Tag Archives: Wales

E. coli butcher ‘sold rotten meat for years,’ were the inspectors asleep

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Will Brits have a ‘stiff upper lip’ about this food safety crap?

The Independent reports that the butcher at the centre of a fatal E.coli outbreak which claimed the life of a five-year-old boy sold rotten meat for years before the tragedy, an inquest heard today.

Mason Jones, of Deri, near Bargoed, lost his life to the deadly food poisoning bug which struck 44 schools in the South Wales valleys.

The outbreak, in September 2005, had become the second biggest to hit the UK by the time it ran its course.

Mason’s mother Sharon Mills sobbed repeatedly today at the inquest into his death in Newport.

The coroner’s court also got an insight into chronically lax hygiene practices at the butcher business which triggered the outbreak.

John Tudor and Son, based at Bridgend Industrial Estate, supplied meat to dozens of schools and residential homes for the elderly.

Company boss and owner William John Tudor, 58, of Cowbridge, South Wales, was jailed for one year at Cardiff Crown Court in September 2007.

Tudor admitted six counts of placing unsafe food on the market and one of failing to protect food against the risk of contamination.

The inquest today heard he habitually lied to the authorities about his practices and falsified records – two months at a time.

His underhand practices were so habitual he literally used to pass off mutton as lamb to his customers.

Detective Superintendent Paul Burke headed a criminal inquiry after the firm was pinpointed as the source of the outbreak.

He said staff at the firm were interviewed about hygiene standards during the inquiry.

"A number of people told me in interview about meat that was smelling or poor and when brought to Mr Tudor’s attention they were told to put it in the faggots," he said.

"When meat was turning yellow they were told to ‘mince it up’ and put it in the faggots."

The idea being that because faggots were spicy they would hide the taste of the meat.

He added: "Mutton was literally passed off as lamb."

The firm would buy frozen New Zealand mutton and sell it on to customers as Welsh lamb.

False batch numbers linking it to a legitimate farm in Abergavenny were used to hide its origin.

He said that according to staff at the firm, disregard for hygiene rules had gone on for years.

It was not known whether any of the affected schools ever received the faggots or mutton.

Equally, it was not possible to tell whether the factory had caused other E. coli or food poisoning outbreaks in the past.

He said Tudor was well aware of safe hygiene practice because he had successfully sat a grade three hygiene diploma in 2002.

But some staff members were found to have never attended even basic hygiene courses, despite the need to do so.

It was also found his factory’s only vacuum packing machine was "not fit for purpose" and was used for both raw and cooked meats.

A "dirty old brush and container of water" was used to clean the machine between different users; often it was not cleaned at all.

Cooked and raw meats were stored together and decomposing meat was discovered in a fridge section at the factory.

Meat seized from the operation was found to contain an identical E. coli O157 strain as the one that killed Mason.

The same strain was found at a Welsh farm where the meat originated and an abattoir where Tudor bought the meat.

Mr Burke stressed that a certain percentage of healthy cattle carry the strain of E.coli without harm to them.

But the fact it could prove deadly to people, particularly children and elderly, underlined why basic hygiene was necessary.
 

Mother of E. coli victim prepares for inquest in Wales

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Sharon Mills has waited over five years to tell a coroner how her 5-year-old son spent his final days dying from E. coli O157.

The long-awaited inquest into the death of E.coli victim Mason Jones is due to begin in front of Gwent coroner David Bowen, in Newport.

Wales Online reports Mason died on October 4, 2005, at Bristol Children’s Hospital, around two weeks after contracting the food poisoning bug. He was one of 158 victims, most of them children, struck down by the O157 strain.

The start of the inquest has been delayed to allow the completion of the South Wales Police investigation into Mason’s death, the prosecution of Bridgend butcher William Tudor under food hygiene laws and to allow E.coli expert Professor Hugh Pennington to conduct a public inquiry.

His report, which laid the blame for the outbreak firmly on the shoulders of Tudor but also identified serious failings in local authority inspection and procurement procedures, will form part of the evidence that Mr Bowen will consider before giving his verdict.

Ms. Mills, 36, from Deri, near Bargoed, said,

“This is what we have been waiting for for five years. I just hope that justice prevails. … The feeling that I need to get justice has taken over my life over the last five years and the end is near now and I am scared that we are not going to get the outcome that Mason deserves. I’m just hoping that I find the strength from somewhere to get through the next couple of days. I have experienced the worst thing I can ever experience, but having to deal with the inquest comes second. The hurt never goes away when you lose a child. You never get over it – you learn to live alongside it.”

Call for mandatory display of food grades in Wales

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Even the BBC is realizing that asking food businesses in Wales to voluntarily display the results of their inspection rating is, uh, hopeless.

The public will be able to access ratings through a searchable database, which will be overseen by the Food Standards Agency.

