Enterobacter sakazakii is a gram-negative rod-shaped bacterium within the family Enterobacteriaceae. The organism was called "yellow-pigmented Enterobacter cloacae" until 1980 when it was renamed Enterobacter sakazakii. The majority of cases of infection reported in the peer-reviewed literature have described neonates with sepsis, meningitis, or necrotizing enterocolitis as a consequence of the infection. (1) E. sakazakii […]
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — A girl fell into a 40-day coma after eating a bad Jack in the Box hamburger. Fifteen years later, she is still suffering ill effects. That doesn’t bode well for a toddler who spent six weeks in the hospital in 2006 after eating E. coli-tainted spinach from California. But both have […]
The recent YouTube video is certainly shocking, but nothing new – we have simply not been paying attention. Schools are scrambling to pull downer meat off the menu because cows are being abused, and even Agricultural Secretary Ed Schafers issues a statement on downer cow brutality: "I am deeply concerned about the allegations made regarding […]
Lauran Neergaard of the AP again breaks another disturbing story about the dangers of our food supply. She reports this evening that Investigators are preparing to test pig brains as they struggle to tell what is causing a mysterious nerve illness affecting pork plant workers in Minnesota and Indiana. The CDC and Minnesota Department of […]
The Associated Press reported that hamburger chains Jack-In-the-Box and In-N-Out, as well more than 150 school districts around the nation, have banned meat from a Chino, California slaughterhouse after a video showed workers brutalizing sick and crippled cows. School districts in at least 11 states have stopped using ground beef from Hallmark Meat Packing Co. […]
In 1998 when I started Marler Clark, Al Gore had only recently invented the internet (only kidding). Search Engines were new and Google was probably being run out of someone’s basement. Because I was in the middle of many of the earliest food poisoning battles, like Jack in the Box and Odwalla, I had a […]
So, first some facts: the CDC reports that Escherichia coli O157:H7 is a leading cause of foodborne illness. Based on a 1999 estimate, 73,000 cases of infection and 61 deaths occur in the United States each year. The CDC found also that from 1996-2004, the incidence of E. coli O157:H7 infections decreased 42 percent. However, […]
Helen Altonn of the Hawaii Star Bulletin profiled crack Epidemiologist, Dr. Paul Effler, as he helped break the outbreak of a rare type of salmonella poisoning on Oahu that is linked to similar cases on the mainland. The case was cracked through the use of "genetic fingerprints" of the bacteria’s DNA. According to the Bulletin, […]
My insomnia got the better of me this morning. So, as I cruised the Internet for tidbits on food poisoning I found a few interesting morsels. Lately I have been obsessing about how the safety of raw milk has become so tied up with anti-big Ag, save the family farm and the un-verified health benefits. […]
Multistate Outbreak of Human Salmonella Infections Associated with Exposure to Turtles — United States, 2007–2008 As of January 18, 2008, a total of 103 cases with isolates indistinguishable from the outbreak strain had been reported to CDC from 33 states. Of the 100 patients for whom age information was available (median age: 7.5 years; range: […]
From the pages of "Barfblog:" Fifteen years ago this week, Seattle lawyer Bill Marler and Kansas State University professor Douglas Powell were drawn into the food safety arena when the Washington Department of Health announced that Jack in the Box restaurants were the source of a multi-state outbreak of E. coli O157:H7 infections. Now, the […]
Advanced Strategies for Managing and Defending Food Contamination Claims Thursday, February 28, 2008 to Friday, February 29, 2008 Millennium Resort, Scottsdale McCormick Ranch, Scottsdale, AZ, United States Overview 2007 was the year of the recall, with E. coli contamination increasing sharply in 2007 over the previous two years. And it’s not just beef recalls and […]
I also had the chance, sitting here at the Seattle Airport on my way to a status conference in the E. coli outbreak from the summer of 2006 involving a Wendy’s restaurant in Utah, to read again the full report on the Organic Pastures raw milk outbreak from the fall of 2006. It is an […]