It has been another week with too much news in food safety. Here are six that you should not have missed.
Food Safety Education Month Winds Down
Shootout in Tulsa – OK vs Big Chicken
Q&A: Nestle on Food Safety Politics
Providing Insight on Food Poisoning Outbreaks & Litigation
Providing Insight on Food Poisoning Outbreaks & Litigation
It has been another week with too much news in food safety. Here are six that you should not have missed.
Food Safety Education Month Winds Down
Shootout in Tulsa – OK vs Big Chicken
Q&A: Nestle on Food Safety Politics
Mr. Cox of the Farm-to-Legal Defense Fund (FTCLDF) informed me (through several emails that he says are just from him, not on behalf of FTCLDF – although he is General Counsel for FTCLDF) that I was mistaken and I agree with him.
I assumed that the farmer in a 2008 raw goat milk E. coli O157:H7…
Eric first called out Marion Nestle’s famous site – Food Politics. He then gave Food Safety News the following tip o’ the pen:
The second site – Foodsafetynews.com – is a new effort by lawyer and food safety expert, Bill Marler. At first glance, it would be easy to dismiss Marler because he specializes…
Botulism is a rare, life-threatening paralytic illness caused by neurotoxins produced by an anaerobic, gram-positive, spore-forming bacterium, Clostridium botulinum. Unlike Clostridium perfringens, which requires the ingestion of large numbers of viable cells to cause symptoms, the symptoms of botulism are caused by the ingestion of highly toxic, soluble exotoxins produced by C. botulinum while growing in foods.
Overview
These rod-shaped bacteria grow best under anaerobic (or, low oxygen), low-salt, and low-acid conditions. Bacterial growth is inhibited by refrigeration below 4° C., heating above 121° C, and high water-activity or acidity. And although the toxin is destroyed by heating to 85° C. for at least five minutes, the spores formed by the bacteria are not inactivated unless the food is heated under high pressure to 121° C. for at least twenty minutes.
The incidence of foodborne botulism is extremely low. Nonetheless, the extreme danger posed by the bacteria has required that “intensive surveillance is maintained for botulism cases in the United States, and every case is treated as a public health emergency.” This danger includes a mortality rate of up to 65% when victims are not treated immediately and properly. Most of the botulism events that are reported annually in the United States are associated with home-canned foods that have not been safely processed. Very occasionally, however, commercially- processed foods are implicated as the source of a botulism events, including sausages, beef stew, canned vegetables, and seafood products.
SymptomsContinue Reading About Botulism – An Updated Resource – Botulism Blog
From the GAO:
Over the past few years, several food recalls, such as for beef and peanut products, have affected schools. It is especially important that recalls affecting schools be carried out efficiently and effectively because young children have a higher risk of complications from food-borne illnesses. GAO was asked to determine how federal agencies…
The other evening when the President was pitching his health legislation, his biggest ovation – from both sides – came when he threw medical malpractice trial lawyers under the bus in an effort to get a few republican votes. It was not much of a surprise. Lawyers have been hated throughout the ages. In Shakespeare’s…
Experts from the Veterinary Laboratories Agency (VLA) said 33 of 102 samples were likely to contain the O157:H7 strain of the infection. This included samples from Lambs, pigs, goats, cattle, ponies and rabbit droppings at a Surrey farm at the centre of an E. coli outbreak. During its visit to Godstone Farm scientists found two…
It has been a great first week at Food Safety News. Hopefully we are covering stories that the larger media is not and in a way that is helpful. If some of my readers here on Marler Blog have story ideas and/or want to write a contributed article on FSN, please click here…
My 10 year old daughter’s soccer team, the "butt kickers," lost 5 to 0 today. Still was fun to watch.