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Health Law

Food Poison Blog

Surveillance and analysis on food poison news and outbreaks.
By Marler Clark

Post Frequency: 17.6/day

Last Entry: April 01, 2011 at 12:57:03

Ranking the Riskiest Foods

Posted on April 24, 2009
An administrator with the FSIS (Food Safety and Inspection) branch of the USDA is calling for a ranking of the "riskiest" foods, in order to better structure regulation of our entire food system. Cetainly an idea that makes some sense...

Worries About Cuts to Food Safety Programs

Posted on April 23, 2009
The Arizona Republic is reporting that produce industry members in Arizona are concerned that the budget for a program for leafy green food safety may be reduced or elminated. No doubt times are tough, and budgets everywhere are stressed. How many times does the lesson have to be learned though, that it's this "ounce of prevention" that is saving money in the long run?

Sprouts and Salmonella . . . Again

Posted on April 23, 2009
Sprouts have done it again. This time in Michigan. The Michigan Department of Community Health is telling people to avoid consuming alfalfa sprouts due to potential contamination by Salmonella bacteria. To date, as best as I can tell, there are at least 16 illnesses, including two hospitalizations, in Wayne, Macomb, Oakland Counties and the City of Detroit...

Who Pushed The Pause Button on Foodborne Illness Prevention?

Posted on April 23, 2009
The CDC has just released a 10-state study, Preliminary FoodNet Data on the Incidence of Infection with Pathogens Transmitted Commonly Through Food --- 10 States, 2008, the conclusions of which I have suspected for some time (and our busy law practice at Marler Clark has confirmed)--illnesses related to foodborne pathogens is NOT decreasing...

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Salmonella and Sprouts--I'm not making this up

Posted on April 23, 2009
By the end of this year, I hope to have more devoted readers than there are sprout outbreaks and recalls. As I sit here today, it's pretty much neck and neck, and I'll be honest, my competition is relentless. See my earlier post (TODAY!!!) on the ongoing Salmonella outbreak in Michigan ...

Arkansas E. coli: Is Hamburger E coli Season Underway?

Posted on April 23, 2009
We are currently investigating multiple E. coli O157:H7 and HUS illnesses in the east-Texas, west-Arkansas area. We do not yet know what, if anything, links the illnesses together. The reason for this post is simply that this is the first day of the new year (2009) (maybe it's the sun finally shining through my office window in Seattle, or the Mariners taking batting practice at the stadium in the distance) where I've had the distinct sense that hamburger e...

New Hampshire Schoolchildren sickened by Salmonella

Posted on April 22, 2009
The New Hampshire Department of Health and Human Services is investigating a large Salmonella outbreak that occurred among students of Woodbury Middle School in Salem. Director of Public Health Dr. Jose Montero was quoted as saying, "it's a high probability it was related to food...

A familiar theme: the decisions of a few affect the lives of many

Posted on April 22, 2009
Those who think that the much maligned former head man at Peanut Corporation of America is a victim because of the bad press he's gotten lately need a dose of reality. The obvious victims are those who were sickened, or died as a result of their illnesses...

E. coli O157:H7 at Petting Zoos and Animal Exhibits

Posted on April 19, 2009
The vast majority of our E. coli O157:H7 cases are foodborne. Our clients have been sickened by, among other things, ground beef, tri-tip, spinach, lettuce, and apple juice. Another vector for the transmission for E. coli O157:H7 is human/animal contact at petting zoos and other animal exhibits...

NW Delights Deluxe Mixed Nuts Recalled Due to Salmonella

Posted on April 18, 2009
The following recall has been announced because the products may be contaminated with salmonella, an organism that can cause serious and sometimes fatal infections, especially in young children, the elderly and those with weakened immune systems: Nature's World LLC is recalling 88 cases of NW Delights Deluxe Mixed Nuts distributed to retail stores and sold in retail store bulk bins...

Salmonella Found in Raw Milk in Upstate New York

Posted on April 17, 2009
It's a bit of a moving target. We hear a lot of different things from the raw milk advocates about why pasteurization is unnecessary. One of the arguments we are told is that some property in raw milk inhibits or prohibits the growth of "bad bacteria...

How Viruses Turn "Harmless" E. coli Pathogenic

Posted on April 17, 2009
This article on www.physorg.com explains in fairly understandable terms the manner in which viruses are involved in turning a strain of E. coli pathogenic. Most strains of E. coli are not pathogenic to humans. Some, including E...

Diarrhea and Hollywood

Posted on April 17, 2009
Relax, this is not a first account of Lindsay Lohan, um, "losing control" during another jail stint. It's far less irrelevant than that. What Upton Sinclair started with his brief, though sordid descriptions of Chicago's stockyards in The Jungle, Hollywood has finally chosen to finish with an expose on the often-ugly underbelly of our country's food supply...

Salmonella and sprouts--CW Sprouts outbreak

Posted on April 16, 2009
We have filed two lawsuits on behalf of two victims of the Salmonella Saintpaul outbreak linked to sprouts manufactured by CW Sprouts, a Nebraska Company. For information about the outbreak, click here. Keep in mind, studies have shown that the actual number of victims in any given outbreak is many times more than the number of culture-confirmed "cases"--i...

Sprouts and Foodborne Illness: The how and the why

Posted on April 16, 2009
It never ceases to amaze many clients of ours at Marler Clark how foods that seem so healthy can pose so much risk of foodborne disease. Lettuce and E. coli O157:H7??? Many victims were shocked, not to mention badly injured, when baby spinach was the cause of yet another outbreak of E...

