Police said today a criminal investigation is under way in Sweden to determine how an intestinal parasite ended up in the town of Ostersund's municipal water supply, sickening more than 2,000 residents.

Environmental prosecutor Christer B. Jarlas said release of the parasite cryptosporidium may have been the result of criminal negligence, the Swedish news agency TT reported Tuesday.

He said he has reason to believe that the contamination was due to carelessness by one or several individuals who didn't have control of their operations.

Sweden's National Center for Infectious Disease Control told TT the 50,000 residents of Ostersund will have to boil their water for several weeks.
 

What’s one of the most requested types of public record maintained in Las Vegas? Food establishment inspections.

Today, the Southern Nevada Health District announced it was posting inspection reports on its website, giving people a look at how their favorite eateries have been graded and which received the most demerits from inspectors.

Violations are listed on the site, such as inadequate plumbing or poor pest control.

FOX 5 News reports a quick search showed that more than 10,900 of the 11,245 establishments listed have been given an “A” following their last inspection.

The list includes bars and restaurants, as well as grocery stores and retailers.

The launch of this new feature allows the public to view health inspections for all permitted food establishments in Clark County and is available at www.SNHD.info.

Information provided on the site includes inspection reports for all food establishments with active health district permits and archived reports as far back as 2005.

These records provide a snapshot of the day and time of the inspection and new reports are posted within five business days of when they are completed. Food establishments are inspected annually or more often if it is deemed necessary. Risk factors that have the potential to contribute to foodborne illness are more heavily weighted in the inspection demerit process than items related to design, maintenance or general sanitation.

Inspection findings can result in an “A” grade, a downgrade to a “B” or “C” status, or for an extremely excessive number of violations or an uncontrolled imminent health hazard, a facility closure.
 

When a coroner ruled last week a lack of food hygiene standards at a Welsh butchery was the cause of 5-year-old Mason Jones’ death but there was insufficient evidence to prove “a serious and obvious risk of death,” Sharon Mills was stunned.

Mason’s mum told Abby Alford of Wales online,

“To me this is a travesty of justice.”

Ms Mills, 36, from Deri, near Bargoed, said she and partner Nathan Jones, Mason’s father, are considering calling for a change in the law which meant Bridgend butcher William Tudor – the man responsible for the 2005 outbreak during which more than 150 people were infected with potentially deadly E. coli O157 – escaped a manslaughter charge.

Last week’s verdict followed a decision by the Crown Prosecution Service in 2007 not to pursue a manslaughter case because there was not a realistic prospect of conviction.

“Last Thursday after the inquest I woke up and I felt like I had lost Mason all over again. It’s been us versus the system and it’s a hard system to beat.”

Ms Mills said despite the support of some officials, she believes the pace of change in improving food safety systems has been painfully slow following the 24 recommendations for improvement put forward by expert Professor Hugh Pennington after the public inquiry.
 

By Saturday morning after the Thursday Thanksgiving feast, the turkey frame and whatever else had been reduced to turkey-flavored stock. I left the stock in the fridge for the fat to separate, and Amy, Sorenne and I went to Wichita, Kansas for an adventure weekend – a hockey game.

From what I can figure, there’s the National Hockey League (NHL, the pros), the American Hockey League (AHL, farm teams to the NHL), and then feeder semi-pro leagues like the Central Hockey League, where the Wichita Thunder ply their trade. 18 of the 22-member roster hails from Canada.

The game was reasonably entertaining, although the intensity level varied dramatically.

Aspects of a hockey game in Wichita:

• in honor of the birthday of late, great guitarist Jimi Hendrix, the Star Spangled Banner was performed Hendrix-style by a local dude;

• the brand-new In Trust arena in downtown Wichita was an outstanding venue, with sparkling restrooms and excellent handwashing facilities;

• there is a dance squad associated with the team called the Lampton Lightening, sponsored by Lampton Welding, and they performed after the second period (left);

• even though it is Manvember – the month of November is supposed to represent manliness at its peak, so no shaving – there were more bad moustaches on the players than the cast of a 1970s porn movie; and,

• not a single fight. I was expecting Slap Shot style goon hockey. It wasn’t bad. Wichita beat first-place Colorado 5-3.

Tonight, it’s turkey stock stew.

ABC News reports a Dominos pizza shop in Sydney's west has been described as having committed one of the worst breaches of food safety and hygiene in the Australian state of New South Wales.

The store in Quakers Hill has been fined almost $120,000 after investigations by the state's Food Authority, following reports from customers who suffered food poisoning.

Primary Industries Minister Steve Whan says conditions inside the store were appalling, stating,

"They had evidence of significant infestation of cockroaches and also very poor hygiene of cleanliness habits. I'm told by our experts at the Food Authority that they're a prime candidate for spreading foodborne illnesses and that's why they've been given such a big fine. There are always people who don't do the right thing unfortunately and we need to make sure that we can protect people from foodborne illnesses. Things like food poisoning are not insignificant. There are people every year who die of food poisoning and food-related diseases."
 

