OPINION Fox News Host Tucker Carlson did a segment on Friday night about a CDC news release entitled CDC Investigating New Outbreaks of Salmonella Infections Linked to Backyard Poultry. One thing missing from the 4:47 minute piece? Any mention of the Salmonella outbreak linked to backyard poultry flocks. Instead of telling his viewers that ongoing Salmonella outbreaks had been linked to contact with backyard poultry and what they could do to protect themselves, Carlson framed the segment as though the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) just randomly decided to tell people who "snuggle" chickens how to live their lives. "Like all obedient Americans, we're pretty dialed in to what the CDC has to say about our lives. Every day we check for new guidance and we have new … [Read more...]
Restaurant Food Safety Fails When Training Fails
As food safety lawyers, people have been asking us (from a distance) how worried they should be about COVID-19 and the safety of their takeout food? While we can’t tell them about viral transmission rates via various sources – we’re lawyers, not scientists - we can tell them what we have learned from years of representing people sickened by germs in restaurant food. Good sanitary conditions and safe food preparation processes and procedures (food safety plans) are very important…but it all fails when employee training fails. Obviously, when food safety plans are bad (for example, if they do not include proper testing of food storage areas for correct temperature control or mandate specific locations to keep raw foods from cross-contaminating cooked foods) then germs can spread. Too … [Read more...]
Salmonella Carrau Melon Outbreak: How To Prepare Safe Melons
Ever since the huge and deadly Listeria monocytogenes outbreak that was linked to whole melons produced by Jensen Farms in Colorado, I have been wary of cantaloupes, honeydew, and watermelon. While I did sometimes purchase precut melons, that ended when a Salmonella outbreak linked to precut melons sickened dozens in 2018. The current Salmonella Carrau melon outbreak has increased my resolve. How do you prepare safe melons in this day and age? The problem with this fruit is that the surface of melons is the perfect space for bacteria to grab onto and hold on. Melons, especially cantaloupe, have deep crenelations and a webbed, rough surface. Bacteria love to hide in those nooks and crannies. Even worse, some pathogens can produce a biofilm that covers bacterial colonies, protecting … [Read more...]
Lawyer Asks: Why Are There Ground Beef E. coli Outbreaks?
One April, 2019 morning, amidst the ongoing ground beef E. coli O103 outbreak affecting much of the east-central United States, one of the attorneys on the foodborne illness team at the Pritzker Hageman law firm began her weekly meal preparation ritual. She went to her freezer and grabbed two pounds of frozen ground beef, defrosted it, and put it in a frying pan to brown. She has said her family of four goes through so much ground beef that she regularly fill my freezer with a “quarter of beef” raised by her father and processed by a local butcher shop. Her family "lives on it". In the U.S., a family’s subsistence on ground beef is not uncommon. For 2018, Americans were projected to eat 222.2 pounds of meat and poultry, each. According to the self-proclaimed “best information … [Read more...]
Why Doesn’t Everyone Who Drinks Raw Milk Get Sick?
Over the years, Food Poisoning Bulletin has received many, many messages from people defending raw milk consumption. Every one of these messages has used the claim, "I have drunk raw milk for years and I have never gotten sick." There are several problems with that statement: one is the logical fallacy of a small sample size. But first, some history. There is a Salmonella outbreak that was just discovered in Washington state. Raw milk from Pride & Joy Dairy has teated positive for a rare strain of Salmonella Dublin that sickened and hospitalized two people in that state in January 2017. The dairy's license to sell raw milk was pulled by the Washington State Department of Health. Raw milk has been consumed by people for many years. And many people have been sickened and … [Read more...]
Raw Milk: A Risky Food
It never ceases to amaze me why people drink raw milk. Raw milk, as all should know, is unpasteurized. Pasteurization is the process by which milk, juices and other products are heated in order to kill off dangerous pathogens. Without pasteurization, bacteria that harm or even kill people remain in the milk. Pasteurization, a simple procedure that’s been used for about 150 years, is absolutely effective. Pasteurization does not affect the taste of milk. It does not reduce or degrade milk’s beneficial and nutritional qualities. Any claims that it does have been debunked by scientists and physicians. The only people who claim raw milk is good for you are people who ignore science. The only people who claim pasteurization makes milk less nutritious ignore science. This is … [Read more...]
Milk Makers Fest E. coli Patient Still Hospitalized
Organizers of the Milk Makers Fest in Lynden, Washington, said one of the 45 case patients in an E. coli outbreak associated with the annual schools event remained hospitalized this week at St. Joseph Hospital in Bellingham. All together there have been eight hospitalizations among a case patient population dominated by first-graders from public schools throughout Whatcom County, including schools in Bellingham, Lynden, Ferndale, Meridian, Blaine, Nooksack Valley and Mount Baker. E. coli lawyers, medical experts, infectious disease investigators and a growing number of parents suspect the cause of the outbreak could be related to animal feces at the event's petting zoo or around other live animals on exhibit at the Milk Makers Fest. Still, officials from the Centers for Disease Control … [Read more...]
Restaurant Outbreaks: Not the Fault of Workers
The history of food safety, corporate irresponsibility, and workers’ rights is long and tortuous (as well as tortious). From the days of Upton Sinclair (rotten and diseased meat), unpasteurized and tuberculosis-laden milk, all the way through the present, the dangers of unsafe food have been compounded by improperly trained and poorly paid food workers. In fact, during my career as a food safety lawyer on behalf of people harmed by contaminated food, I can honestly say that only a few cases did not involve food workers who were insufficiently trained, poorly paid or both. That’s particularly true in the restaurant industry, especially in fast food restaurants. Employees of those establishments who are paid poorly, have few benefits and no pensions are time and time again implicated … [Read more...]
Food Safety Bloopers: Raw Cookie Dough Edition
Last week, an editor for Slate magazine, L.V. Anderson, wrote an article entitled: "Salmonella and raw eggs: How I've eaten tons of cookie dough and never gotten sick". In it, she says that she has eaten about 360 raw eggs in her lifetime and has never contracted a Salmonella infection. From that, she infers that raw cookie dough is not really dangerous. This story is full of logical fallacies. First, she is committing the logical fallacy of a small sample size: herself. Extrapolating from her personal experiences to the entire nation is extremely foolish. The plural of anecdote is not data. In addition, she may have gotten sick from eating a Salmonella-contaminated egg, but didn't even know it. The incubation period for these infections is up to three days, so she most likely did … [Read more...]
Dietary Supplement Industry Largely Unregulated
There is a lot of confusion about the dietary supplement industry, what products they are allowed to sell, and how they are regulated. Before 1990, supplements were mainly just vitamins and minerals. Interest peaked in the early 1990s, and more manufacturers got into the business. Congress wanted to strengthen the FDA's enforcement powers over misleading claims and unscrupulous manufacturers. But in 1994, outfits such as Mercola and other supplement supporters got the Dietary Supplement Health and Education Act passed. It was heavily supported by the supplement industry. In addition, companies got consumers involved, telling them that the government was going to take away their supplements. That was a lie. A huge groundswell of public opinion helped get the Act passed. Dietary … [Read more...]
