Salmonella Recall Alert - UK

The UK Food Standards Agency has just alerted consumers to a recall of two batches of hulled sesame seeds, due to Salmonella contamination. The sesame seeds, from TRS Wholesale Co. Limited, are identified by batch numbers L6313 (best before Nov. 2008) and L6181 (best before Feb. 2008).

This is the most recent in a series of recalls of Salmonella-contaminated sesame seeds that have taken place in the UK and Canada this year.

Salmonella infections can produce symptoms of diarrhea, cramps, mild fever, nausea and vomiting, which may last for several days. Depending on the age and health of the victim, the quantity and strain of Salmonella present in the contaminated food, and the amount and type of food, symptoms can vary from mild to severe; some victims might require hospitalization.

Baby Spinach Strikes Again

The problem of bacterial contamination in spinach and lettuce isn't restricted to the United States. Eurosurveillance.org, a weekly summary of disease outbreaks in Europe, reported this morning on a multi-national Salmonella outbreak.

The outbreak appears to have begun last July in Sweden, where 177 cases of Salmonella Java infection have been confirmed. Many of the victims (more than 40% of the first 116 cases) required hospitalization. Traceback of consumer information led Swedish authorities to conclude that baby spinach imported from Italy was the source of the Salmonella. The baby spinach had been sold both as a single green and in a package of mixed greens.

Unfortunately, the Swedish investigators were unable to detect Salmonella in any of the suspect baby spinach. Nevertheless, Sweden issued an alert through the EU's Rapid Alert System for Food and Feed (RASFF) on August 24th.

Since then, the identical strain of Salmonella has been responsible for 50 illnesses in other European countries, including Denmark, the Netherlands, Finland, Norway and the UK. Epidemiological investigations in the UK determined that many of the victims in that country had eaten mixed greens salads. While no other food has been identified as a probable source of the outbreak, no one has yet been able to confirm by lab tests that the baby spinach was the culprit.

The EU has assessed this outbreak as a "...continuous and sustained risk to human health..." and is encouraging national health agencies to be on the alert. There will surely be more cases, so if you live in - or are planning to travel to - one of the affected countries, please avoid the spinach and the mixed green salads.

Salmonella in the Southwest: Another Ground Beef Recall

I warned on December 13th that another food recall was brewing. At that time, there were a few news items reporting about Salmonella illnesses in Arizona, California, Idaho and Nevada. But the epidemiologists at CDC and the state health agencies hadn't been able to put their collective fingers on the source of the outbreak. Now the news is out.

The USDA Food Safety and Inspection Service has just issued a public health alert. The outbreak of illnesses caused by a multi-drug resistant Salmonella Newport has been linked to ground beef products that were ground and sold in Safeway supermarkets between September 19th and November 5th. Anyone who purchased fresh ground beef from Safeway stores in California, Arizona, Nevada, Hawaii and New Mexico between these dates should discard or destroy it.

To date, 38 cases of salmonellosis have been tied to this meat.

School Kids - A Vulnerable Group

There seems to be a world-wide rash of food-borne illness being felt by school children. Here's a sampling of some of the headlines and links to the articles:

Australia, Dec 20th:
"Probe after kids fall ill with suspected food poisoning"

Marion County, Indiana, Dec 18th:
"Marion County Health Officials Issue Shigellosis Alert"

Mumbai, India, Dec 20th:
"Mumbai milk 'poisoned children' "

UK, Dec 19th:
"Pupils hit by Salmonella bug"

Yunnan, China, Dec 17th:
"Four Chinese Pupils Dead From Suspected Food Poisoning"

Ten Reasons To Avoid Raw Milk - Part Two

And here are the top five reasons to avoid raw milk.

Reason #5. Staphylococcus aureus
This toxin-producing microbe can infect cow udders. A cow with an infected udder will shed S. aureus in its milk. If the milk is not cooled immediately, or if the raw milk is used to make cheese, the bacteria can multiply and produce toxin.

Reason #4. E. coli O157:H7 and other pathogenic E. coli
E. coli is a normal inhabitant of the intestine. While E. coli O157:H7 gets most of the media attention, there are a number of strains that can be carried by apparently healthy cattle and can cause disease in humans. Unless scrupulous care is taken during milking, pathogenic E. coli can get into the milk. It takes only a few live cells of some of these strains to make a person - especially a child - extremely sick.

