Last week, an E.coli outbreak involving at least 17 kids and 3 adults was linked to a Denver cattle show.

In light of that, a reporter for the San Antonio Express-News spent a day at the petting zoo at the San Antonio Stock Show & Rodeo asking parents if they were worried about the "germs" their kids were being exposed to.

Some said yes; many others were confident in the precautions they were taking.

The stepfather of a three-year-old wasn't worried. "We wash his hands," he said.

One mother said of her thumb-sucking two-year-old,

“I can’t keep her in a bubble. [But] it’s definitely something I think about every day with her.”

One of the largest petting zoo outbreaks of E.coli O157:H7 to date was linked to the North Carolina State Fair in 2004. A study of the outbreak by Goode and colleagues found,

Persons became infected after contact with manure and engaging in hand-to-mouth behaviors in a petting zoo having substantial E coli O157:H7 contamination.

Use of alcohol-based hand-sanitizing gels was not protective [against infection with E.coli O157:H7], although knowledge of the risk for zoonotic infection was protective.

Are petting zoos safe for kids? Maybe, if you're aware of the risks and make sure they don't eat any poop. But that might be easier said than done.

In the San Antonio article, Bill Marler was quoted as saying the threat of exposure to new and dangerous pathogens was too high for him to risk taking a small child or anyone with a compromised immune system to a petting zoo.

It's your call.

The ABC11 report might have been a bit of speculation, Durham County Health Department says that while the outbreak is unknown, it looks like it might be norovirus.

The outbreak is still under investigation and it appears that lots of misinformation is flying around.

Here's last week's food safety infosheet on norovirus.

The news this morning is full of features and editorials seeking to explain the shit storm of Salmonella produced by Peanut Corporation of America.

Chapman and I tried to take it a step further and focus on effective, long-term steps to reduce the incidence of foodborne illness from farm-to-fork. At this point in time, promoting food safety culture coupled with marketing and a series of carrots and sticks is the best we can come up with.

In 1204 in Montpellier, France, a butcher selling a substitute meat in place of the advertized beast was required by statute to reimburse the customer twice the amount paid. In Narbonne, regulations dictated a whipping “with sheep tripe” in front of the food stall for unscrupulous sellers. China routinely executes its biggest food frauds.

During a hearing before the U.S. Senate Agriculture Committee looking into a salmonella outbreak linked to a Georgia peanut processing plant, Sen. Patrick Leahy of Vermont said Thursday that food producers responsible for widespread, deadly outbreaks of disease should face jail time, not just fines, to get food makers to take food safety seriously.

Sixteen years after E. coli O157:H7 killed four and sickened hundreds who ate hamburgers at the Jack-in-the-Box chain, the challenge remains: how to get people to take food safety seriously?
Lots of companies do take food safety seriously and the bulk of American meals are microbiologically safe. But recent food safety failures have been so extravagant, so insidious and so continual that consumers must feel betrayed.

The politicos in Washington are focused on legislative fixes, maybe creating a single-food inspection agency, maybe increasing inspections, insisting microbiological test results be submitted to government, maybe mandating jail time for the most audacious executives. Such moves may send a signal of hope and change, but will do little to reduce the carnage contaminated food and water wreak on the American public each year – 76 million illnesses and 5,000 deaths.

Industry – the folks that process peanuts and all those companies that make some of the 1,550 different peanut butter crackers, ice cream, energy bars and dog treats that have been recalled – is equally void of ideas. The system to ensure safe food relies largely on so-called third-party audits of suppliers, a system that glowingly approved Peanut Corporation of America and its leaky roof, filthy floors and rat-infested storage areas.

Other peanut butter manufacturers like Unilever and ConAgra Foods say they have “stringent food safety and quality control standards.” But neither will say what it is they do better than PCA; neither will say how often the plants test their finished product for foodborne illnesses or other contamination. Maple Leaf Foods in Canada, whose deli meats killed at least 20 Canadians last fall, says it has done 42,000 tests for listeria across 24 packaged meat plants in the past three months, but will not make the results publicly available for scrutiny.

Even Whole Foods, where consumers pay a hefty premium for basic foodstuffs, said the company carefully checks the paperwork for all the products it sells, but can do no better than the minimal standard of government.  “For the thousands of products we sell, that’s the extent we can go to. The rest of it is up to the F.D.A. and to the manufacturer.”

