The National Patient Safety Agency is fighting back media accusations. They’re not literally fighting, like my favorite mother of eight, Kate, and her soon to be ex-husband, Jon. The NPSA is fighting accusations saying they have endorsed the complete removal of alcohol based hand sanitizer from all clinical areas (see barfblog post: Drunk on Sanitation). In fact, the NPSA advocates the use of alcohol based hand sanitizer, but it should be concentrated in specific areas of the hospital (i.e. patient rooms and clinical areas).

Tomorrow is Canada Day, the celebration of the July 1, 1867 enactment of the British North America Act, which united Canada as a single country of four provinces. Saturday is Independence Day in the U.S., commonly known as the Fourth of July, a federal holiday commemorating the adoption of the Declaration of Independence on July 4, 1776, declaring independence from the Kingdom of Great Britain.

Both occasions have turned into annual orgies of bad food safety advice on both sides of the 49th parallel.

OK, bad is a strong word. But the advice is certainly incomplete; and puts the blame for any outbreaks of foodborne illness squarely on the shoulders of consumers.

For example, “The government of Canada reminds Canadians about the importance of food safety during the summer months.” Compelling reading. And then a $5.5 billion-a-year company, Maple Leaf, can do no better than parrot  government advice, which is convenient, since it says nothing about buying cold-cuts that won’t make people barf.

Maple Leaf’s so-called blog, which is updated about once-a-week, is entitled, Our Journey to Food Safety Leadership. What PR genius thought up this blog name? Shouldn’t they already be food safety leaders? I don’t want to be on a journey with them (and Journey is a terrible band) while Maple Leaf figures out food safety.

The U.S. is no better with its “Independence Day: Drills for the grill.” Seriously, who comes up with this stuf? Oh, and the U.S. Partnership for Consumer Food Safety Education has a new leader, but the same incomplete messages (and same terrible title).

But change may yet happen. Given all the outbreaks – produce, pet food, peanut butter, that have nothing to do with consumers, it’s time any food safety messaging campaign included what the World Heath Organization has been advocating since 2002 – source food from safe sources (an evaluation of message effectiveness should also be a bare minimum and rarely happens).

The U.S. National Restaurant Association encourages restaurant and foodservice operators to begin planning for the 15th annual National Food Safety Education Month, held every September and focuses on the importance of food safety education for the restaurant and foodservice industry.

This year's theme is "Food Safety Thrives When You Focus on Five."

Each week will focus on one of the five barriers:

Purchasing food from unsafe sources
Failing to cook food adequately
Holding food at incorrect temperatures
Using contaminated equipment
Practicing poor personal hygiene

Finally, a group starts to get it right. Now, about that evaluation …

Anyone can bitch. My colleagues and I try to provide solutions.

So Ben, Casey and I jumped at the chance to write the concluding chapter  for a new book, "The Produce Contamination Problem: Causes and Solutions," slated for release July 15 from Academic Press.

"We should eat fresh produce because it's good for us, but it's also a significant cause of foodborne illness," said Doug Powell, an associate professor of food safety at Kansas State University.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recently reported that when leafy vegetables are counted with fruits and nuts, they account for the majority of foodborne disease outbreaks in 2006. Together, these types of produce are blamed for 33 percent of outbreaks. In comparison, poultry was the culprit of 21 percent of outbreaks that year.

One of the main things the authors convey is that the tomato grown in your home garden is as likely to make you sick as is the tomato purchased at a big-box grocery store or discount chain.

"Everyone is big on their local garden, but it's no different whether I have a thousand acres or a little plot in my backyard," Powell said. "You have to keep dog, cat and bird poop out of the product you eat."

Although factory farms often take the blame for outbreaks, Powell points out that the contaminated spinach circulating in 2006 came from a farm with a 70-head cattle operation.

"It was nothing near to being a factory farm, but cattle were kept next to the spinach," he said.

"With produce, anything that comes in contact with it has the potential to contaminate, whether it's people's hands, irrigation water or manure.”

The authors suggest that changes in food safety practices have to begin with producers.

"Other than asking questions about food safety practices, there isn't much consumers can do," Powell said. "Contamination has to be prevented on the farm."

Two years ago a salmonella outbreak traced to hummus made 700-plus people sick at the Taste of Chicago outdoor food festival in Chicago, IL. The annual festival lasts for 10 days, and millions of people attend. This year 60 health inspectors will be patrolling the venue attempting to prevent another outbreak, reports Chi-Town Daily News.

As city food inspectors, their main focus is the potential disease lurking in the pizza, turkey legs, corn, elephant ears and countless other treats cooked at the Taste's outdoor booths…This year, the city's Department of Public Health is deploying about 60 staff members – trained food inspectors and supervisors – to continually drop by the 56 vendor booths, making sure the food stays safe.

Frances Guichard, director of Chicago District Public Health’s food protection division, said,                 

“We are in more of a role of consultation.”

Explaining that,

Inspectors visit each vendor between four and six times a day, taking the temperature of food, ensuring storage and service conditions are sanitary and giving vendors assistance, if they need it. If food temperatures are too low or too high, inspectors will recommend the food be thrown away.

The most common reason for a booth to be shut down is if no manager is present while food is being served to patrons. And, even then, a restaurant can begin serving food as soon as a manager returns.

I’m glad inspectors are at the event -- it may help food handlers to be aware of their potential impact on food safety -- but as Doug mentioned last year, there are certain components of food safety that can’t be monitored by inspectors, like food from a safe source.

Brian Hartman of ABC News appears to be first off the block reporting that U.S. Food and Drug Administration investigators today found E. coli in an unopened package of raw chocolate chip cookie dough at the plant in Danville, VA where Nestle makes Toll House cookie dough.