Who's Job is it Anyway?

Posted on April 15, 2009
Interesting survey, given the lethal risks that the food-consuming public faces. Kidney failure due to HUS, reactive arthritis, post-infectious IBS (pdf), sometimes even death . . . all outcomes that we at Marler Clark have seen way too many times in recent years due to foodpoisoning—something that is all-too-often passed off as a couple of days of diarrhea...

Salmonella in Unpastuerized Orange Juice, 2005

Posted on April 14, 2009
I can't proclaim to be a regular reader of the University of Chicago Journal "Clinical Infectious Diseases." An article in its April issue, however, was pointed out to me. That article concerned the investigation of the 2006 Dole Spinach E...

UK Food Poisoning Terrorist Sentenced To Nine Years in Prison

Posted on April 14, 2009
After reading today's BBC News article about convicted Gloucester, England chemist, Sahnoun Daifallah, who was sentenced to nine years in prison for spraying a disgusting and dangerous concoction of urine and feces on various food items in Gloucestershire supermarkets, I began to wonder...

Report on 2006 Spinach E. coli O157:H7 Outbreak in Wisconsin, the Counted and the Not-Counted

Posted on April 13, 2009
This month's issue of Clinical Infectious Diseases has an excellent article recounting the State of Wisconsin's investigation into the 2006 E. coli O157:H7 outbreak linked to Dole spinach. You can see the article here. For reasons that are still not entirely clear, Wisconsin was something of a "ground zero" for the outbreak with 49 of the 204 cases reported nationwide...

The CDC's Foodborne Diseases Active Surveillance Network (FoodNet) Shows Increase from 2007 to 2008

Posted on April 12, 2009
Surveillance Results In 2007, a total of 17,883 laboratory-confirmed cases of infection in FoodNet surveillance areas were identified. The number of cases and incidence per 100,000 population were reported as follows: Salmonella (6,790; 14.92), Campylobacter (5,818; 12...

Update on Pistachio Salmonella Product Recall

Posted on April 10, 2009
The FDA and the California Department of Public Health continue to investigate Salmonella contamination in pistachios and pistachio products. Setton Pistachio of Terra Bella Inc., Terra Bella, Calif., is voluntarily expanding its recall of roasted pistachios to include all lots of roasted in-shell pistachios and roasted shelled pistachios that were produced from nuts harvested in 2008...

CDC to call for Overhaul of U.S. Food Safety System

Posted on April 10, 2009
From Bloomberg News: Food safety in the U.S. is no longer improving, highlighting a need to re-evaluate the way an American meal makes its way from farm to table, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said. Rates of salmonella have shown the least improvement of several food-borne illnesses the agency tracks, according to its annual report released today...

Peanut Corporation of America Salmonella Recall update

Posted on April 08, 2009
FDA Product Recall List FDA Peanut Product Recall Widget. Flash Player 9 is required. Visit http://www.accessdata.fda.gov/scripts/peanutbutterrecall/index.cfm to search for peanut product recalls or call CDC-INFO at 1-800-232-4636 for more information...

E. coli O157:H7 Season is Nearly Upon Us - Will it be 2005 and 2006 or 2007 and 2008?

Posted on April 04, 2009
The presence of E. coli O157:H7 in hamburger was defined as an adulterant under the Federal Meat Inspection Act in 1994. However, recalls of E. coli O157:H7 contaminated meat and related illnesses continued over the next decade to grow, as did my law firm...

Sprouts and Salmonella do not Mix - Very Well Anyway

Posted on April 01, 2009
Sprouts are the germinating form of seeds and beans. Sprouts, including mung beans and alfalfa sprouts, have become a common food item in grocery stores, salad bars and Asian dishes. As the popularity of sprouts increases, however, so does the potential for sprout-related illnesses...

Pistachios, Peanuts and Almonds, and Salmonella

Posted on April 01, 2009
Nuts have been associated with Salmonella outbreaks in the US and Canada several times over the last ten years. Almonds were responsible for the first outbreaks, in 2001 and then again in 2004, when contamination with Salmonella Enterica triggered a recall of 13 million pounds of California almonds...

Camillus, N.Y. Applebees Sickens 100 with Shigella

Posted on March 29, 2009
Onondaga County Health officials have confirmed seven cases of Shigellosis among people who ate at an Applebee's restaurant in a Syracuse suburb earlier this month; about 100 more have reported getting sick. Shigella, a bacterial infection, causes gastrointestinal illness...

'Lion How' Salmonella Spices Linked to 33 Illnesses

Posted on March 28, 2009
The California Department of Public Health traced the tainted spice to Union International Food Company, a Union City firm that distributes most of its pepper to Asian restaurants. Most of the 33 sick people found in this state were in northern and central California, although nine additional cases were found in other states...

Put Another Brick Of E. coli On The Fire Campers!

Posted on March 25, 2009
Meat contaminated with E. coli O157:H7 was the likely cause of the last summer's outbreak at a 4,000 acre youth camp in the Shenandoah Valley, the Virginia Department of Health says in a final report of its investigative findings. Fifty-four campers who visited the area between July 20-26, 2008 were part of the E...

Do Not Eat Raw Oysters

Posted on March 20, 2009
The Chattanooga-Hamilton County Health Department recommends that consumers avoid raw oyster consumption. Recent illnesses associated with raw oyster consumption included 9 ill individuals who ate at a Hamilton County restaurant, the Boathouse Rotisserie and Raw Bar, between March 5 and March 8, 2009...

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