Articles Posted in Foodborne Illness

About 50 people who ate at two Valencia restaurants earlier this month became very sick, according to a CBS News Video. The news channel reports that diners who ate at the Buca Di Beppo Italian restaurant and a Marie Callender’s barely blocks away reported becoming sick soon after eating there.

Robert Swartz, who was interviewed by CBS, said both he and his wife suffered the consequences after eating at Buca Di Beppo. He told reporters that he and his wife experienced nausea, diarrhea, fevers and chills. His wife had to be hospitalized and administered IV fluids, he said.

Victims of this mysterious food-borne illness contacted the Los Angeles Health Department, whose investigators later tied in complaints from both restaurants and actually determined exactly what happened. As it turns out, the illness was spread by one employee who worked at both restaurants. He was reportedly the one who cut fruits and vegetables for the salad.
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The last two weeks have been like a rollercoaster ride for our federal food safety agencies, some large retailers and wholesalers and most importantly for some, food manufacturers. It all started last week with the second largest beef recall in the history of the United States. Topps Meat Co. recalled close to 22 million pounds of its ground beef patties because they were contaminated with E. Coli. Later last week, Cargill Inc. recalled about 850,000 ground beef patties distributed through the wholesale chain, Sam’s Club, again because of E. Coli contamination.

On Tuesday, ConAgra Foods, the company you may remember from last year’s recall of salmonella-tainted peanut butter that sickened hundreds and killed several across the nation, announced that it is now recalling Banquet brand chicken pot pies – again, for salmonella contamination. This contamination is being linked to 139 cases of salmonella poisoning in 30 states. ConAgra has now stopped production in its Missouri plant that makes these pot pies.
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By: Staff Writer
One year after a widespread E. Coli scare caused by bagged spinach, officials are recalling E. Coli tainted lettuce after some inspectors in Canada found a bag of Dole’s Hearts Delight lettuce contaminated with the bacteria. According to an article posted on NBC’s Web site, so far, no one has reported being sickened by the product. Most of the 5,000 bags with the production code “A24924A” or “A24924B” were sold in the United States and some in Canada. According to official reports, the romaine, green leaf and butter lettuce hearts that went into the bagged blends were grown in California, Colorado and Ohio and then processed in Springfield, Ohio, on Sept. 6.

All the recalled bags have a “best if used by” date of Sept. 19, 2007. Officials are still trying to track down the source and method by which this contamination occurred.

Last year, the spinach scare, also caused by the Dole brand, was said to have caused three deaths. The tainted spinach also reportedly sickened hundreds of people across the country. That contamination, investigators determined, occurred in a Central California cattle ranch neighboring spinach fields owned by Dole’s suppliers. Food safety standards were also strengthened in California after that scare and authorities say they are stumped by the recent scare, saying they don’t know how it may have happened again.
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Millions of Castleberry Tainted Meat Products Recalled for Botulism Poisoning
Federal agencies must hold food manufacturers and providers accountable for their products. But how on earth are they going to do it if they don’t inspect food production facilities as often as they should? Over the last year or so, we’ve seen a slew of recalls and hundreds if not thousands of people and animals sickened or killed nationwide by food that should not have been in our homes in the first place.

Last week, the botulism related to tainted meat products that spurred a massive recall, found its first victim in California. According to an article in the San Francisco Chronicle, a 51-year-old San Diego woman reportedly became sick and was hospitalized for 10 days this month after eating Kroger Chili Beans, a Castleberry product that was part of the recall. San Diego public health officials say she is recovering in her home, but that they could not confirm she contracted botulism from the chili because she did not keep the can.

This is exactly why food-borne illnesses cases are tough to prove. You’ve just eaten part of the evidence and thrown the rest away. Unless medical lab testing is conducted early, there is no physiological evidence of what made you sick.

Castleberry, which is based in Augusta, Ga., last week recalled millions of cans of meat products after a huge botulism scare – the worst one involving commercial canned goods in 30 years, according to a news article in the Kansas City Star.

According to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration website, the products tainted with the deadly bacteria include more than 80 brands of chili sauce made by a company called Castleberry in Augusta, Ga. — corned beef hash and beef stew sold under various brand names including Bryan, Kroger, Piggly Wiggly, Food Lion and Thrifty Maid. FDA officials also believe that these foods are likely to be sold at hundreds of smaller retail outlets and stocked in church pantries and food banks because they are non-perishable foods.
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Even though it was four years ago, Robert Rise says he will never forget the excruciating pain, “Like someone was sticking a knife through my intestines,” the 60-year-old Helendale resident says. He wasn’t in a traffic accident or injured in a fall. Robert ate sushi.

Robert remembers the day, August 28, 2003. Robert had lunch at the Karuta restaurant, a Buena Park sushi place near where he worked. Robert ate sushi topped with a raw quail egg, something he’ll never do again. Robert wound up in the hospital for a week with salmonella poisoning. He lost 15 pounds in the first two days. He suffered sharp, cramping pain, the worst diarrhea he had ever known, cramps and vomiting.

