The Marler Clark Network
Posted by David Babcock on May 29, 2009

Minnesota Star Tribune Editorial Highlights Need For Increased Foodborne Illness Surveilance

Echoing the praise in my blog post yesterday, a Minnesota Star Tribune editorial is praising Minnesota health officials and calling for more foodborne illness surveilance.  The editorial relates the story of one of the nine tragic and pointless deaths confirmed as resulting from the PCA Salmonella outbreak.   

As with many of the deaths and illnesses in the outbreak, the 72 year old woman described in the story was sickened well after many of the early cases in the outbreak had been reported.    A better funded, better prepared, and better integrated national foodborne illness surveilance program would have prevented many of  these deaths and illnesses.  It would also havesaved the industry hundreds of millions of dollars.  The editorial correctly concludes that " Lives will be saved if scientists across the nation can replicate Minnesota scientists' stellar ability to rapidly spot patterns in data, the key to detecting outbreaks and their sources. "

Posted by David Babcock on May 29, 2009

An E.coli O157:H7 Vaccine for Cattle - What's the Hold Up?

According to an article in Candian Cattlemen,  a Candadian firm, Bioniche Life Sciences,  has developed a vaccine that reduces colonization of cows by E. coli O157 bacteria and reduces the amount of the bacteria shed in cattle manure. One would think that reductions of this nature would in turn lead to less human expsoure to the potentially fatal pathogen.

Surprisingly though, the article states that those in the cattle industry "believe that they receive no immediate or direct benefit for spending money to vaccinate their herds against E. coli O157." 

Really?  No direct benefit from the removal of a fatal pathogen from the food you sell?  Talk about a short-sighted approach to business.  With the cattle industry's reluctance to use [i.e. pay for] such a vaccine on the farm, Bioniche is seeking support [i.e. money] from the Canadian government to implement the use of the vaccine.

If the vaccine really works, lets hope somene sees through to getting it in use, as we continue to see tragic news related to E. coli O157:H7 in hamburger.

Posted by Suzanne Schreck on May 29, 2009

Food poisoning causes plane to make emergency landing

WESH.com reported that a Delta Airlines flight headed to Atlanta from Ecuador made an emergency stop in Orlando today after three passengers' food poisoning symptoms became severe and they required medical attention.  According to WESH, two of the three passengers were transported to Orlando Regional Medical Center for treatment for food poisoning, while the third passenger declined treatment.   

Food Safety in ThailandLast May, I was in Thailand suffering a severe bout of food poisoning.  My friends and I were staying at Railei, just a short boat ride from Krabi, where, as Colin reported yesterday, a Seattle woman recently died after suffering a bout of food poisoning.  Fortunately for me, after 48 hours of violent illness I made a slow recovery.  My travel companions were kind enough to delay our travel plans until I was able to ride a boat and bus for prolonged periods, and for that I am thankful.  Had we needed to board a plane, it may have been a different story and I may have been the passenger requesting an emergency landing.

To the right is a photo of a friend's dinner the night we stayed in Krabi. 

An experienced traveler's tip:  food that is beautifully presented and tastes scrumptious is not necessarily safe.  The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) provides information about safe food and water for travelers.  Following all of these precautions may not prevent every foodborne illness at home or abroad, but the recommendations can certainly go a long way to keeping you healthy and out of the hospital. 

The same can be said for food prepared at your neighborhood restaurant or in your own kitchen.  This summer, be particularly careful to prevent cross-contamination of ready-to-eat foods with raw meat, scrub melons such as cantaloupes with a brush before cutting into them, use separate plates for raw and cooked meats, and always use a food thermometer to ensure the temperature of foods you are grilling is hot enough to kill pathogens.

Posted by David Babcock on May 28, 2009

Senator Klobuchar's Push for New Food Safety Legislation Highlights the Work of Minnesota Health Officials

Minnesota Senator Amy Klobuchar held a press conference today to announce new proposed leglisation to "promote a more rapid and effective national response to outbreaks of foodborne sickness." 

