In the past weeks, we have seen outbreaks of Salmonella in sprouts and lettuce, E. coli O145 in lettuce, E. coli O157:H7 in raw milk, Salmonella in raw milk, and campylobacter in raw milk. Still, as Lynn Terry wrote Friday in the Oregonian, many severe food poisoning incidents are never connected with
Day Care Remains Closed – New Details on E. coli O157:H7 Outbreak Surface
The day care in Vancouver, Washington associated with the recent outbreak of E. coli 0157:H7 is to
remain closed while workers continue to undergo testing, according to a report in the Clark County Columbian:
Dr. Alan Melnick, county health officer, said Fletch Family Daycare will remain closed until staff members who have tested positive for
2010 beef recalls (due to E. coli contamination) continue
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On February 12, 2010, Huntington Meat Packing, Inc., expanded its January 18, 2010 beef recall to include approximately 4.9 million pounds of beef and veal products that it produced in 2009 and the first few days of this year. This expanded recall brings the grand total of beef products recalled since November 2009 (just 3
More progress in the detection of E. coli in beef
TradingMarkets.com reports another development in the food industry’s fight against E. coli contamination:
Strategic Diagnostics Inc., a leading provider of biotechnology-based detection solutions for food safety and life science applications, today announced that its recently improved RapidChek(R) E. coli O157 (including H7) System has earned Performance-Tested Methods(SM) certification from the AOAC Research Institute (License Number
Where is the recalled ground beef?
The latest CDC summary on the ongoing E. coli O157:H7 outbreak linked to Fairbank Farms ground beef says that there are 28 confirmed cases in 12 states. The USDA-FSIS’s latest outbreak summary, which is where you would expect to find information on the retailers who have received recalled product, seems a little slow on the uptake.
Florida Woman Petitions Whole Foods to Continue Selling Raw Milk
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A Florida woman who runs an organization called Miami Real Food has petitioned Whole Foods, one of the nation’s largest organic grocers, to continue selling raw milk. See the entire petition here. The petition states, in part,
[R]aw milk from grass-fed cows is infinitely healthier than those that are kept in confinement
Cookies and E. coli: Here’s an E. coli story we will never forget
Today’s recall of Nestle cookie dough got me thinking about other E. coli O157:H7 cases that we’ve recently handled. John McDonald 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.
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