A FDA type said the dough had been manufactured on February 10, 2009 but had not yet been shipped.

Investigators still do not know how the E. coli got into the dough. But finding this “smoking gun” package confirms they pushed for a recall of the correct product.

Baby Sorenne is coming up on seven months, and her poop is changing. As more solids are introduced into her diet, her poop has gone from runny brown to sticky to fully formed turds.

Yesterday, she started screaming as loud as she could for about 20 seconds. Sure enough, out popped a poop. That was about the fourth consecutive time it’s happened. Really, who hasn’t wanted to scream during a plugged up poop.

If you’re one of those people, Eat Me Daily reports today on The Un-Constipated Gourmet: Secrets for a Movable Feast, a collection of recipes designed to make you poop by first-time author Danielle Svetcov.

Svetcov's hope is that the book — which promises recipes you can serve to your "uncorked" friends without them realizing that they're specially engineered for your own digestive needs — will deliver "superfoods with an agenda" so that the "potty-challenged" and those with "bathroom envy" will find themselves "called to duty."
 

Whenever I think of leftover pizza, I recall my teenage years listening to Rolling Stones on vinyl at George’s apartment, I wonder whatever happened to that stray puppy one of the visitors brought home until the fleas were discovered, and I wonder how long the pizza would be good. I’ve probably eaten pieces of pizza that spent the night on the turntable.

So when Susan Reef, president of US Food Safety Corp., says eating pizza that has spent a few hours at room temperature is a no-no, I sorta scoff (low water activity, no epidemiological history of outbreaks from morning-after pizza consumption, she probably doesn’t like the Stones).

Kim Painter reports in USA Today tomorrow that if Maribel Alonso, a food safety specialist at the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Meat and Poultry Hotline, brings home a broken egg, she discards it.

Doug Powell, a food safety person at Kansas State University, says he would cook with the egg, probably into a batch of pancakes, adding,

"It's just messy, but if it's been kept cold, it should be OK.”

(Messy means, be careful of cross-contamination).
 

About a month ago Winnipeg citizens were horrified when a couple dining at Sizzling Wok found a dead baby rodent in their stir-fry. Over the weekend the Winnipeg Free Press reported that restaurant inspections in the city are too slack.

In the last four years, five city eateries accounted for close to 20 per cent of all health-code violations, ranging from rodent infestations to serving chicken that wasn’t inspected or registered under the Meat Inspection Act. Two had mice infestations, one stored toxic material near food and four were temporarily shut down due to unsanitary conditions. Today, four of the five are still in business.

City inspectors can suspend a restaurant’s business licence without warning if repeat violations aren’t corrected and they deem it a danger to public health. To date, that power has never been used. Officials admit their standard arsenal of tools doesn’t always work, and that they may need to be more forceful to crack down on repeat offenders.

Peter Parys, Winnipeg’s manager of community bylaw enforcement services, said,

"You’re going to find a certain percentage of people that are totally unco-operative. I think in some cases an argument (could be made) we need to take a more aggressive approach."

Most of Winnipeg’s 8,000-plus eateries are inspected once a year. Health inspectors rely on the element of surprise and typically walk in unannounced so businesses don’t have time to clean up…While the majority of local eateries get a clean bill of health, there are dozens considered "high-risk" that don’t.

Although fines help increase compliance, some places simply don’t abide by the rules...officials say the real problem is getting through to people who aren’t getting the message about the fallout from breaking the health code.

Brian Rivet, a senior environmental health officer with the city, said,

"I think now with our education program there’s less and less of them who don’t know. They’re busy and they take shortcuts."

Shortcuts can have disastrous consequences.

In 2006, 40 people fell ill with a dangerous strain of E. coli after eating contaminated meat sold at four different restaurants. More than half of the cases were linked to meat sold by the Dutch Meat Market and four local hamburger joints that bought the meat and were busted for poor food-handling practices that may have contributed to people getting sick.

Stomachs across the city churned earlier this year when news surfaced that a local couple found dead baby rodents in a stir-fry they purchased from Sizzling Wok in St. Vital. Photos of the loonie-sized mice were posted online, and even veteran inspectors such as Leblanc admit they were extreme and disturbing.

Inspection reports show Sizzling Wok had been reviewed eight months earlier but no major problems were found.

Although public disclosure systems like Scores on Doors in the UK or letter grades in L.A. (see Jessica Simpson, left) may not necessarily decrease the incidence of foodborne illness, they can enhance consumer confidence in the safety of food prepared at restaurants. In Winnipeg Diner’s Digest is available online, an online document listing recent establishment closures; however little inspection details are given and it may not always be up-to-date.

Sigh. Another E. coli O157:H7 outbreak, with at least 18 suspected cases in the U.S. linked to beef produced by JBS Swift Beef Company, a Greeley, Colo., establishment that is voluntarily expanding its June 24 recall to include approximately 380,000 pounds of assorted beef primal products.

The beef products were produced on April 21, 2009 and were distributed both nationally and internationally.

Each box bears the establishment number "EST. 969" inside the USDA mark of inspection as well as the identifying package date of "042109" and a time stamp ranging from "0618" to "1130." However, these products were sent to establishments and retail stores nationwide for further processing and will likely not bear the establishment number "EST. 969" on products available for direct consumer purchase. Customers with concerns should contact their point of purchase.

The recalled products include intact cuts of beef, such as primals, sub-primals, or boxed beef typically used for steaks and roasts rather than ground beef. FSIS is aware that some of these products may have been further processed into ground products by other companies. The highest risk products for consumers are raw ground product, trim or other non-intact product made from the products subject to the recall.