Personal Injury Law

Doug dreams about flaming turtles

Posted on June 16, 2009
I've taken to going to sleep about 10 p.m. and getting up about 4 a.m. That means Amy stays up later, feeds Sorenne a couple of more times, and apparently gets to listen to me babble in my sleep. This is nothing new. I've given entire lectures in my sleep – and I'm just talking about with Amy, not classrooms...

Poland: Dozens poisoned with salmonella in ice cream

Posted on June 15, 2009
Twenty-four people have been poisoned with salmonella in the south-eastern city of Przemysl following consumption of ice cream; three have been hospitalized. Adam Sidor from the Sanitary Inspectorate in Przemysl, said, 'The shop which sold poisoned ice-cream has been closed and the staff is under observation...

I'm a big kid now; but, I need to wash my hands

Posted on June 15, 2009
While watching Speidi on the View today, I saw a Huggies Pull-ups commercial about potty training. The mom in the commercial mentioned the need for her daughter to be potty trained before they go on a vacation. She goes further in mentioning all the supplies needed to teach potty training to her daughter: the child-sized toilet, the magic wand (an incentive for her princess of a daughter), and toilet paper...

Georgia restaurants whine about poor inspection grades

Posted on June 14, 2009
Restaurant operators in Newton County, Georgia, are upset about recent inspection results, complaining that the new regulations are too strict, reports CovNews.com. Community staples like Jim Stalvey's and Smiley's restaurants and popular newcomers like Bangkok Grill and Debbie's Deli and Café have all received failing inspection scores, as low as 44, in the past couple of months...

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Food is the new fur for the celebrity with a conscience

Posted on June 14, 2009
Jay Rayner writes in the U.K. Observer today that, really bad food, is hot. Greta Scacchi, who is pictured clutching a cod to her naked body (right, exactly as shown), will doubtless come to be seen as the seminal image for a particular moment, when the gruelling, knotty business of campaigning around food issues finally became sexy...

Jack Black vomiting mystery

Posted on June 13, 2009
Dude, the urine sample ain't going to tell anyone anything. It's a poop sample you need to give the doctor. Because, as they correctly say on the TV show Scrubs, Everything Comes Down to Poo (see below). Jack Black, who's been in a gazillion movies but is best remembered by me for his scene-stealing effort in 2000's High Fidelity (right, exactly as shown) has been bedridden for a week - after contracting a mystery vomiting virus...

PBS provides terrible advice for cooking hamburgers

Posted on June 13, 2009
This is why I don't give money to PBS, or as Stephen Colbert refers to them, State-sponsored Jazz. Reminds me of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation: they're morons. Maybe not about everything, but about stuff I know about, they're morons. PBS is broadcasting this video about how to cook moist, well-done hamburgers...

Handwashing campaign in France

Posted on June 13, 2009
I'm taking over the handwashing blogging today while Megan recovers from the devastating 2-1 win by Pittsburgh over Detroit to win Lord Stanley's cup. I'm talking about hockey. And I'm not sure Megan cared, but I did. Amy's crushed. Albert Amgar in France just e-mailed me about a new handwashing campaign being run by the French Ministry of Health...

Australian restaurants will soon be playing the name-and-shame game

Posted on June 12, 2009
When I think of Australia I think of the hilarious TV show Summer Heights High. Although the mockumentary about high school students takes place in Melbourne, I can't help but picture angry food operators in Adelaide saying 'puck you' to unfavorable health inspections...

Final hockey game - Friday, 7 p.m., our place

Posted on June 12, 2009
Fortunately, Dale's in Germany so I don't have to listen to how awesome Pittsburgh is and how he's followed them since he was a kid. Me, I was crushed when Pittsburgh beat out Carolina in 4 straight games in the semis. But I've gotten over it to host game 7 of the National Hockey League finals Friday night...

Anyone can criticize Wal-Mart; can you provide microbiologically safe food? Food, Inc. version

Posted on June 12, 2009
I have a lot of respect for my friend Frank. Anyone can be a poser and critic; Frank actually tries to make change. Frank's the head of food safety at Wal-Mart. He used to be head of food safety at Walt Disney in Orlando, and when I visited with Frank and his staff in Bentonville, Arkansas a couple of months ago, he was enthusiastically telling me about the challenges of providing safe food – that's food that doesn't make people barf – to millions of people on a daily basis...

Food safety is not in the eyes of the beholder

Posted on June 12, 2009
As someone with experience in microbiology, I have high standards for sanitation. (I always wash my hands after picking up a bag of raw chicken—even if it's frozen—and I wipe down the counter, too.) My mother, on the other hand, focuses on visual cleanliness...

More testing, not inspectors may have prevented listeria says McCain; will test results be made public?

Posted on June 12, 2009
Micahel McCain, the president of Maple Leaf Foods, was correct yesterday when he told a Winnipeg Chamber of Commerce event that adding more food inspectors to the plant floor would not have made a difference in preventing last August's listeria outbreak at one of its Toronto plants that caused 22 deaths...

Norovirus outbreak at hospital in New Zealand

Posted on June 12, 2009
Although Katie Filion (fellow BarfBlogger) lives in Wellington, New Zealand, I trust she washes her hands properly and often, so I'm not too worried about her and the latest report of norovirus outbreak in Palmerston North, New Zealand. Palmerston North Hospital has reported a possible norovirus outbreak...

In bad taste

Posted on June 11, 2009
As a follow-up to yesterday's post about The Food Taster, bites.ksu.edu French correspondent Albert Amgar sent along this story from Le Monde, and French professor Amy translated. In the Parisian restaurant La Fontaine de mars, where Obama ate dinner on Saturday evening, the cooks were stunned: an American secret service member tasted the dishes before they were served to the President of the United States...