According to Klobuchar, the new act would, among other things:

  • Enhance the  Centers for Disease Control's  (CDC)  foodborne disease surveillance system.
  • Direct CDC to provide more support to state health agencies, including promoting "best practices" in food safety investigations.
  • Establish a “Food Safety Centers of Excellence.”

This last prong of the legislation owes its origins to Minnesota's own "Team D" [D for diarrhea].  Team D is a group of foodborne illness investigators from Minnesota agencies that have been previously praised here and elsewhere for being the first, and sometimes only, health officials to recognize foodborne illness outbreaks.    Among the outbreaks where Team D took the lead were the Salmonella Saintpaul outbreak in 2008, and the PCA Salmonella outbreak announced this February.

As for the content of the legislation, its good to see an emphasis on increased surveilance.   Of course, preventing illnesses in the first place is always the first choice.  Still, the overwhelming majority of foodborne illness in the U.S. goes unreported, and therefore un-investigated.  There are lessons to learn and improvements to make with every investigated outbreak.   Until we stop foodborne illness outbreaks altogether, we are best served to rezognize those that do occur, so that we can stop making the same mistakes over and over again.

Posted by Dan Flynn on May 28, 2009

Bill Aims To Return FDA To "The Gold Standard" In Protecting Public Health

The House Energy and Commerce Committee is out with a discussion draft of “the Food Safety Enhancement Act of 2009.”


Given who’s signed on to this one, it’s probably the one to watch.  Sponsors include Chair Emeritus John D. Dingell, Chairs Henry A. Waxman, Frank Pallone, and Bart Stupak, and Reps. Diana DeGette and Betty Sutton.


The new draft is based on the food reforms contained in H.R. 759, the Food and Drug Administration Globalization Act of 2009, introduced in January by Reps. Dingell, Stupak and Pallone. Favored bills get heard quickly, and this one gets its first hearing next week, on Wednesday, June 3rd.


"As evidenced by the recent widespread contaminations in our food supply, including E.coli in spinach, salmonella in peppers and the most recent outbreak of salmonella in peanut butter, it is clear that we must act now," said Rep. Pallone, Chair of the Health Subcommittee. "This draft builds on legislation introduced earlier this year and will empower the FDA with the resources and authorities it needs to ensure that our food is safe to eat. I look forward to continuing to work with my colleagues and the administration to move this crucial piece of legislation forward

"Our 10 food safety hearings in the Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations have highlighted the need for an overhaul of our food safety laws," said Rep. Stupak, Chair of the Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee. "The American people deserve a Food and Drug Administration that has both the funding and the regulatory authority needed to protect our food supply and hold the food industry accountable. President Obama and the new FDA leadership have expressed a commitment to food safety reform and I look forward to working with them to return FDA to the gold standard in protecting the public health."

A detailed summary of the draft follows below.

 

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Posted by Colin Caywood on May 28, 2009

Local Seattle Woman Dies in Thailand from Possible Foodborne Illness

According to a news report on Seattletimes.com, the death of a local West Seattle Woman, Jill St. Onge, may have been caused by a microbial infection contracted through contaminated food consumed while on vacation in Thailand.  At this point the precise source of the microbes is unknown, although contaminated seafood is suspected.

Preliminary lab tests show that Jill and Julie Bergheim, 22, of Norway, had signs of microbial infection in blood samples taken from the two women, Krabi Provincial Police Commander Maj. Gen Pasin Noksakul told the Gazette.

Gen Pasin said that the results from the Forensics Institute were preliminary and not yet official, but it's possible the two women ate contaminated seafood.

The two women, who stayed in adjacent rooms at the Laleena guesthouse on Phi Phi Don Island at the beginning of May, died within hours of each other at Phi Phi Island Hospital after severe vomiting.

In blood samples taken from Bergheim, researchers found three different kinds of potentially harmful microbes, while blood samples from Onge had one, Gen Pasin said.

Although it is not normal procedure to release results until they are official, Gen Pasin said he wanted to quell widespread speculation over the cause of the deaths on Internet blog and chat forums.

