Food Safety
Asheville-Area Salmonella Outbreak Expands
Locally made tempeh recalled; shared kitchen halts production
Missouri May Be Moving Forward With ‘Ag-Gag’
More Illnesses Linked to Raw Milk From Oregon Farm
North Carolina Salmonella Outbreak Strain Is Rare
Salmonella Paratyphi B, the pathogen at the heart of an outbreak near Asheville. N.C. that has sickened at least 37 people, is a rare substrain of a common bacteria. So rare, in fact, that this is the first time the bacteria has caused a foodborne illness outbreak in North Carolina.
“There has never been one before,” said Mark Van Sciver, public information officer with the North Carolina Department of Health And Human Services.
Salmonella bacteria are the most frequently reported cause of foodborne disease in the Unites States causing 1.4 million illnesses and more than 400 deaths each year, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA).
The Salmonella family includes more than 2,300 substrains but just two of them- Salmonella Enteritidis and Salmonella Typhimurium account for half of all infections, according to the USDA. Between 1998 and 2009, there were 458 foodborne illness outbreaks caused by Salmonella Enteritidis, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). During that same period, just three outbreaks were caused by Salmonella Paratyphi B.
Source of Kent County Jail Food Poisoning Outbreak Confirmed
According to Lisa LaPlante, Communications and Marketing Manager of the Kent County Department of Health, the source of the April 15, 2012 food poisoning outbreak at the Kent County Jail has been discovered.
Laboratory tests have revealed that there was Clostridium perfringens, a spore-producing bacteria, in a rice and cheese product. The food was prepared, chilled, and then reheated and served to the inmates.
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Recalls
Kaytee Recalls Mouse, Rat and Hamster Food for Possible Salmonella
Kaytee Pet Products is recalling Kaytee Forti-Diet Pro Health Mouse, Rat, and Hamster food because of possible Salmonella contamination. No pet or human illnesses have been reported to date.
Product details:
Diamond Pet Foods Expands Dog Food Recall Again
Diamond Pet Foods is expanding a voluntary recall to include Diamond Puppy Formula dry dog food. Salmonella was found in the product. No dog illnesses have been reported.
Human beings who handle the food may be exposed to the bacteria. Salmonella causes nausea, vomiting, bloody diarrhea, abdominal cramps. Long term effects of this illness include arthritis, urinary tract problems, hypertension, and heart disease. Some pets will only have decreased appetite, fever, and abdominal pain, but some dogs can be carriers of the bacteria with no symptoms.
The company requests that anyone who has fed these products to their animals with those symptoms take them to a veterinarian for tests.
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Articles of Interest
KFC Ordered to Pay $8.3 Million to Australian Girl Paralyzed After Eating a Twister Wrap
Fast food giant Kentucky Fried Chicken has been ordered to pay Aus$8 million (US$8.3 million) to an Australian girl who suffered severe brain damage and was paralyzed after eating a Twister wrap.
Monika Samaan was seven when she suffered salmonella encephalopathy — a brain injury linked to food poisoning that also left her with a blood infection and septic shock — in October 2005.
Several other family members also fell ill and they claimed Samaan’s injuries, which include severe cognitive, motor and speech impairment and spastic quadriplegia, were caused by a chicken Twister wrap from a Sydney KFC outlet.
Theology of Salmon: Wild or Farmed?
Most of what people think they know about aquaculture salmon is obsolete, or wasn’t true in the first place
Opinion
Inspector General Gives Positive Report on FSIS Humane Handling Enforcement
The audit — which was requested by the Office of Food Safety to “ensure that FSIS was appropriately enforcing federal humane handling laws” — was positive across the board and made no formal recommendations for the agency. The review was part of a multi-pronged reaction to a 2010 Government Accountability Office report that found enforcement of humane handling laws was inconsistent.
“The OIG determination shows that FSIS’ enforcement of humane handling regulations, as well as its appeals process, is fair and consistent,” Under Secretary for Food Safety Elisabeth Hagen said in a USDA release on Monday. “As OIG noted, FSIS has taken many steps to improve its inspectors’ understanding of humane handling requirements and the tools they have to ensure the humane handling of livestock.”
05/01/2012
9:40AM
Frankly, having experience with other OIG reports monitoring the very agencies they are “investigating” I find the conclusions of this “report” unhelpful, ridiculously limited, and missing the point. I bet no one will read the actual document, but I did and pulled out a few of the most egregious assertions.
“Fieldwork was performed at the FSIS headquarters office in Washington, D.C., and FSIS district offices in Minneapolis, Minnesota, and Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The selection of district offices was based on the number of appealed humane handling noncompliance records and the number of appeals that were granted. We did not perform any reviews at slaughter establishments for this audit.” WOW–THIS MAKES EVERY CONFIDENCE THAT ANALYZING DATA IN A OFFICE, FROM THE QUESTIONABLE SOURCES RECORDING THE DATA, IS LIKELY TO TURN UP INHUMANE CONDUCT, EH?
