For all the fawning media coverage and energy expended, I figured there would be millions of Americans drinking raw milk.

A story in the Dayton Daily News pegs the number at 500,000.

That’s nothing when it comes to food dollars. And there are reasons why the numbers are so low. As the U.S. Centers for Disease Control reported in its Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report today,

“On October 26, 2007, a family health clinic nurse informed the Kansas Department of Health and Environment (KDHE) that Campylobacter jejuni had been isolated from two ill persons from different families who were members of a closed community in a rural Kansas county. By October 29, 17 additional members of the community had reported gastrointestinal illness and visited the clinic within a week. All 19 persons reported consuming fresh cheese on October 20 that was made the same day at a community fair from unpasteurized milk obtained from a local dairy.

"This report summarizes the findings of an investigation by KDHE and the local health department to determine the source and extent of the outbreak. Eating fresh cheese at the fair was the only exposure associated with illness (relative risk [RR] = 13.9). Of 101 persons who ate the cheese, 67 (66%) became ill. C. jejuni isolates from two ill persons had indistinguishable pulsed-field gel electrophoresis (PFGE) patterns, and the isolate from a third ill person was nearly identical to the other two. Although all samples of cheese tested negative for Campylobacter, results of the epidemiologic investigation found an association between illness and consumption of fresh cheese made from unpasteurized milk. To minimize the risk for illness associated with milkborne pathogens, unpasteurized milk and milk products should not be consumed."
 

Amy read the help wanted advert and apparently thought it was boring.

She wants a Napolean Dynamite theme.

So, work with me on handwashing, and all your wildest dreams will come true.

Reach for the Stars with Pedro.

Dude, wash your hands – researchers required

http://barfblog.foodsafety.ksu.edu/2008/12/articles/handwashing/dude-wash-your-hands-researchers-required/index.html

Handwashing compliance has been identified as a significant factor in reducing foodborne, hospital-acquired and other infectious disease. People say they wash their hands, but often don’t. Our goal is to develop evidence-based, culturally-sensitive messages using a variety of media to compel individuals to practice good handwashing in numerous settings, and to accurately evaluate the effectiveness of different approaches.

That’s a bunch of projects – and we’re looking for a bunch of people with diverse skills. Whatever your background, from microbiology to psychology, as long as you have excellent communication skills and can work both independently and collaboratively, we’re interested in chatting with you. Undergraduate or graduate students, if you’re interested – passionate – about compelling individuals to wash their hands and enhance public health, please contact Dr. Kate Stenske at kstenske@vet.ksu.edu, or Dr. Doug Powell at dpowell@ksu.edu.

Don’t eat poop – wash your hands.
 

The Sydney Morning Herald reports that the Sydney bakery responsible for a food poisoning outbreak that affected 319 people, of whom 136 were admitted to hospital, has been fined more than $40,000 for breaches of the Food Act.

The NSW Food Authority closed French Golden Hot Bread, in Homebush West, in March last year after tracing a salmonella outbreak to the egg mayonnaise served with its pork and chicken rolls.

Contrary to government regulations, the egg mixture was not heat-treated or kept below the specified 5 degrees.

A faulty refrigerator was also blamed for the elevated temperature of the mayonnaise, which allowed the bacteria to develop.

The Herald also reports this morning that more than half the local councils in New South Wales, the Australian state that contains, Sydney, have not fined any food businesses caught breaking food safety laws in the past four years, raising fears that much of the state has no effective protection against food poisoning from unhygienic restaurants and cafes.

Figures provided by the Office of State Revenue, which collects payments for fines imposed by councils, show that since 2004 only 67 out of more than 150 councils imposed any fines on restaurants and takeaway food businesses flouting hygiene laws.

"If you never issue a fine, they will laugh at you," said Des Sibraa, a former chief food inspector for NSW and now a food safety consultant.

He said the only conclusion to be drawn from the fact so many councils did not issue any fines was that many of them did not have serious inspection regimes.
"There is a place for warnings, but only for any minor matters, not for anything serious … Some councils are not doing anything," Mr Sibraa said.

Researchers at Kansas State University's International Food Safety Network use blogs, YouTube videos, food safety info sheets and other means to remind people about food safety hazards. The researchers are among more than 150 K-State faculty and staff active in the food safety and animal health arenas. Since 1999, K-State has dedicated more than $70 million to related research.