Such theories have included exposure to toxic gas from a nearby wastewater treatment plant, problems with the air conditioning in the guest rooms, accidental overdoses of the 4 X 100 drug cocktail that has been gaining popularity in the south over the past year and even murder by poisoning.

The Forensics Institute is continuing to study the microbes to positively identify them and test their virility, according to the Gazette.

"I don't know when the official results will be released, but the commander of the Royal Thai Police has ordered the lab work expedited because the embassies of the two deceased tourists want to know the cause of the death as soon as possible," he told the Gazette.

Gen Pasin ruled out the possibility that [methane] gas emanating from the nearby wastewater treatment plant might have been the cause, saying the plant had been in the area for a long time with no ill effects on local people or tourists.

Posted by Drew Falkenstein on May 28, 2009

Produce E. coli Problems of a Different Variety

Most of the time when we're writing about, reading about, or representing people for illnesses suffered in an E. coli O157:H7 outbreak related to produce, we're looking at things retrospectively.  An outbreak of E. coli O157:H7 happened, we know it was linked to lettuce, spinach, or some other type of fresh, raw produce, but we are sometimes left digging for answers as to how the E. coli got onto (or even into) the lettuce or spinach leaves.

For once, we may have a glimpse, albeit a narrow one, of how these lettuce and spinach E. coli outbreaks actually get started.  The attached is an "incident alert" from the Food Safety and Defense organization.  It involves a modern day Bo Peep who apparently forgot what fences mean (actually, it's a little unclear who owned the property).  The sheepherders allowed their herd to invade a carrot growing field where the carrot behemoth Grimmway was actively growing carrots.

Sounds innocent enough, right?  I mean, they're just sheep, and they just wanted to eat a few carrots.  Probably just the tops of the carrots that nobody eats anyways.

Well, sheep are ruminant animals well-known to harbor E. coli O157:H7, and other pathogenic bacteria, in their gastrointestinal tracts.  I know nothing about any "problems" (i.e. linked e. coli illnesses) . . . yet.  Hey, just an aside here, but what's up with California lettuce?  Anybody know anything that we don't?

Posted by Suzanne Schreck on May 28, 2009

FDA Perspective: More collaboration needed to promote food safety

In a "Perspective" piece published online by the New England Journal of Medicine Tuesday, May 26, the new Commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), Margaret A. Hamburg, M.D., and Principal Deputy Commissioner of FDA, Joshua M. Sharfstein, M.D., wrote about their vision for the future of how the FDA will operate under the Obama administration. 

In the piece, the authors promote bringing regulated industries, patient and consumer groups, and others to the table to discuss solutions to approval delays and safety issues.  They wrote, “We expect to collaborate with other federal agencies and outside partners to address problems that the agency cannot solve alone.”  Consumer groups such as S.T.O.P. and CFI will welcome more opportunities to converse with FDA leaders about food safety issues, particularly the prevention of foodborne illness. 

Notably, the new FDA Commissioner and Principal Deputy Commissioner state:

From our vantage point, the recent salmonella outbreak linked to contaminated peanut butter represented far more than a sanitation problem at one troubled facility. It reflected a failure of the FDA and its regulatory partners to identify risk and to establish and enforce basic preventive controls. And it exposed the failure of scores of food manufacturers to adequately monitor the safety of ingredients purchased from this facility.

In a USA Today article titled, "Kellogg scrutinizes food suppliers due to peanut recall," Julie Schmidt wrote:

Kellogg (K) says it's reviewing how it qualifies suppliers after a food-safety auditor gave superior ratings to the Georgia peanut plant now at the center of one of the nation's largest food recalls.

The auditor, paid for by Peanut Corp. of America, checked PCA's Blakely, Ga., plant in 2007 and 2008 and gave it superior ratings both times, says Kris Charles, Kellogg spokeswoman.

Schmidt’s story continued: 

The audit, which Kellogg requires for ingredient suppliers, checked PCA's compliance with good manufacturing, sanitation and other practices, Kellogg says. The audit was paid for by PCA.