Reason #3. Listeria monocytogenes
One of the earliest recognized outbreaks of listeriosis resulted from eating contaminated Mexican-style cheese that had been made using unpasteurized milk. This 1985 outbreak was responsible for 142 illnesses and 48 deaths, including several miscarriages.

Reason #2. Salmonella
Raw milk has been the confirmed source of numerous Salmonella outbreaks. One of the more recent occurred in Pennsylvania in February of 2007. Twenty-nine individuals suffered from Salmonella gastroenteritis as a result of drinking unpasteurized milk, or eating dairy products made from unpasteurized milk produced at a single Pennsylvania dairy. Two of the 29 victims landed in the hospital. Fortunately, no one died in this outbreak.

Reason #1. Campylobacter
Washington State has just issued a recall alert for raw milk contaminated with Campylobacter jejuni. This species, along with Salmonella, is one of the two most common causes of food-borne disease in the U.S. and Canada.

Got (Pasteurized) Milk?

Two Recalls To Go With Your Morning Coffee

The US Food and Drug Administration has alerted consumers to avoid using "Green Paradise Fresh Italian Basil" as it may be contaminated with Salmonella. The basil, which was shipped to distributors in Southern California, Texas and Arizona, is being recalled by Top Line Specialty Produce of Los Angeles, CA. The product is packed in 1 lb. boxes. Consumers should return the basil to the store at which it was purchased for a full refund.

The FDA has also announced a recall of "Dried Roach" uneviscerated fish due to the risk of Clostridium botulinum. This product of Latvia was imported by Royal Seafood Baza Inc. and distributed through Net Cost Market stores in Philadelphia, PA and in Brooklyn and Staten Island, NY. Sale of uneviscerated fish is illegal in New York State, due to the elevated risk of Clostridium botulinum in this food.

Ten Reasons To Avoid Raw Milk - Part One

Yesterday, I posted a warning about raw milk in Washington State that is being recalled due to the presence of Campylobacter. I promised to talk about the reasons to avoid drinking raw milk or eating other dairy products (such as cheese or yogurt) made from unpasteurized milk.

Reason #10. Rabies
Rabies is usually present in the saliva of an infected animal and is transmitted by a bite. But there is some question as to whether rabies might also be present in milk. In the 1990’s a total of 88 people in Massachusetts received rabies vaccine treatment after drinking raw milk from a cow that later was diagnosed with rabies.

Reason #9. Mycobacterium tuberculosis and M. bovis
These bacteria can be transmitted in the milk of infected cattle and cause tuberculosis.

Reason #8. Mycobacterium paratuberculosis
This species causes Johne’s disease in cattle and is believed to trigger Crohn’s disease.

Reason #7. Chronic Diarrhea Syndrome (Brainerd's Disease)
It’s not always possible to figure out what causes a disease. In 1983-84, more than 120 people in Brainerd, Minnesota were afflicted with chronic diarrhea lasting at least one year for many of them. While the precise cause of the illness was never discovered, the cases were clearly linked to raw milk from a single dairy. Other outbreaks of this syndrome have been reported since the 1980s - always linked to drinking raw milk or untreated water. The cause is still a mystery.

Reason #6. Brucella abortus
This pathogen has been mostly, but not completely, eradicated from cattle in the U.S., Canada and many other developed countries, thanks in part to the development of a vaccine and to the culling of diseased cattle. Unfortunately, it remains a serious problem in many less-developed countries in Africa, Asia, and Latin America, including Mexico. Undulant fever, which is transmitted in the milk of infected cattle, is a long-term, chronic disease that is difficult to treat and is known to cause miscarriages. The bacteria are killed by pasteurization, but are very content to survive in cheeses made from unpasteurized milk.

Tomorrow, I'll cover Reasons #1-5.

Listeria Lurking in North Carolina

There seems to be another small outbreak of Listeria monocytogenes brewing in North Carolina, but the state health authorities haven't yet put their finger on its source.

The State's Department of Health and Human Services warned yesterday that pregnant women should avoid consuming soft cheeses, processed meats (deli meats and hot dogs) and prepared salads. Listeria monocytogenes, which usually causes only a mild illness, can be deadly to pregnant women and their babies. So far, two pregnant women, all Latina, have miscarried after becoming infected with L. monocytogenes, and a fourth delivered prematurely. One additional miscarriage is being investigated to determine if it was also due to L. monocytogenes.

All of the illnesses occurred during a very short period of time, but different strains of L. monocytogenes were involved, suggesting that more than one type of food might have been contaminated. Alternatively, one food might possibly contain more than a single strain of L. monocytogenes - especially if that food is a cheese made from raw milk.

