After whole-wheat banana bread for breakfast along with fruit, and a lunch of grilled lake perch and salad, the New Year was ushered in with something a little heavier – roast duck.

The year of the (temperature verified) duck?

I never know what the future holds but can tell you what we’ve been doing.

bites.ksu.edu and barfblog.com are complimentary and comprehensive resources for those interested in microbial food safety – the things that make people barf.

Too many people get sick each year from the food and water they consume. bites-l and barfblog.com are designed to inform and engage people in dialogue about food-related risks, controls and benefits, from farm-to-fork.

For rapid, relevant and reliable food safety news, subscribe to barfblog.com and follow us on twitter and facebook; for a daily, or twice-daily summary, including barfblog.com posts, subscribe to bites-l at bites.ksu.edu.

In 2011, there were:

• 482 bites-l posts;
• 4,817 bites-l articles posted;
• 6,760 bites-l (direct) subscribers in 61 countries;
• 1,186 barfblog.com posts;
• 279,000 barfblog.com hits (and many more);
• 21 food safety infosheets;
• 1 food safety video; and,
• 17 outbreak tables.

The articles collected have become much more focused due to improved Internet search capabilities, resulting in significant savings in research expenditures. Further, while the number of subscribers has remained steady, there are daily fluctuations in the bites-l list, with approximately 3 subscribers deleted and 3 added. This listserve activity keeps bites-l subscription list current and focused on the international food safety community – in 61 countries.

In 2010, a Food Safety Infosheets rapid review team was created to provide expert comment on factual material and includes: Dr. Trevor Phister (N.C. State), Dr. Don Schaffner (Rutgers University), Dr. Renee Boyer (Virginia Tech) and Dr. Michelle Danyluk (University of Florida).

All inforsheets are currently translated into Spanish (by MPH student Gonzalo Erdozain) and French (by France-based colleague Albert Amgar and Dr. Amy Hubbell).

In 2011, 20 peer-reviewed food safety infosheets were distributed to 455 direct subscribers (including 145 extension agents in 8 states), 6,760 bites listerv subscribers, 723 direct barfblog.com subscribers. Additionally, three direct subscribers were known to send infosheets to all of their organization’s outlets—a total of 1,350 sites and 300 support associates (an estimated 15,000 food handlers would have received these publications.

Video production has declined because of the high resource cost and need to focus activities. bites-l and barfblog.com will continue to focus on content and efficient, rapid, mass-distribution mechanisms.

Publications
1 book chapter
6 papers published
7 papers accepted/in press/submitted

Powell, D.A. 2011. Food safety, genetically engineered foods and perception in Comprehensive Biotechnology, Second Edition, Moo-Young M, (ed.) Elsevier p. 769-773.

Powell, D.A., Jacob, C.J., and Chapman, B.J. 2011. Blogs, infosheets and new media as academic scholarship in food safety research, education, and extension. Innovative Higher Education, published on-line ahead of print, DOI: 10.1007/s10755-011-9207-

Fillion, K., Powell, D. 2011. Designing a national restaurant inspection disclosure system for New Zealand. Journal of Food Protection, 74(11), 1869-1874.

Filion, K., KuKanich, K. S., Chapman, B., Hardigree, M. K., & Powell, D. A. 2011. Observation-based evaluation of hand hygiene practices and the effects of an intervention at a public hospital cafeteria. American Journal of Infection Control, 39(6), 464-470.

Wilson, S., Chapman, B, Powell, D.A. 2011. Understanding food safety information needs: using an information service as a research tool. Food Protection Trends 31:437-445.

Wilson, S.M., Jacob, C.J. and Powell, D.A. 2011. Behavior-change interventions to improve hand hygiene practice: A review. Critical Public Health 21(1): 119-127.

Powell, D.A., Jacob, C.J., and Chapman, B.J. 2011. Enhancing food safety culture to reduce rates of foodborne illness. Food Control, 22(6): 817-822.

Seventy-one Smith's stores throughout five Western states were told Thursday afternoon to remove and destroy hundreds of heads of iceberg lettuce after the company received an urgent recall notice due to possible salmonella contamination.

However, by early Friday afternoon the recall had been downgraded from "urgent" to "precautionary and voluntary," according to Smith's Food and Drug spokeswoman Marsha Gilford.

