Two more cases of E. coli O157 have been confirmed in Orkney, U.K., bringing the total number of people with the infection to four.

NHS Orkney said the two new patients, who have the O157 strain, are recovering at home.

They were among three cases which were previously suspected, the health board said. Two other patients, confirmed earlier this week, are still being treated in hospital.

As the salmonella-in-cantaloupe outbreak reached 178 sick in 21 states with two dead, California melon growers are really starting to lose it, frustrated after the second straight year of seeing their market potentially damaged because of food-safety issues far from the fields in the Golden State.

The Produce News reports that at this time of year, California is the major supplier of cantaloupes, honeydews and other melons, but this is also the time of year when regional and local deals are in full swing.

Western Growers Association, which represents most of the melon growers in California and Arizona, is calling for greater scrutiny by buyers as they purchase local and regional melons at this time of year.

“Western Growers contends that every cantaloupe grower and shipper must have strong preventive controls in place,” Executive Vice President Matthew McInerney told The Produce News Aug. 22. “For a broker, distributor, retailer, grocery chain or foodservice buyer to demand a vigorous food-safety and traceback program from California and Arizona cantaloupe farmers, but then purchase from a supplier without ensuring they have similar systems in place, is unconscionable.”

Who are these buyers? Pretty much everyone.

Anyone can talk a good food safety game; only a few do it.

“As grower-shippers, we are told — even demanded — to develop and validate adherence to a strict food-safety program,” said McInerney. “That is appropriate and we agree, but how do we reach those who fail to comply? Better yet, how do we get the entire supply chain to share that commitment on a consistent basis? The only way this tainted produce can get to the consumer is that we have enablers that empower less-than-appropriate practices because those buyers buy without question.”

A California cantaloupe grower-shipper who said that he could only speak freely if he was not identified said that he was “very frustrated that buyers are not holding small local growers to the same standards [that California growers are complying with]. I am unwilling to accept it, but I am powerless to do anything about it.”

He said that many buyers preach one thing but then act differently if they can get a better price.

“We became GSFI-certified this year at a cost of $50,000 to $60,000,” said the anonymous grower. “It is very frustrating that we step up to a higher level of food safety at a significant cost and yet we can lose our market because others don’t. I bet the operations that have had problems in North Carolina and Indiana are not GFSI-certified.”

That’s why it’s time to remove some of the faith and insert some data in the form of verifiable marketing of food safety at retail. The majority of farmers who make investments in food safety should be rewarded at the checkout counter – the only place consumers get to vote.

Meanwhile, Tim Chamberlain, who runs the 100-acre Chamberlain Farms fingered as one source of the current killer cantaloupe, said it stopped producing and distributing cantaloupe on Aug. 16, when the FDA alerted him that the fruit could be tainted.

Chamberlain said health officials haven't told him what may have caused the contamination, so the farm hasn't been able to take steps to fix the problem.

"We're waiting for the government agencies to tell us what to do," he said.

Chamberlain said he has had no other problems at the farm since it began operating in 1982.

A table of cantaloupe-related outbreaks is available at http://bites.ksu.edu/cantaloupe-related-outbreaks.

Prison food is no picnic, what with the horse nuts (canned plums), dog food, Salmonella in eggs, and the rumored saltpeter.

The Arkansas Department of Health has confirmed the presence of Salmonella in chicken salad served at the Arkansas Department of Correction's Tucker Unit on Aug. 4 that sickened hundreds of inmates with nausea and diarrhea.

Correction department spokeswoman Shea Wilson says footage from security cameras shows the chicken was cooked for three hours. But Wilson tells the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette that the chicken may have been left out for too long after it was cooked.

I didn’t know surveillance cameras could measure temperature. The chicken salad was prepared by inmates.

"We were finding that deaths, for example, from foodborne illness or intestinal infections goes up from anywhere between 50% and 100%, so a doubling in some instances."

That's what Jonathan Klick, a University of Pennsylvania Law professor states in reference to what he says is a major public health risk: jurisdictions enacting plastic bag bans that result in the increased use of reusable bags. Citing unshown and unpublished data from San Francisco, Klick also says "More people are showing up in the emergency rooms, and it turns out they have E. coli infections…"

He implies those infections and illnesses can be traced to reusable bags. Uh huh.

According to The PERColator, Klick investigated the economic trade-offs of reusable bags during a fellowship funded by the Property and Environment Research Center this summer and he apparently has data to back this up, but I'm guessing here (because nothing is cited).

In research carried out at PERC this summer, Jonathan Klick, a PERC Lone Mountain Fellow, argues that reusable grocery bags contain potentially harmful bacteria, especially coliform bacteria such as E. coli. Klick finds that, in the wake of San Francisco’s ban, deaths and ER visits related to these bacteria spiked as soon as the ban went into effect. For more on this ongoing research, watch our interview with Klick (I've embedded it below -ben)

Klick says "There have been some science folks, who have done some studies…" and then a few stats are flashed up:

- 51% of tested bags contained coliform bacteria

- Bacteria grows even faster if stored in a car

Those science folks are Williams and colleagues (2011) who have published the only peer-reviewed study on the microbial safety of reusable bags and they tested 58 bags taken from shoppers in Arizona and California.

And E. coli matters more than coliform, since the group of bacteria is commonly found on plant material and is not a good indicator of pathogen presence on food. At least E. coli demonstrates that a pathogen might be there. The Williams study showed generic E. coli can float around in bags - they recovered it in 12% of what they sampled (n=58).

An unanswered question is can it be (or is it likely) to be transferred to any ready-to-eat foods, or somehow to food contact surfaces in the home? Seems like that matters. Just because the bacteria might be there, doesn't mean it can contaminate a ready-to-eat food. No one has presented data to support that.

Williams and colleagues also tested growth of Salmonella in 2 batches. They spiked the bags with 10^6 cfu and let them sit in the trunk of a car for 2 hours. One of the batches, where the temperature reached 47C/117F, showed a one-log increase in the Salmonella. The other batch, where the temperature reached 53C/124F, there was a one-log reduction. That data doesn't show just a breeding zone - it shows they can be a killing zone too (and I'm not sure how realistic a 10^6 contamination really is).

Shiny YouTube videos with dramatic music can grab attention - but without sharing the data and showing his work, Klick isn't saying much.