Why Drinking Raw Milk Can Be Risky

Some consumers of raw milk from Pleasant Valley Dairy in Washington State have received an unpleasant bonus with their milk - a rather nasty microbe called Campylobacter jejuni. The Washington Department of Agriculture is warning consumers that raw milk from this dairy with a "sell by" date of 12/20 may be contaminated with Campylobacter and should be discarded. The State is reviewing its records of Campylobacter illness reports to determine whether any of them might be linked to this dairy.

Campylobacter competes annually with Salmonella for 1st place honors in the CDC's list of most frequent causes of food-borne disease. The microbe is usually found in raw poultry, unpasteurized dairy products, and contaminated waters. Household pets can also be carriers of Campylobacter.

Symptoms of Campylobacter infection take 2-5 days to develop; they include diarrhea, fever and cramps, last from 2 to 10 days, and usually disappear without treatment. Occasionally (fewer than 1 in 1,000 cases), the infection leads to Guillain-Barré syndrome, a disease of the nervous system. Approximately 10% of victims of Guillain-Barré will die.

Campylobacter infection is only one of several possible consequences of drinking raw milk or eating cheese or other dairy products made from raw milk. Stay tuned for my version of Letterman's "top 10" – "Ten Reasons To Avoid Raw Milk".

Consumer Confidence Moving From Medium To Rare?

Yesterday, Meatingplace and and its sister magazine Poultry, reported that consumer confidence in meat safety has dropped dramatically over the last five years. One third of consumers included in a survey conducted by these magazines said that they had less confidence in the safety of the U.S. meat supply today than five years ago. Only 35% of those asked were satisfied that the U.S. government is doing all it can to ensure meat safety.

This morning, USDA's Food Safety and Inspection Service announced yet another recall of raw ground beef due to contamination with E. coli O157:H7. The recall was a small one – only 102 pounds – but it illustrates clearly one of the problems with processors' attitudes. The contamination was not discovered by the Tennessee firm that processed the ground beef. It was detected by USDA after the meat had already been sold to consumers.

The U.S. consumer would have much more confidence in the safety of the country's meat supply if she could be sure that she and her family wasn't being used as the "canary in the cage" for the meat industry.

Your Garden Variety Botulism

Palm Beach Gardens, Florida is on botulism alert. A company by the name of "Gourmet de Lyon" has produced a long list of "preserved" foods, vacuum-packed in jars, and has offered them for sale in two markets in the Palm Beach Gardens area. The company was operating out of a restaurant kitchen and without the proper permits.

The list of foods includes a whole range of risky products - meats and vegetables - that are prone to botulism if not processed correctly. If you or anyone you know is a resident of the area and has purchased these products, please discard the products or return them to the store.

This type of behavior, in my opinion, falls under the category of "criminal negligence". Botulism is nothing to fool with.

It All Comes Out In The Wash

The USDA has made an amazing discovery. Water that has been used several times to wash produce is dirtier than water that has been used just once. I wonder how much it cost to figure that out.

Processors of “fresh-cut”, washed produce can economize by recycling water. The water is chlorinated, of course, to take care of those pathogens that might be lurking in the lettuce (or spinach). You know which ones - E. coli O157:H7 and Salmonella. After all, put enough chlorine in the wash water and the microbes will be killed. Most of them will, anyway.

The catch is that organic material - soil, bits of produce, fecal matter and whatever else is washed off the produce - inactivates the chlorine. And the more times the water is recycled through the produce washing processing line, the more organic material it collects and the less active chlorine is left to kill the microbes.

This isn’t rocket science - it’s simple arithmetic. Nor is it particularly new. A 1981 research paper described how turbid and organic-laden water reduced the ability of chlorine to kill bacteria. It's nice of USDA to go to the trouble of reconfirming that for us.

Packaged “fresh-cut, washed” produce is neither “fresh-cut” nor particularly well washed. Is it any wonder that spinach and lettuce have been associated with outbreak after outbreak of food borne disease for the last ten years and more?

Personally, I’m sticking with buying intact heads of lettuce and washing the individual lettuce leaves under running tap water just before making my salad.

Headline News

It’s interesting how a headline can lead someone astray. A headline in Saturday’s “Japan News Review” announced, “Dutch milk suspected behind Japanese mad cow outbreaks.”