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So you have diarrhea, blurred or double vision, muscle weakness, nausea, fatigue, dizziness, and headache. Is it the flu, or was it something you ate? A steady, intense pain that becomes more intense can be appendicitis, which can be mistaken for food poisoning.

So how do you know? Food poisoning is difficult to diagnose. It takes time to send a stool sample to a laboratory and get the results back. It is about a 24 hour process after visiting your doctor, which is about how long it takes to recover from many forms of food poisoning. By the time results come back, most people are nearly back to normal.

If several people, who ate the same thing, become sick, food poisoning should be considered. Dehydration is one of the most troubling problems associated with food poisoning and the severe diarrhea that follows. If you experience a fast heart beat, feeling faint, low blood pressure and a lack of urine output, you should be seen by your doctor. If you suspect that you have become sick after eating at a restaurant you should notify your county health department. For our county it is the Orange County Health Department.

Dr. David Crane, an emergency room physician at Carroll Hospital Center, http://www.ccgh.com/content/ , in Westminster, MD, said that many illnesses that cause diarrhea, fever, cramping can be transmitted by food-borne pathogens, with the most commonly reported being salmonella.
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Just when you thought it had subsided for a while, the foodborne-illness scare starts all over again. This time, it’s ground beef. On Monday Supervalu Inc. recalled the meat products sold in its Albertsons and Save-A-Lot stores because it is reportedly tainted with E. Coli, according to a news report posted on NBC San Diego’s website.

Most of the contaminated ground beef was sold under the Moran’s label at Albertsons stores in the states of California, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, North Dakota, Oregon, Utah, Washington and Wyoming as well as Save-A-Lot stores in California, Arizona and Nevada. Albertsons 90/10 Sirloin fresh hamburger patties were also among the meat that was recalled.

The beef products reportedly have sell-by dates from April 20 through May 7 and included Moran’s brand 1-pound to 5-pound meat packages under UPC numbers 34779 60501, 34779 96000, 34779 91000, 34779 60010, 34779 96194 and 34779 21117, according to the news article. This recall is an expansion of another similar recall that occurred on Sunday by United Food Group, a meat supplier. That company recalled 75,000 pounds of ground beef tainted by E. Coli. This meat was reportedly sold at Grocery Outlet, Fry’s, Save-Mart, Smart and Final, Smith’s and Stater Bros. stores.
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It started with the brouhaha over pet food, but now the safety of a whole range of food products imported from China are coming under the microscope, according to a news article posted on the consumer watchdog website. According to this article, a new study published in Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry found samples from Chinese markets that contained concentrations of contaminants high enough to pose threats to human health.

This is an important detail because China has now become the world’s largest producer and exporter of fish and fish products. Organochlorine pesticides such as DDT, which were officially banned in 1983, have been used in China for decades prior to the ban. Twenty-five years later, there is evidence that new sources, particularly of DDT, may be present and contaminating seafood, researchers say. The most recent study focused on seafood from markets in 11 coastal cities in Guangdong Province.
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The California farm that grew the spinach linked to last year’s nationwide E. coli outbreak, and the two companies that processed and marketed it, have settled lawsuits with the families of three women who died, two of whom had not been included in the official death toll, according to a news report in the Los Angeles Times.

The attorney for the three families said Mission Organics, Natural Selection Foods and the Dole Food Co. agreed late last month to confidential settlements in the deaths of Ruby Trautz, 81, of Bellevue, Neb.; Betty Howard, 83, of Richland, Wash.; and June Dunning, 86, of Hagerstown, Md., the Times article said.

The Federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported that the E. Coli outbreak in September 2006 caused 205 illnesses and three deaths across 26 states and Canada. Only Trautz was included as one of the three official deaths. Howard was counted as one of the illnesses. According to Howard’s attorney, she died in early January after a lengthy hospitalization.
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On Tuesday, hearings were held by the House Energy and Commerce subcommittee on oversight and investigations to weigh the role of regulatory bodies in protecting food safety. Families who have suffered from the recent outbreaks of foodborne illnesses met with the House Energy and Commerce subcommittee to push for a strengthening of federal oversight of the nation’s food supply.

“I don’t know what the right answer is, but I do know what the wrong answer is: It is to continue doing what we’re doing, when it’s not working,” said Michael Armstrong. Mr. Armstrong described the disheartening situation faced by him and his wife, Elizabeth in regards to their daughters Ashley, 3, and Isabella, 5 who had both become seriously ill by E. coli after eating contaminated greens in September of 2006. The girls were two of over two hundred people identified as infected by the bacteria including 31 people who suffered kidney failure and three who died.

In March of 2007, 60 million cans of dog and cat food were recalled after the deaths of 16 pets that had eaten products contaminated with the chemical melamine. In the weeks following the initial recall several other companies have recalled pet foods tainted by melamine and now there is suspicion that the food contained tainted vegetable protein imported from China. In April thousands of reports of illness and deaths of dogs and cats are still being probed for any correlation with the contaminated food.
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