Food safety campaigners like Maria Battle, a senior director of Consumer Focus Wales, welcomed the principle of the scheme but said it was under-mined by the practice of voluntary display

"And if it is a low food rating – below three – then it’s very, very rare that they display their rating. And they’re the businesses that people would choose not to eat in."

However Battle and others overstate their case when they say that "Mandatory display in Los Angeles resulted in an immediate 20% reduction in food-related illnesses – people being hospitalized. That saved hundreds of thousands of pounds and also a lot of preventable human suffering."

That’s become an oft-quoted stat, especially as New York City has gone through the angst of going public, but the paper is so full of holes I’m not sure how it got published.

The real benefit of public displays of food service inspection grades is the public shame and embarrassment, which may force operators to do better, and that people talk about it, so it enhances the overall microbial food safety culture. We’ve written a couple of papers about the topic based on research we did, but they’re not published yet, so I won’t violate my own advice and do science by press release.

Professor Hugh Pennington, who chaired the inquiry into the 2005 E.coli outbreak in South Wales which claimed the life of five-year-old schoolboy Mason Jones, five years ago this week, said,

"In principle I’m a believer in having this system as a mandatory system because it is self-evident that commercial pressure on a business – like fewer customers going in – is a very strong incentive for them to up their game."

The U.K. Food Standards Agency, which also told consumers they should cook raw sprouts until they are piping hot to avoid salmonella, is confident that voluntary display will work as consumers will draw their own conclusions when businesses choose not to display their Food Hygiene Ratings.

There is no published research that I know of which supports this statement.

We have published a review of why restaurant inspection disclosure is important. And there’s a few more things coming out.

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.
 

Food poisoners: deliberate or negligent, send them to jail

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I’ve screwed up. I’ve done time. Maybe not enough, that’s another discussion.

With Peanut Corporation of America CEO Stewart Parnell back in the nut business after killing 9 and sickening 700, there’s a move afoot for stricter penalties for those who knowingly market unsafe food.

BBC News reports that Ramazan Aslan, the former owner of some hole-in0the-wall takeaway in Walse that was the likely source of an E. coli outbreak that sickened four, will face charges in court.

He will face a number of food hygiene offences.

The National Public Health Service for Wales said in 2009 that the Llay Fish Bar, Llay – now operating under new ownership – was the likely source.

Four people, including a three-year-old girl, had the same strain of E.coli after buying food from the premises in July last year.

Mason’s mum fears food plan for Wales restaurant inspection disclosure

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Abby Alford of The Western Mail reports that the effectiveness of a new scheme designed to reduce food poisoning outbreaks has been called into question a month before it is launched.

Sharon Mills, who lost her son Mason Jones during Wales’ largest E.coli O157 outbreak in 2005, said she feared the food hygiene rating scheme lacked the teeth to make a difference.

And watchdog Consumer Focus Wales told the Western Mail a decision to keep food inspectors’ detailed findings out of the public domain would leave concerned customers with no other option than to request hygiene records under the Freedom of Information Act.

All 22 councils in Wales will begin awarding the country’s 26,000 food retailers, which include pubs, restaurants, hotels, takeaways and supermarkets, a score from 0 to 5 from October 1 (left, pretty much as shown).

The ratings will gradually be made available to the public on a single website from October 1. Businesses will not be forced to display their rating on their premises.

Rob Wilkins, team leader for enforcement at FSA Wales, said details of what inspectors found during their visits and the reasons for awarding a particular score would also be left off the website.

And wholesalers like Bridgend butcher William Tudor, the man responsible for the 2005 outbreak which affected almost 150 South Wales school pupils, will not be rated at all under the scheme because they do not sell directly to the public.

Ms Mills, from Deri, near Bargoed, said while she broadly supported the food hygiene rating scheme, believing it to be an important step forward, she feared the lack of a mandatory display clause and a lack of detail scuppered any hope it could be truly effective.

“The public has a right to know how clean food retailers are and this scheme does not go far enough. I don’t know why they have chosen to hold back some of the vital information. I don’t really understand how this is going to work.”

Doesn’t make sense to me either. The attempt seems half-hearted and feeble.
 

Smearing feces on toddler slide introduced crypto into pool in Wales; 106 sickened in 2009

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An Aug. 2009 outbreak of cryptosporidium amongst children and adults who swam at the Merthyr Tydfil centre in Wales was caused by the smearing of feces on the toddler slide on Aug. 22, 2009.

Officials said it was important people with diarrhea did not go swimming.

A total of 45 cases of the illness were confirmed through laboratory testing and the pool was closed for three weeks following the confirmation of the outbreak. Over 100 people were estimated to have been sickened during the outbreak.