Like a fiscal house of cards, the Ponzi scheme of inspection and verification for food safety is collapsing with merely the mention of consumer scrutiny. Sort of like an eighth grade party with chaperones -- just pop and chips. But when the inspector or auditors leaves, the party turns exciting (read all about it on Facebook).

A cultural shift is required for everyone, from the farm through to the fork, to take food safety seriously. Frank Yiannas, the vice-president of food safety at Wal-Mart has taken an initial stab in his new book, Food Safety Culture: Creating a Behavior-based Food Safety Management System.

Yiannas says that an organization’s food safety systems need to be an integral part of its culture. At Peanut Corporation of America, former employees are now coming forward to tell of filthy conditions in the Blakely, Georgia, processing plant. A company with a strong food safety culture would have encouraged those employees to speak up while they were employed, not because the manager or auditor or inspector was watching, but because it was the right thing to do.

The best food producers, processors, retailers and restaurants should go above and beyond minimal government and auditor standards and sell food safety solutions directly to the public. The best organizations will use their own people to demand ingredients from the best suppliers; use a mixture of encouragement and enforcement to foster a food safety culture; and use technology to be transparent -- whether it's live webcams in the facility or real-time test results on the website -- to help restore the shattered trust with the buying public.

Here’s what consumers can do: at the local market, the stop-n-shop or the supermarket, ask someone, how do I know this food won’t make me barf? While such talk may be socially frowned upon, it’s time to put aside the niceties and bureau-speak and talk directly about safe food.

The more customers ask, the more food providers will be encouraged to market their food safety efforts.

Just like in 13th century France.

Doug Powell is an associate professor of food safety at Kansas State University and the publisher of barfblog.com. Ben Chapman is a food safety extension specialist at North Carolina State University.

Australia has had a number of outbreaks involving raw eggs in a variety of dishes. Why any aged care facility, even a so-called upscale one like RSL Anzac Village at Narrabeen would serve dishes with raw eggs to a vulnerable population like senior citizens speaks to the stellar food safety training underpinning their upscale care. Maybe they were trained by the same folks who think it’s OK to serve cold cuts to old folks in Canada – 20 died from listeria in Maple Leaf deli meats last fall.

The source of the outbreak is believed to be a hollandaise sauce that used raw egg, although the NSW Food Authority is still waiting for conclusive test results.

The suspected food poisoning occurred on Friday, January 23, when the temperature reached nearly 32 degrees at the RSL Anzac Village at Narrabeen. The high-quality village provides 750 independent living units as well as places for 500 people in nursing home or hostel level care.

A statement from the home's management said, "Village management apologises unreservedly to all people affected by this unfortunate incident and continues to work with the public health unit to trace the source.”

It said the village served more than 200,000 meals a year and this was the first known episode of gastric upset relating to food services "in living memory".

The Minister for Primary Industries, Ian Macdonald, issued a warning about the potential health risks from eating food that contained raw or lightly cooked eggs.

He said the Government was launching an education campaign in view of a consumer survey by the Food Authority that showed people did not understand how to safely cook or store eggs.

A man in San Diego who was upset with his trial smeared human feces in his lawyer’s face, and proceeded to throw the remainder of poop at the jury, reports 10 News.

Weusi McGowan, 37, was upset because San Diego Superior Court Judge Jeffrey Fraser refused to remove Deputy Alternate Public Defender Jeffrey Martin from the case, prosecutor Christopher Lawson said.

At the mid-morning break, McGowan produced a plastic baggie filled with fecal matter and spread it on Martin's hair and face, then flung the excrement toward the jury box, hitting the briefcase of juror No. 9 but missing the juror himself.

The prosecutor said the defendant was compliant after the outburst, and was taken into custody without further incident.

Hopefully the lawyer and juror No. 9 washed their hands, and didn’t get any poop in their mouths. Don’t eat poop.
 

Students at Central Catholic High School in Toledo, Ohio may have become infected with Hepatitis A after a cafeteria worker at the school was diagnosed as being infected with the virus, reports the Toledo Blade.

The Toledo-Lucas County Health Department encourages students who ate food prepared in the school's cafeteria between Jan. 6 and Jan. 30, and who have not already been vaccinated, to see a doctor and get the immunization.