Smart patient checklist from Oprah's Dr. Oz

Posted on June 11, 2009
Tuesday's Oprah had Dr. Oz talking to viewers about the smart patient checklist. Dr. Oz believes there are eight ways to avoid medical mistakes: preventing infection, avoiding wrong-site surgery, not commencing in chitchat, using a high-tech hospital, using a hospital that uses a patient care checklist, using a nationally accredited hospital, knowing the hospital you are using, and being a smart patient...

I've gotten divorced, remarried, had another kid and moved to the U.S. - CFIA updates bottled water consultations ongoing since 2002

Posted on June 11, 2009
Yesterday, I made fun of Campbell soup boss Doug Conant who said he wanted Canadian-style food safety regulation in the U.S. Here's an example of the lightening speed with which Canadian bureaucracy works: In 2002, Health Canada and the CFIA began consulting on proposed regulatory changes for bottled water and prepackaged ice in a document called Making it Clear - Renewing the Federal Regulations on Bottled Water: A Discussion Paper...

CDC speaks: Surveillance for U.S. foodborne disease outbreaks, 2006

Posted on June 11, 2009
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control reports in tomorrow's Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report that foodborne illnesses are a major health burden in the United States . Most of these illnesses are preventable, and analysis of outbreaks helps identify control measures...

The Food Taster

Posted on June 10, 2009
I've been working my way through Peter Elbling's 2003 novel The Food Taster, for about a year. It's sorta always there but I just can't get that exited about the main character, Ugo, and his struggle to survive as he tastes countless dishes to protect a much loathed but important 16th Century Italian Duke (Federico)...

New Zealand court slams poultry processor

Posted on June 10, 2009
An Auckland woman whose company slaughtered thousands of poultry in what a judge described as stomach-turning conditions has been fined more than $23,000 in a case brought by the New Zealand Food Safety Authority (NZFSA). Ling Zhang and her company Ling Ling Poultry pleaded guilty in Papakura District Court last week to four charges under the Animal Products Act...

Safety is in the date in Northern Ireland

Posted on June 10, 2009
The Belfast Telegraph reports that, 'Four out of ten older people are putting their health at risk by not checking the use by date on food.' This was determined by a survey of 780 people across Northern Ireland in April. At least the numbers were. I'm not sure why eating food past its use by date is considered risky? Kathryn Baker from the Food Standards Agency says in the article that cases of listeriosis in the over-60 crowd have doubled in the UK since 2000...

Hockey finals, immigration and graduation

Posted on June 10, 2009
I'm exhausted. The National Hockey League championship is going to a deciding game 7 Friday night (7 p.m., our house, Manhattan, KS). I finally filed my permanent U.S. citizenship stuff, which means I can't leave the U.S. for a couple of years until this gets settled – I can leave, just won't be allowed back in – and Chapman is in Guelph today getting his PhD degree all formal and everything...

UK: Dead mouse in loaf of bread

Posted on June 10, 2009
North Antrim Magistrates Court heard how a man purchased a Hyndman's malt loaf from a supermarket in the Ballymoney area before Christmas 2007. When he unwrapped the loaf he discovered the small lifeless mammal embedded in the base of the bread (right, photo from BBC)...

Handwashing versus hospital-acquired infection

Posted on June 10, 2009
To combat the increasing number of hospital-acquired infections—about 2 million patients annually according to the Institute for Healthcare Improvement—Versus Technology Inc. has developed a new way to observe handwashing compliance in healthcare workers using IR-RFID badges...

Campbell's boss smoking ... soup? Calls for Canadian-style food safety regs

Posted on June 10, 2009
Campbell Soup boss Doug Conant told the Canadian Embassy in Washington last night that the U.S. should abandon its two-regulator format for food and adopt a one-agency model like Canada's, which would be more effective than product-label laws, adding, 'If the government of Canada can monitor the safety of its food products with one single food-inspection agency, why can't the United States?' There are probably other reasons Conant would like to clone the Canadians...

Softsoap says, 'Lather up for good health'

Posted on June 10, 2009
Softsoap brand is set to help parents and teachers enforce better handwashing for kids of all ages. Tips (including lesson plans for teachers), posters (specified for ages/grades), and examples to improve and encourage handwashing can be found on the Softsoap brand's website...

Big Brother or better handwashing tool?

Posted on June 09, 2009
Big Brother on CBS may have competition with a handwashing tool. University of Florida researchers have developed a handwashing-monitoring system called HyGreen. It has been developed to promote handwashing and increase compliance rates in healthcare workers...

Norovirus in frozen raspberries

Posted on June 09, 2009
Albert Amgar, a food safety consultant in Laval, France for the past 21 years and the provider of all things French and food safety for bites.ksu.edu, steps out in his first barfblog post. National Food Safety Authority Evira recommends that foreign frozen raspberries always be properly heated before use...

Making restaurant selection easy: website launch in UK city reveals hygiene scores

Posted on June 09, 2009
Consumers in Litchfield, England will soon be able to access restaurant hygiene scores (and much more) online, reports The Lichfield Blog. In Lichfield restaurant hygiene scores are displayed at the premise, in the form of a card (with a maximum of 5 stars, similar to Scores on Doors, pictured right)...

Bunny burgers

Posted on June 09, 2009
Kevin Nealon is great on Weeds and he's great on this 1994 television pilot: Bunny Burgers. Eat Me Daily writes that to see "just how low American marketers would go to help us to get a completely ridiculous to your shopping mall," they designed stationary, made a 24-page business plan, hired an actor to play the Japanese billionaire investor, and lured PR flacks to the Ritz Carlton to see if they wanted to represent the company...

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