Basketball would be more interesting with full body contact; although full vomiting counts.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control reports that on February 6, 2012, the Kentucky Department for Public Health was notified by a local health department of multiple cases of vomiting and diarrhea among participants in a statewide, 7th grade boys' basketball tournament that was held February 3–5.

Among 52 participating teams, 49 (94%) teams (comprising 573 players) were contacted. Thirty-six teams (73%) reported at least one ill player. Sixty-two employees were identified who had worked at the tournament, and 46 (74%) were interviewed. A total of 242 persons with acute gastroenteritis were identified and interviewed, including 154 (27%) of the 573 players, 12 (26%) of the 46 employees, 11 coaches, and 65 spectators (the total numbers of coaches and spectators attending could not be determined). Nineteen (8%) persons with AGE had sought medical care, including two children who were hospitalized. Three persons from three separate teams had experienced illness onset before the tournament, and one had vomited courtside in a crowded gymnasium on the first night of the tournament. The vomitus was cleaned up by tournament attendees, and janitorial staff members were notified 3 days later. Symptom onset occurred among 196 (81%) ill persons on days 2 and 3 after the vomiting episode. No common food or water sources were identified as potential vehicles for transmission.

Six stool specimens were collected from five players and one spectator; all tested positive for norovirus. Five were sent to CDC for sequencing, and results yielded the identical genogroup II type 7 (GII.7) strain, a relatively rare norovirus strain. These confirmed cases represented players or spectators from four different teams. The three persons who had arrived at the tournament with gastrointestinal symptoms were unable to provide stool specimens for norovirus testing. However, three of the six confirmed stool specimens came from participants who had played on the court where the vomiting episode occurred.

Puke in a Chicago cab and you’re gonna pay.

Starting July 1, any passenger who throws up in — or even on — a taxi has to cough up an extra 50 bucks. The dough, of course, covers cleanup costs.

Hacks in the Windy City started lobbying for the fee in 2009 after complaining for years about late-night drunks who barfed with abandon. The City Council finally signed off in January.

Austin, Texas, followed suit in February, imposing a $100 fine on any fare who loses his lunch. And Savannah, Ga., home of some of the wildest St. Patrick’s Day celebrations in the country, let cabbies tack on $75 to $150 to the tab of any rider who turns green and spews.

“I had a lady stick her head out of the window and [she] vomited on my cab,” Chicago driver Thaddeus Budzynski told CBS. “And who had to clean it up? I did.”

The two 23-year-olds who allegedly threw up on police cars in New Jersey may want to keep the fines in mind next time. Or the jail time.

Peter Cipollini, from Morristown, and Patrick Allocco, from Jersey City, were seen around 3:40 a.m. running away from two police cars at First and Hudson Streets after leaving behind "large amounts of vomit," according to police reports.

Do you like to pontificate about organic food, your CSA and the evils of big ag? Then you may feel morally superior to others; you may be a jerk.

Continuing with Dr. Oz-inspired themes of insufferability and sanctimony, a new study confirms what I’ve anecdotally observed for decades: preaching organic makes you a jerk – and not in the adorable Steve Martin way, more in the self-perceived moral superiority way.

A paper published last week in the Journal of Social Psychological & Personality Science found that exposure to organic foods can “harshen moral judgments.”

As cited by Time magazine, “There’s a line of research showing that when people can pat themselves on the back for their moral behavior, they can become self-righteous,” the study’s lead author, Dr. Kendall J. Eskine, assistant professor of the psychological sciences department at Loyola University in New Orleans, told NBC’s Today show. Eskine and his team showed research subjects photographs of food, ranging from überorganic fruits and vegetables to fattening brownies and baked goods. He then gauged the primed eaters’ moral fiber with stories that warranted judgment, like one about a lawyer who lurks in an ER to try to persuade patients to sue for their injuries.

Reacting to the events on a numbered scale, the organic-food participants were more judgmental than those in the comfort-food category. They were also more reluctant when asked to volunteer time to help strangers, the study found, offering only 13 minutes vs. the brownie eaters’ 24 minutes. It’s like the group had already fulfilled its moral-justice quota by buying organic, so it felt all right slacking off in other ethics-based situations. Eskine labeled it “moral licensing.”

“There’s something about being exposed to organic food that made them feel better about themselves,” he told the Today show. “And that made them kind of jerks a little bit, I guess.”

The research doesn’t mean much, and I’m probably citing it only because it confirms my worldview, but still, there are a lot of preachers out there.

I’ll stick to focusing on food that makes people barf: organic, sustainable, local, dolphin-friendly or otherwise.

The abstract is below:

Wholesome foods and wholesome morals? Organic foods reduce prosocial behavior and harshen moral judgments
may.12
Social Psychological and Personality Science
Kendall J. Eskine
http://spp.sagepub.com/content/early/2012/05/14/1948550612447114.abstract
Abstract
Recent research has revealed that specific tastes can influence moral processing, with sweet tastes inducing prosocial behavior and disgusting tastes harshening moral judgments. Do similar effects apply to different food types (comfort foods, organic foods, etc.)? Although organic foods are often marketed with moral terms (e.g., Honest Tea, Purity Life, and Smart Balance), no research to date has investigated the extent to which exposure to organic foods influences moral judgments or behavior. After viewing a few organic foods, comfort foods, or control foods, participants who were exposed to organic foods volunteered significantly less time to help a needy stranger, and they judged moral transgressions significantly harsher than those who viewed nonorganic foods. These results suggest that exposure to organic foods may lead people to affirm their moral identities, which attenuates their desire to be altruistic. 

I don’t eat sushi. I have and it tastes like barf.

Word from JoNel Aleccia of msnbc that health tyes are investigating a growing outbreak of salmonella food poisoning possibly tied to restaurant sushi that has sickened at least 90 people in 19 states and the District of Columbia.

The outbreak of Salmonella Bareilly that has sent seven people to the hospital is mostly clustered on the eastern seaboard and the Gulf Coast, although cases have been reported as far west as Missouri and Texas, said Curtis Allen, a spokesman for the Food and Drug Administration. No deaths have been reported.

The FDA and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention are investigating the outbreak, which appears to be ongoing and expanding rapidly, according to an internal FDA email. There may be a lag of more than a month from the time people ate tainted food to the time they reported it.

Allen said the outbreak appears to be tied to seafood, and possibly sushi, but it’s still far too early to identify the actual cause.

The email identified spicy tuna roll sushi as “highly suspect,” but Allen emphasized that that is a preliminary speculation that may be proved wrong later.

The federal agencies are focusing on six restaurant clusters in Texas, Wisconsin, Maryland and Connecticut, according to the email, which was distributed outside the agency.

Salmonella Bareilly is a strain sometimes associated with bean sprouts.