Bill Marler, attorney for victims of foodborne illness and food safety advocate, agreed with the new FDA Commissioner before the article was ever written.  See his March 8, 2009 blog post titled, Private Third-Party Audits or Government Audits - Choose Your Poison.  

This Perspective piece is a good sign to anyone concerned about the nation’s food supply and food safety in general.  FDA has plans to collaborate and create a safer, more efficient food safety system.  Hopefully the government agencies it plans to partner with are on the same page. 

Posted by Drew Falkenstein on May 27, 2009

Ground Beef, Hamburgers, and E. coli: John McDonald's illness

The recent recall of nearly 96,000 pounds of ground beef by Valley Meats LLC got me thinking about hamburgers and E. coli O157:H7.  Anytime I hear those words together (which, as an attorney at Marler Clark, is quite often), I think of John McDonald.  John was a 5-year-old boy who we represented in a ground beef outbreak that occurred in 2007.  Unfortunately, John's illness was about as bad as an illness can get without causing a death.  (it is unbelievable how many times I find myself saying that about our clients) 

John was hospitalized at East Tennessee Children's Hospital from October 4 through 12, then was transferred to the University of Tennessee Medical Center where he remained until October 29.  During his hospitalization, John's kidneys failed requiring extensive dialysis to cleanse his blood, and he became badly anemic requiring many blood transfusions.

But these conditions, though in and of themselves potentially lethal, were just the beginning.  What truly separates John's illness from most of the hemolytic uremic syndrome illnesses that we see was the extent of injury to his gastrointestinal tract. 

Jim McDonald, John's father, was present at the moment it became apparent just how severe John's illness was.  It occurred in the early morning hours of Thursday, October 11, 2007.  He recalls: 

As usual, I got up to help as much as possible when the nurses came in and woke us up. When we opened his diaper, I got excited since it looked like he had had dark brown diarrhea, which told me that his digestive system was finally starting to kick in again. Realizing how liquidy the diaper was, we turned on an extra light to help us while changing him.

I will never forget what I saw. To my dismay, the diaper was not full of a bowel movement like I had desperately hoped. It was full of blood. An entire bowel movement of blood. Maybe an entire cup of blood. I got light-headed and almost passed out. I immediately sat down and grasped my head, apologizing to the nurses and telling them that I could no longer help them treat my son. This was the first of five grossly bloody stools that day.

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Posted by David Babcock on May 27, 2009

West Virginia Chooses Mercury Pollution Over Healthy Diets

West Virginia has recently increased the amount of allowable mercury pollution in the states lakes, rivers, and waterways.  West Virginia's new regulations are even less stringent than the minimal national standard.   As Seattle University School of Law Associate Professor Catherine O'Neill explains, this is a bad decision based on faulty logic. 

Polluted waterways are a problem, in part, because fish are such an important part of a healthy diet. In O'Neill's blog-post with the Center for Progressive Reform (CPR), she notes  a host of health benefits linked to fish:   "fish are an excellent source of protein, omega-3 fatty acids, and a host of other nutrients essential to human health....the American Heart Association recommends that adults eat two 6-ounce fish meals per week, in order to ensure cardiovascular health. The EPA and the Food and Drug Administration similarly recommend that pregnant and nursing women eat two 6-once fish meals per week, in order to ensure the healthy development of their babies."

Mercury pollution poses a serious threat to all this healthy eating.  According to O'Neill,  "Methylmercury (the form of mercury that bioaccumulates in fish) is a potent neurotoxin. Exposure to even very small amounts of methylmercury in utero or during childhood can lead to irreversible neurological damage."  

So, here is the worst part.  Why in the world would West Virginia allow an increase in this pollution?  Well, because people are eating less fish these days (according to them), so more pollution is less of a threat.  Why are people eating less fish?   Could it be because West Virginia is under a state-wide fish advisroy due to mercury poisoning that warns people against eating the fish caught there?

The circular and short-sighted thinking applied by West Virginia here boggles the mind.  O'Neill accurately argues that consumers, and child bearing age women in particular, should not have to choose between no fish and poison fish.   We all need healthy fish to remain an option.