Being a handwashing nerd, I kept a close eye on the staff at Manhattan’s Mercy General when daughter Sorenne was born 17 months ago.

They were watching me. Whoever was the control desk and let a new parent or visitor into the security-controlled maternity ward would insist people properly wash their hands before advancing any further.

Not so everywhere.

The Daily Mail is reporting tonight that furious parents are suing a hospital where two babies died during an E. coli outbreak after it emerged staff probably spread the infection by not washing their hands.

Thirteen newborn babies contracted an antibiotic-resistant strain of the bug at the neonatal intensive care unit of Luton and Dunstable Hospital in Bedfordshire.

An official report says widespread breaches of infection control measures, such as poor hand-washing regimes and equipment cleaning, were the likely cause.

The parents of two infants who became critically ill but survived the 12-week E. coli outbreak in October 2008 are seeking undisclosed sums from the hospital over the long-term health implications.

Colette Beard, 31, and her husband Greg, 28, said their son Lewis (above, right) suffered 'permanent damage' from the infection after he was born 15 weeks early on September 15, 2008. He spent four months recovering.

The News-Review reports that health types have found that seven people who have become ill with Salmonella ate at the Los Dos Amigos restaurant in downtown Roseburg, Oregon, from April 9 to April 17.

Douglas County Public Health officials and the Oregon Department of Human Services are investigating.

“The restaurant is fully cooperative and working with our agencies to help identify the source and address any issues,” Public Health Division Director Dawnelle Marshall said in the release. “At this point in time, no specific food item stands out as a likely source.”
 

As issues like food safety, agricultural production and health care become increasingly intertwined, fake talk-show host Stephen Colbert took to the airwaves Monday night with a bold new proposal, and hopefully no salmonella or campylobacter from the creatures gathered on his desk.

Eat me daily wrote it up like this:

“The restaurant industry is rife with fully employed chefs and waiters, busboys and dishwashers lacking health insurance; now suddenly food professionals may have an edge. Sue Lowden, a Republican challenging Harry Reid for his Nevada Senate seat, recently suggested bartering for health care saying "in the old days [patients] would bring a chicken to the doctor." And she's not the only one - Tennessee state representative Mike Bell suggested bartering with vegetables.

“If this is what Republicans are promising should they prove victorious in November's mid-term elections, Dan Barber and Alice Waters may be all but guaranteed the best health coverage in America. Even Stephen Colbert's on board, on last night's Colbert Report the host suggested "just go for where they sell live chickens, they go for about $8... and when a doctor wants to charge $40,000 to put a stent in your heart, offer him the chicken."
 

The Durham County Health Department is investigating Bullock's Barbecue restaurant after 15 people were sickened there last week, officials said Tuesday.

Seven people were hospitalized for dehydration because of vomiting and diarrhea, said Gayle Harris, Durham County health director.

To pinpoint the source of the foodborne illness, inspectors spent three hours Monday examining food preparation and storage at Bullock's, Harris said. They also are interviewing people who became ill and others who ate at the restaurant since April 20 and didn't get sick.

Early laboratory results suggest Salmonella as the cause of the illnesses, officials said, but further confirmation at the North Carolina State Laboratory is necessary. The county was sending food and stool samples to the lab for testing.

Bullock's is a Durham institution that serves walk-in customers and has a booming catering business. Vice President Joe Biden ate at the restaurant in March during a visit to the Triangle.

The Mansfield News Journal of Ohio reports that 68 people who attended a March 5 employee appreciation luncheon at Emerson Precision fell ill with norovirus, but health officials were unable to pin down exactly where the bug was picked up.

More than half of the 102 Emerson workers present at the luncheon had vomiting, diarrhea and, in some cases, a low-grade fever. Some workers from a restaurant that provided the event's sandwiches, salads and cookies reported illnesses, too.

The luncheon was on a Friday. The owner of the restaurant called health officials early Monday.

Matthew Work, environmental health chief for the Mansfield-Ontario-Richland County Health Department, said,

"We had a call from (the owner) himself. He informed us that some people had gotten sick and asked for our help in investigating it. He did a great job of telling us right away."

Tween girls unite: American Girl Place, the tourist-friendly Fifth Avenue high-end doll shop and lunch spot for tween girls, reopened Saturday after being closed several days for a stomach bug outbreak.

The restaurant closed Wednesday after three people who had dined there earlier in the week called to say they all got sick afterward.

A check of past inspections on the department's website found few, if any, problems with the food at American Girl Place.

Rather, the department figured the problem was a highly-contageous norovirus, or stomach bug that causes vomiting, diarrhea and cramps, usually for one or two days.