"During an outbreak, food safety is at the top of many people's minds," said Doug Powell, scientific director of the International Food Safety Network at K-State, where he is an associate professor of diagnostic medicine and pathobiology. "The real challenge is to compel everyone, from farm to fork, to practice safe food habits before an outbreak occurs. It's sort of boring, but it reduces the number of sick people."

Casey Jacob is a research assistant working with Powell. A May 2008 K-State bachelor's graduate in food science and industry, Jacob compiled a list of the top 10 food safety issues of 2008 available at http://tinyurl.com/4q4efw

Salmonella-laden tomatoes and/or peppers topped Jacob's list, highlighting the importance of being able to trace fresh produce to its source.

"Companies that can provide efficient traceability systems for their products provide an advantage to the retail food service sector during recall and outbreak situations," Jacob said.

Other top food safety issues on the list were melamine in Chinese infant formula, listeria in deli meats and soft cheeses, and E. coli O157:H7 linked to negligent butchers in the United Kingdom. Jacob said that these incidents demonstrated the importance of knowing one's food suppliers, warning vulnerable populations of food safety hazards associated with certain foods, and establishing a culture of food safety among food handlers.

The list includes signs that restaurant inspection disclosure systems are on the rise.

"The food service sector should recognize that certain diners are interested in the information provided by inspection reports and summaries," Jacob said. "This increase in transparency highlights the importance of maintaining -- or improving -- compliance with food safety regulations during inspections."

The list also recalls how patrons are using cell phone cameras to document food safety issues. In Toronto, a passerby took a photo of rats on a countertop at one of the most prominent restaurants in the city's Chinatown. Public health authorities shut the restaurant down.

"Everyone eats, and in a networked world, consumer experiences can really impact what people know about food safety," Powell said. "At the International Food Safety Network, we try to develop tools to help consumers share their wisdom with everyone in the farm-to-fork food chain and hope that leads to fewer people getting sick."

More information about the International Food Safety Network is available at http://www.foodsafety.ksu.edu/en/
 

You can pee on the ice, but not in an ice machine.

Four juveniles are facing several charges after security cameras showed them urinating into a cafeteria ice machine at a Chapel Hill,North Carolina middle school.

The News & Observer of Raleigh reported Tuesday the boys range in age from 12 to 15, and are charged with breaking and entering, larceny and vandalism to a public building. Because they are under 16, their names are being withheld.

Police said the vandalism occurred Dec. 15 at Smith Middle School in Chapel Hill. School officials said the ice machine was used on the following three days.

But all the machine's ice and containers were removed when school officials learned of the incident.

Public health officials instructed the school staff on how to clean and disinfect the surfaces and equipment before using them again.
 

The U.K. Food Standards Agency is so tragically hip they’ve gone viral.

Except they call it ‘viral,’ encasing the word in what speakers would call “air quotes” or what  Jon Stewart of the Daily Show recently called “dick fingers.” I call it bad writing.

The Agency has launched a new 'viral' marketing campaign, which raises awareness to the dangers of eating week-old turkey and gives tips to protect people in the UK from festive food poisoning. …

The new 60-second video aims to raise awareness of bad food hygiene and give some key advice on the safe handling of Christmas leftovers. The shocking but amusing film features a family that hasn’t been following the Agency’s advice on food hygiene. Diarrhoea might be the Christmas gift that keeps on giving, but do you really want to give it to your family?

The Agency advises leftovers should be:

* cooled as quickly as possible (within one to two hours) and kept in the fridge
* reheated only once, until piping hot
* eaten within two days

Who said the film was shocking? Or funny? And what does piping hot mean?

The Australians, who are just entering the hot summer weather, are more reasonable and recommend cooking to 75C (167F).

The origin of poultry cooking recommendations has been pondered many times on barfblog.com.

Currently, Health Canada suggests consumers cook turkey until the temperature of the thickest part of the breast or thigh is at least 85C (185F), though no one knows why.

A few decades ago, the USDA was also recommending that thigh meat reached 180-185F and breast meat reached 170F.

When asked why a couple years back, a manager of the U.S. Dept. of Agriculture Meat and Poultry Hotline said, "I've looked all over and I really have no idea. I think it happened sometime back in the 1980s, but I don't know what it was based on."

