More than two decades after Aaron Giles lost his identity bracelet, a meat cutter at Olson Locker in Fairmont, Minn. discovered the shiny object in a chicken gizzard and saw a name, address and phone number engraved on it, and returned it to Giles.

Associated Press explains that Giles had lived in Fairmont as a child and played hide-and-seek and other games with his brothers in their grandfather's barn near Sherburn.

The 31-year-old Giles said,

"I would spend most of my time out at his farm, and that's the only place I can think of that I would have lost it."

Giles figures the bracelet was lost when he was 4 or 5.

The barn was dismantled a few years ago, and Giles thinks his bracelet was imbedded in materials used to construct another barn in Elmore, about 45 miles away.

The bracelet was found in a chicken that came from an Elmore farm.

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There's a food safety feeding frenzy going on in the nation's media outlets. Not a week goes by when Ben or I (and I'm sure dozens of other food safety geeks) get a call from an earnest reporter who wants to dish the dirt on dangerous dining, or seep into the city's soiled food service underbelly, or test for toxins in takeout.

But there's always someone who will play along. Yesterday it was menus and movie theaters.

Not the food on the menu, but the actual menu as a source of dangerous microorganisms, Same with movie theater chairs.

South Carolina's Live 5 News --with Tracey Amick -- reported that they tested a single menu from a single outlet of chain restaurants.

"The menu from the Olive Garden had no bacteria...and the ones from Noisy Oyster, Applebees, and Waffle House had normal levels of normal staph...nothing to cause concern.

"But the TGI Friday's menu had 100 units of Bacillus Cereus which if ingested...could make you sick with diahrrea and vomiting."

Charlotte, N.C's WCNC -- with action reporter Jeff Sonier -- bought tickets at a half dozen Charlotte area movie theaters.

Then we took our hidden cameras inside, along with a black light to locate stains and other foreign material, and swabs to take samples. We sealed up everything we found in test tubes, and sent them off to a laboratory near Raleigh.

… most of the germs WCNC found in most of the movie theaters we tested probably won't make you sick. But there were some exceptions – such as the seatback sample of bacteria we swabbed from the Carolina Pavilion theater on South Boulevard. The laboratory identified it as bacillus cereus.

Don't eat the menu. And don't lick movie theater seats.

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The University of Western Ontario has taken what one newspaper called "the unusual step" of apologizing the salmonella food poisoning outbreak that has been linked to its on-campus food service.

The move comes a day after some pushback to statements made by Susan Grindrod, Associate Vice-President of Housing and Ancillary Services, who earlier said,

"This is the first [salmonella contamination] we’ve had in 25 years. … We serve 30,000 people per week, and while it’s nice to have sanitary practices, there’s no 150 per cent guarantee.”

In the apology yesterday, Grindrod said,

“We have made a number of recommended changes to further improve all our food handling and sanitary practices. These include the installation of hands-free sanitization stations at entrances to the Centre Spot, the hiring of an independent health and safety inspector to provide suggestions on enhanced food safety processes, and further measures to avoid cross contamination between foods.” 

What Grindrod did not mention is the steps Western takes to verify that suppliers -- especially suppliers of fresh fruits and vegetables -- are taking steps to reduce the risk of contamination from the farm through to the Western receiving dock.

The Rochester Post-Bulletin in Minnesota reported yesterday that a salmonella outbreak that sickened 20 who ate at a Quizno's Subs had been traced to tomatoes that were contaminated before they even got to the restaurant.

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The Sydney Morning Herald reports that five people from Newcastle and Tamworth and two from Sydney -- including three children -- have been diagnosed with Shiga toxigenic E. coli. Four of the sufferers had been seen by GPs and were recovering at home, while the three children were admitted to the Sydney Children's Hospital at Randwick; one has been discharged.

Jeremy McAnulty, the director of communicable diseases at NSW Health, said yesterday that no link has been found between the seven cases, which were all diagnosed in the past month, but that the disease usually only affected about 15 people a year.

Neither the story nor the NSW Health press release identify the strain of STEC involved; while E. coli O157:H7 is predominant in North America and the U.K., Australia has had bouts of E. coli O111.

The NSW Health press release also notes in its preventative tips,

"cook hamburgers and sausages thoroughly to at least 71 degrees Celsius - although colour alone is not necessarily a good indicator - do not eat them if there is any pink meat inside."

Color (without the u) is a lousy indicator, but the message tries to accommodate the cultural reality that people don't cook burgers with a thermometer, unlike the Brits, who say colour is an OK indicator.

Finally, the Australians went public based on limited info. That's OK, and certainly better than the Canadians, who wouldn't release any public information about 45 people sick with E. coli O157:H7, including one death, over several months this year, until pressured to by the Americans.

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The Indian anytime delight and after dinner digestive, the Paan, can be a terrific source of Salmonella.

A study by researchers at the National Salmonella Centre at the Indian Veterinary Research Institute in Uttar Pradesh's Izatnagar, found salmonella in Paan as well as betel leaves.

Sandeep Budhiraja, head of the department of internal medicine said,

"It is not surprising if it is found in Paan, as the shopkeepers keep the betel leaves soaked for long hours in water that may be infected."

