Over the last week I spoke to two families of very young children stricken by E. coli O111 after they both attended a small town Maine fair and petting zoo. One child was just released from the hospital after suffering from acute kidney failure and the other child was buried a week before from complications
Yet Another Preventable Petting Zoo E. coli Outbreak That Wasn’t
One death and one child still with hemolytic uremic syndrome (HUS).
The 2015 Oxford County Fair that was held in mid-September will be remembered for the death of one child and the severe illness to another due to infections with E. coli O111. The common exposure to the two children was the same petting zoo.
A Restaurant Undercooking Burgers was a Bad Idea in ’93, it is Stupid in ’15
In 1992 in response to a growing risk of pathogenic E. coli being linked to hamburger being cooked to the 140 degrees then suggested by the FDA Food Code, the State of Washington Department of Health increased the recommended temperature to 155 degrees – the only state to do so. Officials disseminated the new temperature
A Stiff, Cold Wind
A week ago last Monday, I was sitting in a bar in the Boston airport across the gate from my delayed flight (I would eventually get home a day late) monitoring tweets and texts for the outcome of the sentencing of Stewart Parnell, his brother Michael Parnell, and their “food safety” director Mary Wilkerson, which
Criminal Justice was a Long Time Coming for Peanut Corporation of America
“If that’s not criminal behavior, I don’t know what is.”
Sitting on a plane heading home to Seattle, I am still a bit stunned by the sentenced carried out yesterday in a Federal Courtroom in Georgia.
I was looking for the first time I raised the issue of prosecuting Stewart Parnell. I found it in
From Peanut Butter and Jelly to Peanut Butter and Jail
In 2009 President Obama was quoted:
“At a bare minimum, we should be able to count on our government keeping our kids safe when they eat peanut butter,” the president said.
“That’s what Sasha eats for lunch,” Obama said, referring to his 7-year-old daughter. “Probably three times a week. I don’t want to worry
FSMA and the CEO
In the spring of 2007, I was asked to testify before the U.S. House of Representative’s Energy and Commerce Committee, which was the committee tasked with modernizing our food safety system. From those hearings, which stretched from 2007 to 2009, came the Food Safety Modernization Act (FSMA). On the Senate side of the hill, work
Food “Crimes” – When to Prosecute and When to Not?
Is it time for prosecutors to set forth clear guidelines for who is prosecuted and who is not?
A few weeks ago I was quoted in an article entitled “Will Blue Bell face criminal charges after ice cream recall?”
Bill Marler, a food safety lawyer who has represented victims in many of those cases, says
Legal implications of zoonotic-disease outbreaks
Livestock exhibitions, petting zoos, county and state fairs, frankly any “farm experience,” are “as American as apple pie.”
Unfortunately, these same places have been the source of large outbreaks of zoonotic diseases over the last decades. And, just as unfortunately, despite the severe illnesses and a death attributed to these activities, little seems to be
Frontline: The Trouble With Chicken – Retro Report: How Safe Is Our Food?
Its time – past time – to deem Salmonella an adulterant.
https://youtu.be/DunJEu9uuu8
For some back story on foodborne illness in the United States by the Retro Report: