Food Poison Journal - Food poisoning outbreaks and litigation: surveillance and analysis

Two 12-year-old girls contaminate their teacher's coffee cup

Well, actually, it is home.  A frightening story by Jonathan Martin, Seattle Times staff reporter:

As assaults go, strawberry lip gloss is not an obvious weapon of choice. Unless, perhaps, the suspects are sixth-grade girls.

Two 12-year-olds from Bainbridge Island are facing possible assault charges for slathering strawberry-scented lip balm on a water bottle and coffee cup Thursday to prompt an allergic reaction in their teacher, who has a severe allergy to strawberries.

The motive? A progress report was due, and one of the girls did not have a parent's signature.

"They thought if they could make the teacher sick, then the progress report would not be an issue," said Mark Duncan, deputy chief of the Bainbridge police. "This is 12-year-old thinking."

The girls, students of Sakai Intermediate School, told police they considered using real strawberries, but did not want to kill their teacher, just distract her from the missing progress report. So they resorted to lip gloss.

After sipping from the tainted coffee mug, the teacher, Kasey Jeffers, 58, had a mild reaction — watery eyes and shortness of breath — in front of her class, said Pam Keyes, a Bainbridge schools spokeswoman. Jeffers took medicine and went home early, according to police.

The Utah county Health Department announced that all milk samples from the Payson dairy farm at the center of a controversy over whether its raw milk products were contaminated with Campylobacter tested negative for the bacterium. From a story in the Deseret Morning News:

"It's very possible that an earlier batch had been contaminated and all the traces worked their way out of the system," said Lance Madigan, Utah County Health Department spokesman.

A spokesman for the Utah Department of Agriculture and Food confirmed that the contamination could have happened at the dairy at an earlier date.

"We were testing to check the current batch of milk," said UDAF spokesman Larry Lewis. "This doesn't speak to the milk that may have contributed to the illness of these people, which would have been produced weeks before."

Utah County Health Department officials issued a health advisory Wednesday after receiving multiple reports of campylobacteriosis, a disease caused by ingesting bacteria commonly found in unpasteurized milk products and improperly prepared chicken.

The Food Laboratory received the pet food samples from a toxicologist at the New York State Animal Health Diagnostic Center at Cornell University, where testing has been underway to try to identify the cause of kidney failure in dogs and cats that consumed the recalled brands of pet food. At Cornell’s request, the Food Laboratory tested the samples for poisons and toxins, and identified Aminopterin in the pet food samples at a level of at least 40 parts per million.

ABC News has learned that investigators have determined that a rodent-killing chemical is the toxin in the tainted pet food that has killed several animals.

A source close to the investigation tells ABC News that the rodenticide, which the source says is illegal to use in the United States, was on wheat that was imported from China and used by Menu Foods in nearly 100 brands of dog and cat food.

"The common element reported by individuals in our investigation is the consumption of raw or unpasteurized cow and/or goat milk from Woolsey's Dairy in Payson," Guerra said.

Nine of the cases were traced back to raw milk purchased from Woolsey's Dairy. Only one person has been hospitalized, and several of the cases occurred within a few families that had several sick members.

Inspectors from the Utah Department of Agriculture and Food visited the dairy farm Wednesday and collected samples to be tested for the bacteria.

"We expect to get the results back by Sunday," said Larry Lewis, public information officer for the department.

As many as seven animals died in tests of suspect dog and cat food conducted by the manufacturer Menu Foods after complaints the products were poisoning pets, a government official said Monday.

A federal investigation is focusing on wheat gluten as the likely source of contamination that sparked a recall last Friday of 60 million cans and pouches of the suspect food, said Stephen F. Sundlof, top veterinarian for the Food and Drug Administration. The ingredient, a protein source, is commonly used as filler.

The recall now covers dog food sold throughout North America under 51 brands and cat food sold under 40 brands, including Iams, Nutro and Eukanuba. The food was sold under both store and major brand labels at Wal-Mart, Kroger, Safeway and other large retailers.