Thank you, spammers, for adverts promoting generic penis enlargers. Your 300-500 comments per day have forced me to close all comments on barfblog.com.

We have been preparing a new site, with new software, over the summer, but it isn’t ready yet.

We will be moving as soon as we can.

In the meantime, barfblog.com will be of limited functionality, but news will continue to be available through the listserv at bites.ksu.edu.

With at least two people dead and 178 sick from Salmonella linked to cantaloupe in 21 states, Jim Howell of the Indiana Department of Health told growers improper food handling procedures may be to blame for a good portion of the illnesses.

But now the Indiana State Department of Health has insisted to the Evansville Courier and Press the report was inaccurate.

"Consumers are not to blame for the salmonella outbreak, and no member of the ISDH staff has ever stated or insinuated such a claim," said state health department spokeswoman Amy Reel.

Dr. James Howell, an assistant Indiana State Department of Health commissioner who heads the Public Health and Preparedness Commission, visited melon growers Monday at Vincennes Tractor Inc.

He was quoted in the Vincennes Sun-Commercial as saying that "most of the bacteria is on the surface" and that "people just need to clean their produce before they eat it." He also reportedly said consumers are increasingly unaware of how to handle fresh produce, reciting the stand-by that home economics needs to be re-introduced in schools.

Reel said Howell's comments were misconstrued, stating, "Assumptions were made that could detract from the important health message that consumers should be washing all produce to help reduce their risk of any foodborne illness. The current salmonella investigation is ongoing.”

But washing doesn’t do much, especially with Salmonella on cantaloupe. And what hasn’t been reported anywhere is the food safety precautions undertaken – or not – on the farm; the Food and Drug Administration will figure that out, and I’ll wait for the report.

There’s a rich tradition of people saying dumbass things in the midst of an outbreak.

With at least two people dead and 178 sick from Salmonella linked to cantaloupe in 21 states, Jim Howell of the Indiana Department of Health told growers improper food handling procedures may be to blame for a good portion of the illnesses.

“The American consumer doesn’t understand the farm,” he was quoted as saying by Associated Press. “They treat fresh produce just like it was packaged food. A big problem is that home economics is not taught in schools anymore. People don’t know this stuff. I have a daughter-in-law who can’t cook at all. I doubt she would know to wash fresh produce. More and more often the attitude is becoming, if it looks clean, let’s eat it.”

He went on to say he would like to hear suggestions about how to label the packaging to include directions for food safety.

“Most of the bacteria is on the surface. People just need to clean their produce before they eat it.”

Howell also suggested that cleaning a cantaloupe with soap, water and a very small amount of bleach is a good idea before ingesting it because the surface is so rough.

Not quite Mr. Health Type.

Bleach, maybe; soap, no.

There’s a lot of idiotic stuff in these quotes, if that is what he actually said. But I’ll refrain from judgment until real health types complete their investigation and issue their report.

A California slaughterhouse that was shut down last week amid wide-ranging allegations of animal abuse reopened for business Monday, with federal officials saying that employees will receive new training on the handling of electric cattle prods, stun guns and other devices.

But does training actually work? Or is the culture of the workplace more important to continuous reinforcement and desired results (like not abusing animals).

The company also said more frequent third-party audits of its operations, would "establish a new industry standard for the handling of animals."

Third-party audits can sorta suck.

Culture encompasses the shared values, mores, customary practices, inherited traditions, and prevailing habits of communities.

Frank Yiannas, the vice-president of food safety at Wal-Mart wrote in his aptly named 2009 book, Food Safety Culture: Creating a Behavior-based Food Safety Management System, that an organization’s food safety systems need to be an integral part of its culture, and that culture is patterned ways of thought and behaviors that characterize a social group which can be learned through socialization processes and persist through time.

Yiannas also writes:

• The goal of the food safety professional should be to create a food safety
culture – not a food safety program.
• An organization’s culture will influence how individuals within the group
think about food safety, their attitudes toward food safety, their willingness
to openly discuss concerns and share differing opinions, and, in general, the
emphasis that they place on food safety.
• When it comes to creating, strengthening, or sustaining a food safety culture
within an organization, there is one group of individuals who really own it –
they’re the leaders.
• Having a strong food safety culture is a choice. The leaders of an organization
should proactively choose to have a strong food safety culture because
it’s the right thing to do, as opposed to reacting to a significant issue or
outbreak.
• Creating or strengthening a food safety culture will require the intentional
commitment and hard work by leaders at all levels of the organization,
starting at the top.
• Although no two great food safety cultures will be identical, they are likely to
have many similar attributes.
• Identifying food safety best practices can be useful, but one major drawback
to creating such a list is that it doesn’t really demonstrate how these activities
are linked together or interrelated. It misses the big picture – the system.
• To create a food safety culture, you need to have a system.