Fresh from the Michael Pollan school of “don’t eat anything your great-grandmother wouldn’t recognize as food,” comes Joel Salatin of Virginia, telling Australian farmers that industrial-scale agriculture has created problems for farmers who want to slaughter on farm and sell locally.

"What's stimulating it is squiggly words, 30 years ago who heard of campylobacter, who heard of listeria, e-coli, salmonella, bovine spongiform encephalopathy, avian influenza.”

From wiki, not the greatest source but certainly sufficient to quickly counter the claims of Salatin:

The symptoms of campylobacter infections were described in 1886 in infants by Theodor Escherich. These infections were named cholera infantum, or summer complaint. The genus was first discovered in 1963; however the organism was not isolated until 1972

Listeria monocytogenes was first described by E.G.D.Murray in 1926.

The genus Salmonella was named after Daniel Elmer Salmon, an American veterinary pathologist. While Theobald Smith was the actual discoverer of the type bacterium (Salmonella enterica var. choleraesuis) in 1885, Dr. Salmon was the administrator of the USDA research program, and thus the organism was named after him.

The verotoxigenic forms of E. coli were discovered in the late 1970s, and first identified as a source of human disease in 1982.

Campylobacter, listeria, E. coli and salmonella are all natural. So is small pox. Doesn’t mean I want it.
 

Food safety sage Carl Custer (left, exactly as shown) shares his version of turkey time today from Bethesda, Maryland:

My nephew comes over with three gallons of peanut oil and a brined turkey to use my tamale steamer/turkey fryer. Instructions say 350°F oil for 52 minutes. At 35 minutes I pull it out and check deep thigh temperature with a Comark PDT 300.

It's 175°F. ¡Ay carumba! Into the kitchen and double check deep breast temperature: 145! Male puppy! Back to the fryer for another 10 minutes.

Deep breast temperature in several places is now >170°F.

Earlier, a brine injected turkey goes into the grill/smoker at 7:00 a.m. Yawn.

It's cold and drizzly so difficult to keep air temperature >200°F even with tarp and wind shields. Pull turkey at noon; it's 150°F. Put into a 350°F oven with an 8 cm "L-shaped" probe. I wrap the probe with a wet paper towel so it doesn't act as a "potato nail" and give a false high reading. An hour later it's 160°F and coasting up to 168°F.

Mmmm mmmm good and safe.

Time may be on your side but temperature is better.

Carl also notes the raw birds were handled with latex gloves, and sinks were washed with detergent & paper towels, followed by 70% ethanol.

Texas Aggie food microbiologist, Carl Custer, sojourning in Merryland for past 38 years, smokes turkey (and other animal parts) following scientific principles.

I’m a fan of the stuffing. Not the stuff in the box but whatever’s leftover in the fridge.

Included this year are some freeze-dried chestnut slices I got for Amy last year – she’s a fan of the chestnuts – that never got used. For guidance, I use Google searches to find various recipes (my students, tiring of me asking to find this or that, finally showed me how to use Google about four years ago), and then I improvise, generally adding more vegetables.

This year, the stuffing contains leftover multigrain wheat bread ends, cubed and baked. Butter, onion, garlic, white wine, sage (lots), rosemary, zucchini squash, red pepper, celery, and chestnuts. Half goes into the cavity of the bird, the other half is baked in a dish separately for our vegetarian guests.

Cross-contamination is the big concern. Again, I prefer to handle the bird in the roasting pan to limit bug flow in the kitchen. Being prepped and having everything near the sink helps. Be the bug.

Safely back in the roasting pan, hands washed and counters cleansed, the turkey goes into a 450F oven for 30 minutes, a tin-foil teepee is used to cover the breast and the temperature is lowered to 325F. The bird is regularly brushed and injected with a citrus-based glaze.

Next: Thermometers
 

Although Coroner David Bowen said butcher William Tudor’s disregard for food hygiene sparked an E. coli O157 outbreak that claimed the life of 5-year-old Mason Jones in 2005, the “horrific catalogue” of breaches was not enough for him to record the verdict as unlawful death.

While disappointed, Mason’s mom, Sharon Mills, told the South Wales Echo she was grateful Mr Bowen called for tougher enforcement of food hygiene laws and better regulation of food businesses.

Steve Wearne, director of the Food Standards Agency in Wales, said,

“We are determined to ensure that lessons are learned from the tragic death of Mason Jones. We have provided guidance to local authorities that aims to ensure that each intervention in a food business – whether advice, inspection or enforcement – moves it towards full compliance with the law.

“We will shortly issue a public consultation on extending the use of Remedial Action Notices to all food premises. These notices would allow local authority enforcement officers to require a process or activity in a food business that poses a significant risk to human health to be stopped immediately, and would not allow it to recommence until specified action to reduce the risk had been taken.”