The risk of acquiring Hepatitis A is greatly reduced for students who already have been vaccinated with the vaccine, completed the series, or previously had Hepatitis A. The vaccination should be given on or before next Friday to be most effective.

Hepatitis A is found in feces of the infected person and can be spread by direct contact with food, beverages or crockery. An infected food handler may not know they are ill, as symptoms often do not present until 2 to 6 weeks after infection. Proper hand washing reduces the spread of illness. Symptoms of illness include nausea, yellow skin, fatigue, loss of appetite, and abdominal pain.

Hepatitis A outbreaks are common among food establishments. There’s even a section of barfblog devoted to them. 
 

A story in Saturday’s  N.Y. Times will report that sales of all brands of peanut butter are down by nearly 25 percent – and those numbers will get worse.

The contaminated peanut butter traced to the Georgia plant represents a small percentage of the total $800 million in annual sales by the peanut butter companies in the United States. But the public relations problem for the rest of the industry is unlikely to ease anytime soon. …

So far, the salmonella outbreak has been linked to 575 illnesses and eight deaths, and more than 1,500 products have been recalled, including cookies, ice cream and pet food.

In response, brands like Jif and Peter Pan are taking out ads to tell shoppers that their products are not affected, and giving them a coupon.

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Oh, I’m sorry, I fell asleep.

Instead of telling consumers what they aren’t, maybe the big peanut butter types could tell people what they are – the food safety steps they take to produce a product that won’t make people barf.

The best food producers, processors, retailers and restaurants should go above and beyond minimal government and auditor standards and sell food safety solutions directly to the public. The best organizations will use their own people to demand ingredients from the best suppliers; use a mixture of encouragement and enforcement to foster a food safety culture; and use technology to be transparent -- whether it's live webcams in the facility or real-time test results on the website -- to help restore the shattered trust with the buying public.

The makers of Jif and Peter Pan have already gone on record saying they will not disclose their own food safety test results.
 

I got an e-mail from my best friend this morning. She’s feeling a bit under the weather… again.

While she’s training to be a speech pathologist, Molly spent a few months in an elementary school and is now at a local hospital.

According to University of Arizona microbiologist Dr. Charles Gerba -- aka "Dr. Germ" – professionals who serve sick people have an average of 2,620 bacteria per square inch of their workspace, and the average for those who work with kids is almost seven times that.

An MSN Careers article reporting research conducted by Dr. Gerba and his team suggest that Molly, her former school clients, and her current hospital clients could share “viruses, bacteria and other germs” through light switches, elevator buttons, door handles, and even papers.

The team’s research was funded by The Clorox Co. and included microbial testing of more than 616 surfaces in private offices and cubicles in Tucson, Ariz., and Washington, D.C. Desktops were thought to harbor more bacteria than any other surface, though phones, computer keyboards, and mice followed closely behind.

The team then compared the bacterial populations of offices of different professions. They found nine with significantly higher numbers than the others.

This list included radio DJs who share their space with many different people, and bankers who handle lots of money.

Lawyers and television producers who meet a lot of people and shake a lot of hands were also listed.

Accountants and publicists also made the list. These professionals, like me, spend lots of time behind their desks.

In the article, Gerba mentioned that wiping down your desk, for the most part, simply spreads germs around. He suggests using a disinfectant or sanitizer to clean with. I suggest carefully drying with a paper towel afterward.

And perhaps taking on a Monk-like approach to human contact and personal hygiene.
 

Health officials are investigating an outbreak linked to Colorado's largest stock show after 20 people, including 17 kids, came down with E. coli O157.

Chris Urbina with Denver Public Health said a lab has confirmed 20 E. coli cases but the number is expected to grow.

The Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment said in a news release,

"While the investigation is ongoing, we suspect that these infections are linked to attending the National Western Stock Show, which was held in Denver from Jan. 10 to Jan. 25.”

Although health officials haven't pinpointed the exact cause of the E. coli, the common denominator in all the cases is the stock show, Urbina said.

Many schools and child care centers organized trips to the stock show, and many children attended with their families, so there is the potential that the number of cases could jump, health officials said.

On Wednesday, the CDPHE sent a letter to daycare centers alerting them to the outbreak and asking the staff to take special precautions.

For disease reporting or other questions please contact the CDPHE Communicable Disease program at 303-692-2700.