The Nova Scotia restaurant now linked to 38 cases of norovirus was absolutely right to shut down at the first signs of illness – even if the blame may ultimately lie with a cruise ship.

Global News reports that on August 11, officials with the U.S. Centre for Disease Control (CDC) boarded the Carnival Glory cruise ship after it docked at the Port of New York.

The Carnival Cruise liner reportedly had 215 people on board who had fallen ill during its five-day voyage from the Big Apple to Halifax, with stops in Boston and Saint John along the way.

All told 4.5 per cent of the combined 4796 people aboard had reported being ill.

The Carnival Cruise Glory is being linked to 38 reported illnesses in Halifax, stemming from a popular waterfront restaurant.

The Bicycle Thief, just metres away from the Halifax Seaport, shut its doors Saturday after staff and customers fell ill with Norovirus-like symptoms.

Carnival Cruises states it took the correct measures to stop the spread of what it says was a Norovirus outbreak.

In a statement, the company says ill passengers were required to stay on board while berthed in Halifax Aug. 9 - nine days before The Bicycle Thief temporarily shut down. The restaurant reopened Wednesday morning.

U.S. Marshals have seized food products stored in a Fremont, Calif., company’s warehouse after inspectors from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration found widespread and active rodent infestation.

The FDA initiated the seizure of various food products in the warehouse owned by the San Francisco Herb &Natural Food Company on Aug. 21, 2012, under a warrant issued by the U.S. District Court for the Northern of California.

FDA inspectors found significant insanitary conditions throughout the warehouse during a recent inspection, in violation of the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act. These conditions included the presence of live and dead rodents in and around food products, and apparent rodent nesting materials in food.

The seized held goods had been under an embargo by the State of California’s Department of Public Health. Those articles of food that were stored in metal and glass containers were exempt from the embargo and the seizure.

"The violations at San Francisco Herb & Natural Food Company, in Fremont, Calif. are widespread and significant," said Dara A. Corrigan, associate commissioner for regulatory affairs. "This prompted the FDA working together with its state partner, the State of California’s Department of Public Health to take these aggressive enforcement actions to protect the health of consumers.”

Sales of magical bacteria-vision goggles remain stagnant.

Because they don’t exist.

Time magazine (is it still printed?) breathlessly praises the open kitchen trend as a response to Big Food and fast food horror stories.

A check of any local restaurant inspection results will show that dangerous microorganisms can fester with bad practices at the fanciest and dumpiest places; they’re equal opportunity pathogens.

For maximum transparency, restaurants ranging from fast-casual superstar Chipotle, to indie eateries favored by foodies, to massive fast-food chains like Domino’s are all turning to the open kitchen.

The problem is, an open kitchen doesn’t tell me, the consumer, whether the cooks washed their hands after having a dump, whether the food is being kept at proper hot or cold temperatures, whether a thermometer was used to verify a safe temperature had been reached, and, most importantly, where all those ingredients being assembled into a meal came from. Does the groovy Chipotle source lettuce from growers who have exemplary food safety programs or do they get it from where they get it.

An open kitchen may make people feel better, but does nothing to answer questions about microbial food safety.

Five people, including a 4-year-old girl, have been confirmed dead of food poisoning from pickled Chinese cabbage produced by a Sapporo food company. Another two deaths are believed to be related to E. coli O157 found in the cabbage.

The Daily Yomiuri Online reported today that the Sapporo-based food company that processed the cabbage is suspected of failing to properly sterilize the cabbage by heating.

Many details regarding how the E. coli O157 infections reached epidemic proportions have yet to be clarified. One possible factor behind the mass food poisoning is a method of using less salt when pickling vegetables to suit consumer tastes.

The pickled Chinese cabbage in question was produced by the food company Iwai Shokuhin in Sapporo.

The company said it produced the pickled cabbage by first washing the vegetables with water before soaking them in an antiseptic solution for 10 minutes. The vegetables were then washed a second time.

The products were shipped after the cabbage was pickled for 24 hours in brine mixed with acidic ingredients, company officials said.

The contaminated pickled cabbage was made Saturday. The amount produced on that day was double that of weekdays, the officials said.

Each of the firm's 12 employees in charge of pickling wore masks and gloves. No E. coli bacillus were found in groundwater used for washing purposes in a checkup conducted after the incident, the officials said.

Officials at the Sapporo municipal health center said they will investigate whether the bacteria came from mud attached to cabbage that was not fully sterilized.

E. coli O157 from livestock roaming – and pooping on -- cabbage fields has been the suggested etiology of several outbreaks in the past 25 years. It is difficult to wash off, but proper preservation – salt, acid – should take care of things.

Health center officials also noted that Iwai Shokuhin failed to record the concentration of the antiseptic solution, raising suspicions that the sterilization process may have been insufficient.

The Hokkaido prefectural government and the Sapporo municipal government have launched on-the-spot investigations of about 590 pickling facilities in Hokkaido under the Food Sanitation Law.

Mass poisoning caused by lightly pickled vegetables occurred in Saitama Prefecture in 2000, resulting in a single death, and in 2005 in Kagawa Prefecture, which resulted in five deaths. All fatalities were elderly residents of nursing care facilities.

In 2002, more than 100 boys and girls at a nursery in Fukuoka were infected with O-157. The incident was traced back to lightly pickled cucumbers.

"It's possible that O-157 could get mixed with vegetables through fertilizers such as cattle dung," said Prof. Shinichi Yoshida of Kyushu University, a bacteriology expert who participated in probes regarding the poisonings.

"The E. coli O-157 bacteria wouldn't be killed it if were soaked in brine with a salt concentration similar to seawater, or about 3 percent," he added.

Vegetables pickled in a fermented mixture of rice bran and brine have relatively high pH readings of about 3.5, which indicates a considerably high acidity that is conducive to killing bacteria, Yoshida said.

In recent years, however, many consumers prefer low-sodium processed foods and they tend to shy away from highly acidic pickles, Yoshida explained.