The report (which is available through the BBC story) also said,

"Gaps and weaknesses in policies and operational procedures and non-adherence to procedures in relation to incidents such as fecal accidents are also likely to have contributed to spreading cryptosporidium contamination widely at the time."
 

What about Wales? If U.K. Food Standards Agency goes, Wales should set up its own

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Professor Hugh Pennington, who wrote a report following the 2005 E. coli outbreak in South Wales which claimed the life of five-year-old Mason Jones, said the plan to abolish the U.K. Food Standards Agency had “absolutely no merit” and “could lead to more tragedies.”

Wales Online reports the U.K. Department for Health yesterday said no final decision had been taken about the fate of the FSA, but admitted it was “under review” along with other bodies.

Professor Pennington urged the Welsh Assembly to “think very, very hard” about creating their own FSA in Wales should the current one be abolished and said there was no need to follow England’s example.

There is confusion today over what will happen in Wales if the FSA is abolished.
It has been reported that in England, the FSA’s responsibilities would be taken on jointly by the Department of Health and the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) – whose remit does not cover Wales.

It also comes as the Welsh Assembly is in the midst of taking forward the actions of the Pennington Report.

The issue could prove embarrassing for the Welsh Conservatives, who last week called for more powers for the FSA, while their London counterparts have confirmed they are considering its future.

Professor Pennington said,

“What is being proposed seems to be going back to what we had before and that would be a significant step backwards. I see no merit in it whatsoever. E.coli hasn’t gone, and it’s likely to cause problems again in the future if you don’t get the system of regulation and inspection right. We know there are a minority of food companies out there who flout the rules and present a danger to the public. They need to be found and stamped on.”

The mother of five-year-old Mason Jones, who died after contracting E. coli in the 2005 outbreak in South Wales, said abolishing the FSA would be a “major, major blow to Wales. If the FSA is abolished, who is going to oversee Wales’ local authorities? It is quite shocking. It would be a major, major setback for all that we have tried to achieve with the Pennington report. It would be absolutely awful.”

Wales E. coli professor says make public health a priority

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Wales has some money issues.

But bacteriologist Professor Hugh Pennington, who chaired a public inquiry into the South Wales Valleys E. coli O157 outbreak in 2005, which claimed the life of five-year-old Mason Jones, will tell the National Assembly’s health committee this week that public health needs to be spared from expected budget cuts.

He is asking for councils to be given enough money to spare experienced environmental health officers.

Pennington said earlier in the week,

“My immediate concern is that in the implementation of financial reductions by the shedding of staff, policy will be driven by human resource departments rather than the need to retain experience and institutional memory.”

That’s a common theme I’ve heard over the years in trying to figure out why all these foodborne illness outbreaks keep happening, especially in processed foods which should have the poop processed out of them: companies just lack people who know what they’re doing when it comes to food safety.

But I have to take issue with the good professor when he says the 2000 E. coli O157:H7 outbreak in the water supply of Walkerton, Ontario (that’s in Canada) which sickened 2,300 and killed seven was caused because of lax water supply safety checks due to budget cuts.

In his health committee paper Prof Pennington said the event in Canada “provides evidence that rather than maintaining the systems that protected the population from E. coli O157, the Canadian approach to managing budget cuts contributed to the regulatory failures that led to this massive outbreak.”

Budgetary issues may have been a contributing factor, but more money doesn’t mean people will do what they’re supposed to do

The Walkerton Commission of Inquiry, led by Mr. Justice Dennis O’Connor, concluded:

• Seven people died, and more than 2,300 became ill. Some people, particularly children, may endure lasting effects.

• The contaminants, largely E. coli O157:H7 and Campylobacter jejuni, entered the Walkerton system through Well 5 on or shortly after May 12, 2000.

• The primary, if not the only, source of the contamination was manure that had been spread on a farm near Well 5. The owner of this farm followed proper practices and should not be faulted.

• The outbreak would have been prevented by the use of continuous chlorine residual and turbidity monitors at Well 5.

• The failure to use continuous monitors at Well 5 resulted from short-comings in the approvals and inspections programs of the Ministry of the Environment (MOE). The Walkerton Public Utilities Commission (PUC) operators lacked the training and expertise necessary to identify either the vulnerability of Well 5 to surface contamination or the resulting need for continuous chlorine residual and turbidity monitors.

• The scope of the outbreak would very likely have been substantially reduced if the Walkerton PUC operators had measured chlorine residuals at Well 5 daily, as they should have, during the critical period when contamination was entering the system.

• For years, the PUC operators engaged in a host of improper operating practices, including failing to use adequate doses of chlorine, failing to monitor chlorine residuals daily, making false entries about residuals in daily operating records, and misstating the locations at which microbiological samples were taken. The operators knew that these practices were unacceptable and contrary to MOE guidelines and directives.