Rajan Gupta, MD pathology, Indraprastha Apollo Hospitals, said,

"This disease is not acquired because of lack of personal hygiene but because of contamination via food or water. In India, when people go out to eat in a restaurant they drink mineral water but they never think of cleanliness when it comes to Paan.

"If everybody makes sure that what they eat is prepared in a clean place with pure hands and water then it can be easily avoided. It is best to make a Paan at home."

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The Blackpool Gazette in the U.K. reports that a second Blackpool hotel, the Metropole, is at the centre of a suspected norovirus outbreak.

The Newcastle-based balletLORENT performed their opening night on Friday, but Saturday's performance was called off 15 minutes after the curtain was due to go up.

Grand Theatre house manager Stephen Williams took to the stage to break the bad news to the audience, stating,

"Unfortunately due to a virulent outbreak of food poisoning the company is unable to perform. They are unable to perform how they wish to perform and how you would like to see them perform."

The audience was offered a full refund or credit note to use for future productions.

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One year after a three-part investigation by the Edmonton Journal, Karen Kleiss reports this morning that the number of compulsory restaurant closures is up, health regions across the province have adopted minimum standards, and all Albertans can expect to have online access to inspection results by July 1.

Capital Health Authority spokesman Steve Buick, referring to lessons learned after last year's complaints by the public and provincial auditor general, said,

"We think generally the system has served people well, but it needed upgrading in a few key respects, and certainly the disclosure issue is one of them. We get that the public wants to see more information. ... It needs to be more transparent, and it will be."

Health Minister Dave Hancock has ordered all Alberta health regions to adopt uniform risk assessment and management standards, and he wants all Alberta health regions to come up with a plan to make restaurant inspection reports available online.

Robert Bradbury, director of public health for the Calgary Health Region, said,

"We will move as close to complete disclosure as we possibly can. It's all about choice. The more information the dining public has, the better prepared they are to make that choice."

Another convert. Now, what is the most effective and meaningful way to communicate the results of restaurant inspections?

Last year, The Journal put a searchable database of restaurant inspections on the edmontonjournal.com website. It received more than 500,000 hits.

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Devil's star forward Patrik Elias returned to New Jersey Saturday with what he believes was a case of food poisoning and not related to hepatitis A or the flu.

Elias told the N.J. Star-Ledger,

"It just came on real quick. I had no symptoms before. I think it was just regular food poisoning, nothing related to hepatitis. I started feeling nauseous Friday morning. I had a nap before the game and by midnight I was vomiting and had a fever. I still have a little fever today, probably because of dehydration, but stomach-wise I feel much better. I ate some soup today. Hopefully, it will go away as quickly as it came on."

The story notes that it may indeed be food poisoning or the flu, but it is always a more serious matter with Elias. He contracted hepatitis A while playing in Russia during the 2004-05 lockout and missed the first 39 games of the '05-06 season while recovering.

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In October, Topps Meat Company, founded in 1940, went out of business. That was after Topps had recalled nearly 22 million pounds of frozen hamburger contaminated with E. coli and 40 people across the U.S. had become ill.
 
Tort deformers decried the “tragedy” that is this Topps’ collapse - that a business went under and employees had lost their jobs.  Yes, a company bankrupt and unemployment are tragic.  What makes it more so is that the catastrophic breakdown in the food-safety chain at Topps could have and should have been prevented by Topps management.
 
It’s been a century since Utpon Sinclair published the “Jungle,” which exposed the contaminated underbelly of the American meat industry.  Reform quickly followed.  America got the Pure Food and Drug and Meat Inspection Acts.  In the early 1990s, when these safeguards failed – e.g. Jack in the Box E. coli outbreak – again there was a public push for improving food safety.
 
The U.S.D.A. Food and Inspection Service responded with creating and aggressively enforcing the mandatory Risk Management System.  Derived from research and operations in the American space program, this approach HACCP prevented new outbreaks by establishing check-points at every phase of meat processing.  In addition, the agency classified the presence of E. coli O157:H7 as an adulterant under the Meat Inspection Act.  Until recently, the meat contamination problem seemed fixed.
 
Had Topps complied with the letter and spirit of HACCP, it would not have processed contaminated meat in 2005 and again in 2007.  So, why hadn’t Topps done what was the right thing to do for it and its now unemployed?  We will be researching that question for years.
 
My theory is that Topps’ leadership might have chosen to take short-cuts on systemic food-safety procedures.  Therefore, contamination which should have been detected early in meat processing wasn’t.  The result wasn’t pretty: Food-poisoned consumers went through the agony that E. coli inflicts.  They had incorrectly trusted that label “Inspected by the U.S.D.A.” as guaranteeing safety.
 
Over a century, two waves of reform in ensuring the safety of the American food supply chain have given business a total systems approach.  That approach works if management follows the rules.  Unfortunately, employees at Topps who lost their means of making a living were among those punished - severely. 
Will other businesses be able to learn that century-old lesson: Inattention to proper food processing will be the kiss of death for their brand name, profitability and, yes, very existence.
 
Bill Marler has been a lawyer representing E. coli victims, mainly children, since 1993. 

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