Although FSIS guidance states that the public health veterinarian, inspector in charge, front line supervisor, and district manager should attempt to respond to appeals within 2 weeks, we found the average time for the FSIS officials listed above to respond to an appeal was 28 days (4 weeks). We identified 9 instances where FSIS took 100 or more days to respond to an appealed humane handling violation, with the longest time being 302 days. We determined that, for 61 of the 138 (44 percent) appeals, FSIS took more than 2 weeks to respond, and 46 of the 138 (33 percent) took more than 3 weeks. SO, SKINNING/DECAPITATING OF LIVE CALVES, AS REPORTED BY THE WHISTLE BLOWER AT THE BELTWAY PLANT (FOR EXAMPLE) WOULD BE GETTING A QUICK RESPONSE, USING THIS RUBRIC?? MY GUESS IS A LOT OF DOWNERS AND OTHER INHUMANE ISSUES WOULD KEEP HAPPENING TILL THE AUTHORITIES “GET ‘ROUND TO IT.
Of the 138 appeals of humane handling noncompliance records, 8 were granted because the FSIS inspector’s description of the noncompliance was unclear or inadequate and the FSIS personnel at the next level of appeal could not determine if the situation was actually a humane handling violation. For example, one supervisor reviewing an appeal wrote that he granted the appeal “due to an inadequate description of the noncompliance within Block 10 of the NR [noncompliance record]. The noncompliance was not apparent with the description provided.” Block 10 is the space within the noncompliance record form used to describe the noncompliance observed by FSIS personnel. SO, A SPACE ON A REPORT PAPER IS UTILIZED FOR RECORDING THE NATURE OF CRUELTY, BUT THE OBSERVER IS SO LANGUAGE CHALLENGED, THEY CAN NOT PUT IT INTO WORDS? MAYBE WE NEED SOME PHOTOS TO REFER TO WITH THE OBSERVERS PAPERS—“CAN YOU MATCH THIS HORROR?” “IF IT LOOKS LIKE THIS, IT IS INHUMANE”
For example, one of the five appeals describes how an FSIS inspector observed animal handlers chasing animals into the kill alley by shouting and whistling. According to Federal regulations, livestock must be driven to slaughter at a normal walking pace and with a minimum of excitement and discomfort to the animals.10 After the inspector issued a noncompliance record, the establishment appealed, and the appeal was granted by the inspector in charge. The inspector in charge did not question the validity of the events described in the noncompliance record but did acknowledge that, after discussions with the plant’s management and the subsequent actions taken by the establishment, the animal handlers’ performance was much improved. In other words, the appeal appears to have been granted based solely on corrective actions; namely, the subsequent improvement of animal movement by establishment personnel. CONSIDERING THE HORRIFIC ALLEGATIONS OF SKINNING ALIVE WEEK OLD CALVES, HOTSHOTTING DAIRY COWS UNABLE TO WALK, ETC. THIS WAS THE EXAMPLE THEY CHOOSE TO DOCUMENT? LET US SANITIZE THE ISSUES, PLEASE This report is a travesty of self-serving reporting
Thank You Susan Rudnicki !!!
Mad Cow Disease: Conversation with an Expert
Last month’s case of bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE), popularly known as “mad cow disease” raised the spectre of that illness in the United States.
There is evidence that there are two types of BSE: typical and atypical. The typical strain is contracted when the animals are given food made from contaminated cows. A ban on this practice, known as “mammalian-to-ruminant feed ban” was instituted in 1997 in the U.S. and Canada. The ban was enhanced in 2007 to include “specified risk materials from all animal feeds, pet foods, and fertilizers.”
The atypical BSE may be a different strain of the prion. Scientists say that these cases are most likely spontaneous mutations, although it may be transmitted through food or the environment.
There have been four cases of BSE in cattle in the United States: one in 2003 in Washington State, the second in Texas in 2005, the third in Alabama in 2006, and the California dairy cow in April 2012.
In the first case, that cow had typical BSE. It was imported into the country from Canada where it was born, before the Canadian feed ban was established. The second two cases were atypical BSE, which occur as spontaneous mutations and are not related to consuming contaminated feed. Scientists say that the fourth case was also a spontaneous mutation.
Food Poisoning Bulletin asked Dr. Alfredo DiCostanzo, Professor of Animal Science at the University of Minnesota, about this case.
He said, “the cases found in 2004, 2006, and this most recent case were not related in any way to feeding animal byproducts to cattle. BSE in these cases was the result of a spontaneous prion protein mutation. Therefore, dietary ingredients can effectively be ruled out as the source of the disease in these cases.”
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Family Survival Protocol - Microcosm News 