Not waiting to read the article, I immediately dove into the scientific literature to see what I had missed. Was it really possible for mad cow to be transmitted through milk? I couldn’t find a single research article to support this theory.

When I went back and read the original article, I discovered that the cattle hadn’t been fed milk, but rather a milk substitute that contained powdered animal fat. That didn’t make a lot more sense. Tallow (a rendered animal fat) has long been considered a low risk animal by-product by the World Health Organization.

The theory that Japanese cattle were infected with mad cow prions by being fed milk substitute containing Dutch animal fat is an old one. A very similar story appeared on CNN in 2001.

There are other possible explanations for the Japanese mad cow outbreak. The milk substitute was actually processed in Japan, using animal fat from the Netherlands as one ingredient. The powder might have been contaminated by meat and bone meal - a high-risk material for mad cow transmission - during mixing. Another source might have been dried cattle blood, which is sometimes used as an ingredient in mild substitute for feeding cattle.

There’s only one thing I’m sure of. Dutch milk did NOT transmit mad cow disease, in Japan or anywhere else.

Something Smells Fishy

The recent food safety agreement between the U.S. and China appears to be off to a rocky start, according to an article in today's Wall Street Journal.

Following the detection of prohibited chemicals in previous shipments of seafood from China, the FDA placed a hold on the importation of five types of seafood from that country until the shipments cleared lab testing (at the importer's expense). But an exception was made in September for seafood from one Chinese processor, Zhanjiang Guolian Aquatic Products Corp. Now it would appear that the exempted processor is on the Canadian government's import alert list due to the presence of nitrofuran in a shipment of seafood. The nitrofuran-contaminated shipment of seafood, rejected by Canadian authorities in October 2007, had been routed through the U.S.

The Wall Street Journal quotes Guolian's general manager, Chen Han, as saying that the Canadian action was a "mistake", and was due to another company having falsely used Guolian's name. Mr. Chen claims that his company has emailed the Canadian government about this situation but, according to the Canadian Food Inspection Agency, no such email has been received.

Some questions have apparently been raised about the Guolian exemption. A former FDA employee, Benjamin England, suggested in the Wall Street Journal article that the Company's political connections with the Chinese government might have been a factor in the decision. Mr. Chen denies this, saying that the exemption is due to the Company's "good quality" operation.

The U.S. government has stated that Guolian's import "hold" exemption was part of a pilot project under the U.S.-China food safety agreement. Yet Guolian was added to the FDA's import detention list in April 2007, and then removed from that list just five months later - in September - three months before the announced food safety agreement between the U.S. and China. Something doesn't add up.

Ethanol, Clean Energy and E. coli O157:H7

The U.S. Congress has been trying to agree on an energy bill. One of the provisions of this bill, which has already been passed in the House of Representatives but which is stalled in the Senate, provides incentives for alternative fuels, such as cellulosic ethanol.

Cellulosic ethanol can be produced from a variety of plant material. At present, about 80% of it is made using corn. But the production process doesn't use up all of the corn. What is left behind after the fermentation and clean-up is a by-product known as "spent grain" or "distiller's grain".

Distiller's grain is not without its uses, especially to the cattle industry. Feedlot operators have been feeding this relatively inexpensive grain to their cattle. And distillers are enjoying the windfall revenue from what would otherwise be waste material. There is, however, a cloud on the horizon.

Recently, researchers at Kansas State University announced that feeding distiller's grain to cattle resulted in a higher incidence of E. coli O157:H7 in the hindgut of the animals. This contradicts findings reported by another major agricultural school, the University of Nebraska - Lincoln. Nebraska researchers did not find any indication that adding distiller's grain to the diet produced an increased incidence of E. coli O157:H7.

So there you have it - one of those situations that turns a microbiologist's hair gray. The USDA's Agricultural Research Service lab in Clay Center, NE is in the midst of a similar study, which is scheduled to be completed by the end of 2008. Best two out of three, anyone?

The process of raising cattle for slaughter has undergone many changes over the decades - in feedlot environment, types of feeds, and handling of manure and runoff. Unfortunately, thought is usually only given to the microbiological impact of these changes after the fact. For once, it would be nice to see data supporting the microbiological safety or benefits of a significant change before that change is implemented.

Recall Alert in Canada - Salmonella in Rubbed Oregano

The Canadian Food Inspection Agency is warning consumers that several production lots of rubbed oregano from Donmar Foods, Inc. may be contaminated with Salmonella. The product has only been distributed in Ontario. No illnesses have been linked to the recalled product so far.