Do some reporting, figure out if any of the staff were working while barfing.

Who throws a shoe?

Who tries to smuggle cheese?

In the first Austin Powers movie, largely a spoof on James Bond flicks, the bad guy enforcer throws a shoe in an attempt to decapitate the hero, Austin ‘Danger’ Powers.

Two people from Honduras, were arrested by special agents after previously trying to bring contaminated cheese into the U.S. via Miami.

According to the allegations of the complaint, Francisca Josefina Lopez and Jorge Alexis Ochoa Lopez imported four shipments of cheese from Nicaragua between December 2009 and March 2010, with a declared value of more than $322,000.

According to testing conducted by U.S. Food and Drug Administration”s (FDA) district laboratory in Atlanta, Georgia, three of the four shipments were contaminated with Staphylococcus aureus, and the fourth shipment violated standards applicable to phosphatase, indicating the cheese

According to the complaint, the defendants operated from a company known as The Lacteos Factory, at 1414 Northwest 23rd Street in Miami. All four shipments, totaling in excess of 170,000 pounds, were refused entry into the commerce of the United States, and were subsequently ordered destroyed or re-exported.

On April 1, 2010, Customs & Border Protection (CBP) inspected a cargo container at the Port of Miami, which had been returned to the seaport from Lacteos, with documents to reflect the contents were the first refused shipment, being re-exported. CBP Inspectors discovered that the top layer of cartons on each pallet contained small bricks of cheese, as labeled, but the bulk of the cargo contained in the lower tiers of boxes contained only buckets of waste water. As a result, the majority of the four-hundred eleven cartons of cheese from the entry were missing

Subsequently, a search warrant was executed at the Lacteos Factory, which revealed that the three other shipments of the cheese product had been sold to over thirty customers, despite still being on hold. It was also determined that one customer conducted independent testing of the cheese, found it to be contaminated with S. aureus and returned the product. Despite that, the cheese was repackaged and sold to other customers.

I’m going to the doctor’s for my annual check-up on Tuesday. I know I don’t exercise enough anymore, so I have high blood pressure; I’m old; I’m tired; having babies at 47 doesn’t keep one young, it keeps one old and tired. I’ve got other issues, like some form of motion sickness that makes me barf, but we won’t get into that. And I’m not sure there’s much the doctor can tell me. My problems are trivial.

The Oregonian reports that Bonnie Wilson took her sick 4-year-old, Ronan (right) , to the pediatrician on Monday, March 29. She says she told the doctor that another child in Ronan's day care had been hospitalized with the potentially deadly bacteria E. coli O157:H7. But Ronan's symptoms didn't fit that diagnosis.
The doctor suspected the sandy-haired, hazel-eyed boy had the flu and sent Wilson home with instructions to keep a close eye on him.

Guess Bonnie was supposed to use those magic goggles that let her see bacteria.

Ronan improved briefly, but that Thursday he was back at Evergreen Pediatric Clinic in Vancouver, dehydrated, constipated and so weak he needed help sitting up. The clinic sent him to Southwest Washington Medical Center for tests, and just as he arrived, his symptoms took a horrifying turn -- one that, in the end, changed the lives of everyone who knew Ronan Allen "Ro-Ro" Wilson.

On Saturday, a week after their boy's funeral, Bonnie and Anthony Wilson told their story. They want others to know the loving, curious, ambitious child they lost and to learn from their experience. They don't want another family to ever endure what they did.

The story goes on to say that a thousand questions remain, including: How did the E. coli outbreak start? Should doctors and public-health officials have done anything differently when children became ill? Will they do anything differently in the future? ...

The Wilsons hope that sharing their story will raise awareness about E. coli. They hope doctors and public-health officials will always act swiftly to inform the public about outbreaks. And they wonder whether Ronan might be alive if he'd been diagnosed sooner.
 

The Sydney Morning Herald reports that a New South Wales noodle shop that served up a dish with a side of cockroach is one of 28 food outlets named and shamed this week for poor health and safety practices.

Delicious Noodle in Taree was issued with three fines for offences including selling food with a cockroach in it and having the live and dead insects in the premises.

Bankstown Bakehouse was also fined for selling a loaf of bread with a cockroach embedded in one slice.

Both businesses have been added to the NSW Food Authority's name and shame list.

Primary Industries Minister Steve Whan said businesses had to face the consequences of their actions.

"There is no doubt finding a cockroach in food you have paid good money for would be upsetting to say the least," Mr Whan said in a statement.

"Incidents like these are the very reason the NSW government provides consumers with such information, so they can make informed decisions about where to eat."