One of my research assistants, Casey Jacob, dug up a New York Times article from 1990 in which an assistant supervisor of the Hotline admitted that a turkey cooked until the breast meat is 160F and the dark meat is 170F was "microbiologically safe," but that the agency recommended the higher temps just to be on the safe side.

The agency now recommends that consumers cook poultry to an internal temp of 165F.

Casey tells that tale here:

“When USDA microbiologists finally got around to conducting validation studies in 2000, they figured out that a 7 log reduction in Salmonella could be achieved instantly at 158F and beyond.

“In 2006, NACMCF decided (through scientific studies, of course, not random number generation as may have been used previously) that foodborne pathogens and viruses, such as Salmonella, Campylobacter, and the avian influenza virus, were destroyed when poultry was cooked to an internal temperature of 165F.

“And thus the scientifically validated American recommendation of 165F was born.”

Here are the refs. Enjoy your Christmas dinner.

National Advisory Committee on Microbiological Criteria for Foods. 2006. Response to the questions posed by the Food Safety and Inspection Service regarding consumer guidelines for the safe cooking of poultry products. Adopted March 24, 2006. Arlington, VA.

United States Department of Agriculture, Food Safety and Inspection Service. 2005. Time-temperature tables for cooking ready-to-eat poultry products. Available at:
http://www.fsis.usda.gov/OPPDE/rdad/FSISNotices/RTE_Poultry_Tables.pdf. Accessed November 23, 2008.

Amy and I will be having lamb.

And this is the real deal, Kingston, Ontario’s very own, Tragically Hip.
 

My high school friend Dave used to say life is a series of hills and valleys: hills and valleys, Boog (that was my nickname, after Baltimore Orioles baseball great, Miller Lite spokesthingy and mesquite barbecue whiz, John “Boog” Powell).

Dave’s descriptor was insightful, to the point and accurate; or just really dull, I’m never quite sure which. I’m reminded of such adjectives when I find myself saying any approach to modifying food safety behavior requires a mixture of carrots and sticks.

I can be amazingly dull.

The National Health Service in Scotland has decided to focus on the sticks bit to get wayward physicians to wash their damn hands: doctors who don’t wash their hands could be fired.

An aide to Health Secretary Nicola Sturgeon said it was “unacceptable” for medical staff to flout hygiene rules, adding,

“Hand hygiene is an important part of our drive to tackle healthcare associated infection. We are now adopting a zero-tolerance approach to non compliance.”

Of all the holiday feasts our family has each year, Christmas is my absolute favorite.  Sure the turkey and stuffing are wonderful during Thanksgiving, but nothing can beat the wonderful sweets that are available during Christmas season.  Chocolate-dipped pretzels, sugar cookies with icing and sprinkles, peppermint bark, homemade fudge… Chocolate chip cookies are a staple at our house during the holidays.  We keep some around in case of a chocolate emergency (Quick! I need a cookie!), or if my Uncle Scott and his family come over.  Uncle Scott loves my Mom’s cookies; they taste terrific and are guaranteed to be nut-free.

Uncle Scott is one of nearly 7 million Americans that suffer from a true food allergy, and one of 3 million who are allergic to peanuts and treat nuts.
While many people often have gas, bloating or another unpleasant reaction to something they eat, this is not an allergic response, it’s considered a food intolerance.
In people suffering from food allergies, some foods can cause severe illness and, in some cases, a life-threatening allergic reaction (anaphylaxis) that can constrict airways in the lungs, severely lower blood pressure, and cause suffocation by the swelling of the tongue or throat.


The most common foods to cause allergies in adults are shrimp, lobster, crab, and other shellfish; walnuts and other tree nuts; fish; and eggs.  In children, eggs, milk, peanuts, soy and wheat are the main culprits. Children typically outgrow their allergies to milk, egg, soy and wheat, while allergies to peanuts, tree nuts, fish and shrimp usually are not outgrown.

Uncle Scott is allergic to tree nuts, so he is extra careful to avoid certain homemade Christmas treats that typically have nuts in them.  He also has the lucky ability to tell if something has nuts in it within the first few seconds he puts it in his mouth, which allows more time to get the Benadryl.  Not everyone is so lucky, many don’t know if the food was contaminated with allergens until their throat starts to close up or they break out into hives.