Lettuce from the central California produce company is not known to have had any salmonella contamination.

Smith's officials got the original, urgent — so-called Class 1 — recall around 4 p.m. Thursday, Gilford said. Workers at all 71 Smith's at stores in Utah, Idaho, Wyoming, Montana and northern Nevada began removing iceberg lettuce from shelves.

Friday, when it was clarified that the actual source of the salmonella was not a Growers Express lettuce field but a nearby one owned by another company, the recall was downgraded to Class 2: voluntary and precautionary.

Salmonella was apparently found in an Arizona field adjacent to the grower’s property.

None of the lettuce in the markets has tested positive for salmonella but the grower alerted retailers of the test results and sought a withdrawal of the product “out of an abundance of caution.”

“There’s no evidence of contamination on any product whatsoever,” Jamie Strachan, CEO of Salinas, Calif.-based Growers Express, told The Associated Press on Friday.

Still, The Kroger Co. and its affiliated grocery chain, Smith’s Food and Drug, decided to pull the product from 200 stores in at least seven states, including Virginia, West Virginia, North Carolina, Utah, Wyoming, Idaho and Nevada, Kroger spokesman Keith Dailey said.

Dailey called it a cautionary move prompted by a notice from the grower.

Strachan stressed that none of his company’s product has tested positive for salmonella, and that crops growing in the adjacent field south of Phoenix were destroyed. He would not say who owned the tainted property.

“They’re pulling the lettuce to be on the safe side, but there’s no official recall,” Utah Department of Agriculture and Food spokesman Larry Lewis said.

To notify customers, Smith's had put up signs in its produce departments, made automated phone calls to customers with Smith's discount card information and printed out warnings on those people's receipts, she said.

Now that the New Zealand Food Safety Authority has been gutted absorbed into the Ministry of Agriculture, former head honcho and veterinarian Andrew McKenzie has been awarded the Queen's Service Order in the New Year's honor for services to the state.



Dr McKenzie worked as chief executive of NZFSA from 2007 to 2010 and moved from Wellington this year to retire in Greytown.

"We lived in Wellington for about 25 years and we really liked it, but the weather was quite lousy and it was never very warm so we thought here would be a nice place to retire because it's got its own microclimate and it's not too far away from Wellington, so we're really happy here."



Dr McKenzie started life in the food safety industry as a vet at a meatworks before moving on to bigger and better things such as serving as the chairman of the Meat and Hygiene Committee of the Codex Alimentarius Commission and chairing the World Organisation for Animal Health's Animal Production Food Safety Group.


His biggest achievement while working at NZFSA was negotiating trade deals with Europe.



"I sorted out some quite big trade deals with Europe, which had a major influence on the international standard for meat hygiene," Dr McKenzie said. "A lot of countries put up technical barriers in trade and that's what I've spent my career fighting."

I prefer this 2008 photo.

Pete Snyder told the Chicago Tribune he's not a fan of publishing the results of spot inspections online because "there is no evidence that posting does any good."

Instead, he favors a system where employees are trained by food service managers in controlling safety hazards, then demonstrate their mastery of the procedures to an inspector.

"This is the only effective full-control program," said Snyder, founder of the Hospitality Institute of Technology and Management in St. Paul, Minn. "The reason inspectors don't do this and (instead) simply inspect for things is because it takes too long."

What evidence is there that Pete’s program does any good?

What evidence is there that all those food safety messages repeated ad nauseam, especially during the holidays, do any good? (None)

What evidence is there food safety training programs do any good? (it’s mixed, but fairly lousy; more on that in a month).

In Sept.. 2007, my friend Frank was running food safety things at Disney in Orlando, and asked me to visit and speak with his staff.

“Doug, I want you to talk about food safety messages that have been proven to work, that are supported by peer-reviewed evidence and lead to demonstrated behavior change,” or something like that.

I said it would be a brief talk.

There was nothing – nothing – that could be rigorously demonstrated to have changed food safety behavior in any group, positive or negative. Everything was about as effective as those, ‘Employees must wash hands’ signs.

Chapman finally showed a food safety message can be translated into better food safety practices at food service; but that took direct video observation. After exposure to food safety infosheets, cross-contamination events went down 20 per cent, and handwashing attempts went up 7 per cent. We controlled for various factors as best we could.