• The MOE’s inspections program should have detected the Walkerton PUC’s improper treatment and monitoring practices and ensured that those practices were corrected.

• On Friday, May 19, 2000, and on the days following, the PUC’s general manager concealed from the Bruce-Grey-Owen Sound Health Unit and others the adverse test results from water samples taken on May 15 and the fact that Well 7 had operated without a chlorinator during that week and earlier that month. Had he disclosed either of these facts, the health unit would have issued a boil water advisory on May 19, and 300 to 400 illnesses would have been avoided.

• In responding to the outbreak, the health unit acted diligently and should not be faulted for failing to issue the boil water advisory before Sunday, May 21. However, some residents of Walkerton did not become aware of the boil water advisory on May 21. The advisory should have been more broadly disseminated.

• The provincial government’s budget reductions led to the discontinuation of government laboratory testing services for municipalities in 1996. In implementing this decision, the government should have enacted a regulation mandating that testing laboratories immediately and directly notify both the MOE and the Medical Officer of Health of adverse results. Had the government done this, the boil water advisory would have been issued by May 19 at the latest, thereby preventing hundreds of illnesses.

Yesterday, Pennington told the Assembly’s health committee the failure of some firms to comply with basic hygiene legislation is “essentially a disgrace.”

“For any business not to be doing what they are legally obliged to, which is having a HACCP plan or something like it, I think it’s essentially a disgrace. I am not yet convinced that we have got to the point where we can say that all small businesses have got a HACCP running which an environmental health officer should be satisfied with.”

Consumer Focus Wales’ Senior Director Maria Battle took a different approach, telling the committee food businesses should be legally required to display their hygiene rating on the premises.

The Food Standards Agency is currently developing the Food Hygiene Ratings Scheme, also known as ‘Scores on the Doors,’ but the scheme only allows for voluntary display. Consumers will have to visit a website to find out about poorly performing businesses.

It’s not Scores on Doors if the results are not publicly displayed. Regulatory, financial, shock and shame, all of these approaches should be explored to enhance the food safety culture of any food business.
 

It’s not scores on doors if the restaurant inspection result isn’t posted

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The Brits like to call their restaurant inspection disclosure system ‘scores on doors’ but consumers in Wales are unanimously disappointed and probably a little baffled that results won’t actually have to be posted.

But let a spokeswoman from the U.K. Food Standards Agency explain:

“The scheme is neither intended to punish non-compliance nor be an additional enforcement tool for local authorities. There are other, more appropriate, enforcement options available.

“We believe that as awareness of the national scheme grows, consumers will make their own judgments about a business failing to display its score and that this will encourage businesses to display them.”

Abby Alford of WalesOnline reports that FSA maintains “the display of scores had been opposed by industry, would be an unwelcome delay in introducing the scheme and was not in line with the principle of better regulation.”

Huh?

Scores on Doors will have to wait for Welsh

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There’s always a difference between saying there are food safety standards and actually being able to prove such standards are followed.

Which leads into that food safety culture thing.

Consumer Focus Wales said today the public has been misled by promises a new food hygiene ratings system would be up and running this year, and that it could now be another 12 months before people were able to find out how clean their local takeaway, restaurant, pub or supermarket is.

The Food Standards Agency (FSA) announced last month that a new website designed to carry the hygiene ratings of every food business would be up and running by October 1.

But the agency has admitted existing environmental health inspection reports will not be uploaded to the site.

Instead, information will only be added as and when councils carry out inspections of premises after launch day.

An FSA spokesman, who was apparently previously employed at the Ministry of Silly Walks, said data would be added “at a fairly substantial rate of progress” once the process used to gather information is standardised.

“The Food Standards Agency agrees that information on the hygiene rating of a food business should be made available to the public at the earliest opportunity. However, to be meaningful, this information needs to be accurate and understandable and based on judgements that are consistent from one business to another. This will provide the data to enable the public to make an informed choice about where they eat and buy food from. … The agency and local authorities seek to ensure that the scheme is introduced in a sustainable way, but are mindful of the practicalities it involves and have accepted that it is not feasible to launch a scheme in the autumn with all Welsh food businesses listed from the outset.”

Sharon Mills, who led calls for the scheme following the E.coli O157 outbreak in 2005 that claimed the life of her son Mason Jones, said the agency appeared to be putting the rights of businesses before the public’s right to know, adding,

“I agree that the information has got to be correct, but I think their argument is complete and utter nonsense.”

She’s right. Bureau-types could fritter for years trying to get everything right. Get it up, get it out, then make it better.

The agency said it was undertaking public consultation to help it decide how to express the ratings on the new website.

But although the scores will be available on the Internet, businesses will not be forced to display them on their premises.

I’d rather insert pencils into my eyeballs than listen to this drivel.