians are really getting into restaurant inspection disclosure — via the name and shame route.

Sydneysiders are now saying school canteens should be held to the same standards.

Australia.com reports that,

Gastro outbreaks, cockroaches in sandwiches and mice droppings in pie ovens are among a number of complaints that have seen 38 Sydney schools targeted by the food safety authority since 2004.

Shadow Education Minister Andrew Stoner said,

“We don’t allow other businesses – takeaways and restaurants – to get away with this. We can’t allow school canteens to do it. … name and shame the schools where canteens are not up to scratch.”

Go for it.

Students clean own school to control staph

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Students at one Putnam County high school in West Virginia walked out of school Monday morning and then came back to school after hours — to clean.

One student was cited as telling 13 News Monday morning about 100 students refused to enter Buffalo High School after several confirmed cases of staph infection, including rumors that one student willfully contaminated areas in the building.

Senior Priscilla Blankenship said,

"It irritates me, and I’m outraged that I am a high school student. I come here to learn and I have to come and clean my own school to come into it — to make it safe enough."

Assistant Schools Superintendent Robert Hull was cited as saying the school board has done all it can to keep students safe and the school clean, adding,

"We’ll take whatever precautions are necessary, and we are following at this point every recommended precaution, which is routine cleaning and having children wash their hands and doing any cleaning of special areas if we know of an infected area."

Hull said a letter has been issued to all parents detailing the facts and that he hopes educating the community will calm people’s nerves.

When someone says they are going to educate the public, things have really gone of the rails. People can be informed and compelled, but they educate themselves.

Proper handwashing requires proper tools

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The Manhattan — Kansas, that is — Mercury today looked into ongoing problems at local schools and the continuing spread of staph infections.

The Riley County Health Department found that a couple of schools, including MHS West, lacked soap and paper towels.

So I wrote this to the local paper:

Proper handwashing is the most effective way to control the spread of infectious diseases, including avian influenza, norovirus, and the staphylococcus apparently running through Manhattan High School’s west campus (Taking the temperature of problems in the West Campus building, Oct. 14/07

But proper handwashing requires access to the proper tools.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control estimates that up to 25 per cent of the 76 million annual cases of foodborne illness in the U.S. could be eliminated with proper handwashing.

Based on the available evidence, proper handwashing consists of:
• wet hands with water;
• use soap;
• lather all over hands by scrubbing vigorously, creating friction, reaching all areas of the hands, wrists and between fingers;
• rinse hands; and,
• dry hands, preferably with paper towel.

Studies have concluded that dangerous bacteria could survive handwashing with soap and water if hands were not dried thoroughly with paper towels. The friction created when drying hands with paper towel removes additional microorganisms.

Last month, the Western Mail in Wales stated that the conditions in some Welsh schools, outlined in the final report of an E. coli O157 outbreak in 2005 that left a five-year-old dead and over 100 sick, would shame the Third World, adding, "It’s time to ensure children are not placed in environments which are breeding grounds for disease … to tolerate a situation where schools do not have toilet rolls, soap or hot water is reprehensible."

Similarly, lack of soap and paper towels exacerbated the effects of a norovirus outbreak that sickened over 150 students at a university residence in Ontario in 2006.

Age and the demands of modern education are no excuse for providing the basic tools for sanitation.

Proper handwashing begins with access to proper tools. That is why soap and paper towels are a necessary requirement for any public bathroom.

That bloody E. coli is popping up everywhere

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School board members and parents listened to the painful screams of a little girl in their school district diagnosed with an E. coli infection.

Six-year-old Sydney fell ill last Wednesday, and though she was diagnosed quickly, has not found relief from the painful cramps and bloody diarrhea the infection has caused.  In fact, she may soon be put on dialysis and her platelet count is still low.

Sydney’s mother, Marcia Jacobi, sent a letter with a neighbor to the New Albany/Floyd County School Board meeting on Monday describing her heart-wrenching experience as she continued to sit by Sydney’s bedside at Kosair Children’s Hospital.

The infection is thought to be caused by a meal at Galena Elementary School, where five other children have fallen ill from the same deadly bacteria.

The Assistant Superintendent, Bill Briscoe, is wary to admit that the bacteria was contracted at the school, or if all six students (and another suspected two) may have gotten the bug from another source.

Sydney’s mother, of course, is not at all satisfied with the school district’s reaction. "She is sincerely  appalled by the way this has been handled," reads her neighbor on Jacobi’s behalf, "Parents of both healthy and ill children feel this has been dramatically downplayed."