Pete is right in that “there’s no evidence that posting does any good” but only because there’s no evidence that most things do any good.

I want to figure out how to best collect evidence that is compelling and meaningful, right or wrong.

We’ve reviewed the literature, we’ve trialed a disclosure program in New Zealand, and compiled a lot of anecdotal evidence from restaurant patrons and managers who say public disclosure of inspection grades keeps everyone awake. It can’t be linked to lower or higher rates of foodborne illness, despite some attempts to do so, but public disclosure does seem to insert some consideration of microbial food safety into a national conversation of food that is dominated by porn.

I haven’t figured out how to measure that.

Snyder did say that a restaurant with multiple, back-to-back failed inspections is "an indication the manager isn't paying attention."

Health officials throughout the U.S. (and elsewhere) continue to push city, county and state politicians to help them communicate how businesses they've visited have fared in inspections. After following the situation for about 10 years, the discussion is predictable - opponents often cite how complicated an inspection form/grade/sign is and say folks wont understand it. Or they suggest businesses will be hurt if inspectors aren't careful with their words. John Norton of the Pueblo Chieftan reports that as the Pueblo City-County Health Department explores posting inspection reports online, the latter was a concern of a local board of health member, Eileen Dennis.

Dennis expressed concerns about how reports would be worded. Pleased with a sample page on a local restaurant that Carlton showed them, Dennis said, “My concern about the comments was that there wasn’t any poetic license taken. The verbiage is very objective.”

Vicki Carlton, manager Pueblo City-County Health Department environmental health program said that even though data goes back many years, she decided to limit reports to the previous 12 months in order to simplify the system but still show some history of inspections. The reports will include noncritical violations and will list critical item violations in red. The critical violations are direct threats to public health and must be dealt with quickly.
 

An Australian town was hit with its second E. coli outbreak in three years on Friday, forcing residents and businesses to boil their water for five days over the holidays after a lightning strike struck the town's chlorination plant.

Residents of Braidwood, near Canberra, are demanding an explanation from their local council.

The latest contamination has highlighted the town's drinking water crisis, with a new treatment plant for the town now 18 months overdue. Palerang Council allocated almost $3 million to build a new plant in 2010 but have since gotten into a contractual dispute which has cost it $400,000.

Frank and Shaunea Exon were both hit with severe cases of diarrhea in 2008, while Mrs Exon was pregnant, after a similar outbreak of E. coli shut down the town's water supply for 20 days.

''I don't understand it,'' Mrs Exon said. ''We're paying some of the highest rates in the country, higher than Sydney and Canberra, so they can build this new water treatment plant and they still can't seem to get it right. To not have access to basic services in this day and age, especially at Christmas, is a bit ridiculous.''

The new TorPeas restaurant was caught off guard by the outbreak after just opening their doors nine weeks ago.

Owner Jane Norris said her main street business was one of the only eateries open on Christmas Day and she had 80 people booked in for lunch.

''We got the notification two days before Christmas and we freaked out a little because we had so much seafood on the menu that we couldn't wash with town water,'' she said.

''We spent an hour every day boiling water, decanting it and keeping it in the cooler room and bought extra bottles of hand sanitizer.

''The whole situation was made worse on Friday because we had a two-hour blackout, so it was like cooking in the restaurant in the dark with just a few torches.''

Joan Hunt, 64, of Brixton, spent three weeks in hospital and needed treatment in intensive care after being infected with E. coli O157 in a UK outbreak linked to crab meat – or its preparation.

She has been left with only 35 per cent kidney function after developing the potentially deadly complication HUS.

Hunt recently told her story to the Plymouth Herald to raise awareness of symptoms and thank the hospital team who saved her life.

She is recovering after becoming dangerously ill in August – the month of a reported Plymouth E. coli outbreak believed to be linked to crab meat.

Joan does not know the source of her poisoning as she had not eaten crab. None of her family became sick.

"I felt I was going to die. I wasn't in control of my body, my body was controlling me. It was frightening.”

As reported in The Herald earlier this month, there is an ongoing investigation into an E. coli outbreak in Plymouth with a possible link to an unapproved crab supplier.