If you or someone you know suffers from food allergies, there are a few different steps you can take to help them enjoy the holidays worry-free.  First, knowing what allergen to avoid allows a host/hostess to prepare a special side dish or treat for the allergic individual so be sure to let your host know of any allergies.  Cross-contamination must be taken into account when preparing the allergen-free dish.  Preparation surfaces and tools should be cleaned thoroughly to remove germs and also any trace of the allergen.  For example, it’s not a good idea to prepare sugar cookie dough in the same place that walnut cookie dough was prepared.  It often doesn’t take much of the allergen to affect an individual.

Enjoy those holiday treats, just prepare them safely and make sure allergic individuals are aware of the contents.  For some food-allergy-friendly recipes, you can visit the websites below:
Food Allergy-Free Holiday Recipes from the American Academy of Allergy, Asthma and Immunology
Food Allergy Recipes and Special Diets from About.com Home Cooking

Chuck Dodd, a veterinarian in the U.S. Army, currently disguised as a graduate student in Food Science at Kansas State University who spends a lot of time collecting poop (right below, exactly as shown), writes that researchers have now concluded that some cows present a greater risk for beef contamination by shedding higher concentrations of Escherichia coli O157 in their feces.

Some food safety researchers, including me, have begun to label these cows as super-shedders. But that may be a witch hunt, or in this case, a super-shedder hunt.

Escherichia coli O157 remains a significant cause of foodborne illness in the United States. From 1982 to 2002, there were 350 reported outbreaks of E. coli O157 in which 8,598 people became ill. Almost 1,500 were hospitalized and 40 died. During this period, 41 percent of food-related E. coli O157 outbreaks were associated with the consumption of contaminated ground beef. Ground beef that came from cattle. Cattle that may have been shedding very high levels of E. coli O157 in their feces.

Cattle do not get sick if they carry E. coli O157 in their feces. A cow with E. coli O157 looks just like any other cow. In order to discriminate, the feces must be tested. Test methods have improved and now the organisms can be detected at lower concentrations in the feces. The numbers of organisms can also be estimated; hence, food safety researchers are able to separate the super-shedders from the low-shedders. Cattle can also be identified that are not carrying E. coli O157.

Studies have shown that E. coli O157 in cattle feces or on cattle hides is correlated with the detectable presence of E. coli O157 on the carcass. Carcass contamination likely occurs during the hide removal and evisceration process; this leads to the contamination of individual beef products sold at retail. In order to mitigate the risk of E. coli O157 contamination in ground beef, the beef industry employs pre- and post-harvest interventions. Yet some bacteria still make it through the harvest process.

Researchers are now scrutinizing cattle because their feces may have a super-sized dose of E. coli O157. Their theory: if the beef industry can detect and mitigate super-shedders, they can mitigate contamination of beef.

But is super-shedding super-bad? Maybe not.

Cattle with higher concentrations of E. coli O157 in their feces probably pose a higher risk for the eventual contamination of beef; however, the fecal shedding of these organisms comes and goes. Fecal shedding may depend upon host immunity and the environment (neither of which are the cow’s fault). What if a super-shedder on Saturday becomes a low-shedder on Sunday? What if a super-shedder is simply having a bad E. coli day? Does a high fecal concentration of E. coli O157 overwhelm the interventions that exist from farm-to-fork?

Researchers have asked whether the variation in fecal shedding “arises from the inherent stochasticity in transmission dynamics or is a signature of underlying heterogeneities in the cattle population.” Translation: are the differences in fecal shedding simply random or is it because cattle are simply different? Apparently, the fecal shedding of E. coli O157 varies by animal and by day.

Admittedly, due to the transience of E. coli O157 in cattle, a steer may shed a lot on the day of harvest. Nevertheless, if transience is real, then some days cattle may pose a high risk, low risk, or negligible risk.

The new super-shedder hunt may lengthen the path in preventing foodborne illness due to E. coli O157. Some cattle carry E. coli O157 and some don’t. There may be some benefit in knowing which cattle are shedding more than 100,000 E. coli O157 per gram in their feces on a given day, but will this knowledge prevent beef contamination? Perhaps, if it is the day of harvest.