Purchasers of the affected production lots should discard the product or return it to the place of purchase.

Is Another Major Food Recall "Incubating"?

According to an article this morning on NewsInferno.com, several western states have reported Salmonella illness due to a single strain of the microbe. This particular Salmonella, is resistant to several antibiotics, has been reported in Arizona, California, Nevada and Idaho. The source of the Salmonella is still unknown.

Melamine in Pet Food - A Final Report

A tip of the hat to the University of Guelph (Canada) Laboratory Services Division. While everyone else was wondering why the melamine-laced pet food was so toxic to dogs and cats last spring, the Canadians figured it out in short order. Now their conclusion has been confirmed independently by Michigan State University toxicologists in a follow-up study.

When melamine was first detected in pet foods that had been linked to animal deaths, veterinary toxicologists were puzzled. Melamine was never thought to be toxic to companion animals at the levels found in the contaminated products. The second contaminant, cyanuric acid, also was not known to be toxic at the levels at which it was found in the food. But the combination of the two chemicals proved deadly.

On May 1st, the University of Guelph reported that they had found the likely answer to the toxicity puzzle. Their preliminary report concluded:

Although still under investigation, it now appears that the combination of melamine and cyanuric acid has been linked to the unusual outbreak of acute renal failure in cats and dogs that have eaten the suspect products.

The researchers reached this conclusion by adding both melamine and cyanuric acid to cat urine. The two chemicals, when both present in the urine, formed crystals that were identical to the crystals found in the urine of cats that had been sickened after eating the contaminated pet food. Neither melamine nor cyanuric acid alone produced these crystals.

The American Association of Veterinary Laboratory Diagnosticians commissioned Michigan State University to investigate fully the impact of the contaminated pet food and confirm the reason for its toxicity. University of Guelph and Colorado State University collaborated with MSU on the study. Their report has just been released, and the two main findings are:

1. The contaminated pet food was probably responsible for the death of more than 300 cats and dogs
2. The toxicity of the pet food likely resulted from the combination of melamine and cyanuric acid in the contaminated food.

So now we know for sure what the University of Guelph figured out more than 6 months ago. And we also know how many pets were probably lost due to the deliberate addition of melamine and cyanuric acid to wheat gluten by an off-shore manufacturer who was trying to gain an economic advantage.

Yesterday, Health and Human Services Secretary Leavitt announced that the U.S. and China had reached an agreement on food safety issues. The agreement provides for the eventual "embedding" of FDA inspectors in Chinese food processing facilities. But I don't expect this agreement to have a major impact. The FDA doesn't have nearly enough money in its budget - or trained personnel on its staff - to fulfill its domestic mandates.

Recall Alert - Listeria in Queso Fresco

The FDA has just announced a recall of Queso Fresco/Fresh Cheese produced by Peregrina Cheese Corp. of Brooklyn, NY. Production lot #3973 of this cheese was found by the New York State Dept. of Agriculture and Markets to be contaminated with Listeria monocytogenes.

L. monocytogenes is especially dangerous to persons who are immunocompromised, the very young, the elderly, and pregnant women. A pregnant woman who is infected with L. monocytogenes is at risk of miscarrying.

If you have purchased this cheese, please discard it or return it to the place of purchase. Do NOT, under any circumstances, eat cheese with this lot number. If you have discarded the packaging or cannot read the lot number on your package, please play it safe and discard the cheese.

Stuffing and Nonsense

The Irish Food Safety Promotion Board has just released its recommendations for safely stuffing and cooking a Christmas turkey. Their web site offers time/oven temperature recommendations for gas or electric ovens, with or without convection. They have even provided a recipe for the stuffing. But their suggestions for determining when the turkey has been safely cooked leave something to be desired. Specifically, the Board cautions,

"And remember, always make sure your cooked turkey is piping hot all the way through, with no pink meat, and all the juices run clear."

Has the Irish Food Safety Promotion Board never heard of meat thermometers? In my post-Thanksgiving "Turkey P.S." posting of November 23rd, I reported that the internal temperature of the cavity stuffing was 10ºF lower than the temperature in the thickest part of the breast meat. A fully-cooked turkey is no guarantee of safe stuffing.

Please remember - always use a meat thermometer. Place it in the center of the stuffing and cook that turkey until the temperature of the meat thermometer reaches 165ºF (74ºC). This is the ONLY way to be sure that your Christmas turkey and its stuffing won't come back to haunt you after your Christmas dinner.