Investigators took action after nine cases emerged in August. There have been no further reports of illness linked to crab since.

People with certain conditions, including leukemia, other cancers and pregnancy, are at the greatest risk of getting sick from the foodborne bacterium Listeria, French researchers report in a new study.

Doctors and public health officials have known that these conditions make people more vulnerable to listeriosis, but this study is the first to rank the size of the risk for people with each condition.

The results "will help focus risk communication for the medical community," said Ramon Guevara, an epidemiologist for the County of Los Angeles Department of Public Health, who was not involved in the study.

The study looked at nearly 2,000 cases of listeriosis in France -- affecting 39 out of every 10 million people -- from 2001 to 2008.

Despite its rarity, listeriosis is still considered an important public health concern because it's relatively deadly compared to other food-borne illnesses, lead author Dr. Véronique Goulet at the Institut de Veille Sanitaire in Saint-Maurice wrote in an email to Reuters Health.

More than 400 of the 2,000 people who developed listeriosis died.

None of the cases involved an outbreak.

About one in six of the listeriosis cases in France affected pregnant women.

Incidence of Listeriosis and related mortality among groups at risk of acquiring Listeriosis
23.dec.11
Clinical Infectious Diseases
Véronique Goulet, Marjolaine Hebert, Craig Hedberg, Edith Laurent, Véronique Vaillant, Henriette De Valk, and Jean-Claude Desenclos
http://cid.oxfordjournals.org/content/early/2011/12/12/cid.cir902
Abstract
Background. Listeriosis is a foodborne disease of significant public health concern that primarily affects persons with recognized underlying conditions or diseases that impair cell-mediated immunity. The degree of risk posed by the different underlying conditions is crucial to prioritize prevention programs that target the highest risk populations.

Methods. We reviewed cases of listeriosis reported in France from 2001 to 2008. Numbers of cases and deaths were tabulated by age and underlying condition. Measures of the impact of specific underlying conditions on the occurrence of listeriosis were calculated. For estimating the total number of persons living with specific diseases, we applied prevalence estimates of these diseases to the French population. Underlying conditions were ranked by the degree to which they increased the risk of listeriosis.

Results. From 2001 to 2008, 1959 cases of listeriosis were reported in France (mean annual incidence 0.39 per 100 000 residents). Compared with persons <65 years with no underlying conditions, those with chronic lymphocytic leukemia had a >1000-fold increased risk of acquiring listeriosis, and those with liver cancer; myeoloproliferative disorder; multiple myeloma; acute leukemia; giant cell arteritis; dialysis; esophageal, stomach, pancreas, lung, and brain cancer; cirrhosis; organ transplantation; and pregnancy had a 100–1000-fold increased risk of listeriosis.

Conclusions. To be effective and acceptable to physicians and patients, listeriosis prevention strategies should be targeted based on evidence of increased risk. Stringent dietary guidance, to avoid specific foods with a high risk for Listeria contamination, should be targeted to pregnant women and to others at highest risk of listeriosis.

An alarming number of outbreaks of stomach illness across the state should be a reminder to Iowans participating in gatherings where food is served. With more than a week remaining for holiday and year-end celebrations, the Iowa Department of Public Health (IDPH) is asking sick Iowans to think twice before preparing food for others.

"If you're healthy and you've been healthy for the last few days, go ahead and mix up a batch of cookies or slice up a fruit tray," said IDPH Medical Director Dr. Patricia Quinlisk. "But if you've had any sort of stomach illness, do not prepare food of any kind for others. In particular, symptoms such as vomiting and diarrhea should be your ticket out of the kitchen until 48 hours have passed since your recovery."

In the last 10 days, IDPH has been investigating reports of eight medium-to-large outbreaks of probable norovirus in five counties.

Three groups got ill after eating at a restaurant where several food handlers had also been ill. Outbreaks were also associated with events like holiday parties and holiday potlucks, where foods were likely prepared and served by recently ill people.

"We're also getting lots anecdotal reports of probable norovirus outbreaks in other areas of the state," Quinlisk added. "This virus can be a real holiday spoiler, making your friends and loved ones sick for several days. So, if you are or have been sick, you'll just have to wait for the next opportunity to make your signature fudge - you're off kitchen duty until 48 hours after your symptoms have stopped."