Food Poisoning Lawyer & Attorney : Marler Clark : Food Poison Blog

The recent spinach E. coli outbreak struck a chord with Purdue University professors whose research may help avert future food-borne illnesses.

Two emerging technologies are designed to find and kill food-borne pathogens more quickly and less expensively than existing processes. Researchers hope the technologies ultimately will keep food safer and help prevent people from getting sick after eating contaminated food.

One method being tested uses chlorine dioxide gas to get rid of pathogens on fruits and vegetables, said Richard Linton, a Purdue professor of food science. "We have done work on several different produce items in the last several years and found gas is 10,000 to 100,000 times more effective than current technology."

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People in Georgia are urged to check their their ground beef.

"Georgia Commissioner of Agriculture Tommy Irvin is advising Georgians to check their freezers and refrigerators for recalled ground beef products that may be contaminated with a dangerous form of E. coli bacteria.
 
Jim's Market and Locker Inc. of Harlan, Iowa, is voluntarily recalling about 5,200 pounds of ground beef products distributed to seven states, including Georgia, because they could be contaminated with E. coli O157:H7."

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California lawmakers looking into changing food-safelty laws.

California has been ``asleep at the wheel'' when it comes to preventing produce contamination, according to a Central Valley legislator who ended a food-safety hearing Wednesday by saying it's time to stop letting growers police themselves.

``We have a very, very poor and lax system here,'' said state Sen. Dean Florez, D-Bakersfield, adding that he wants to propose strict new regulations for the industry. He said a string of contamination outbreaks in the past decade -- nine of them traced to spinach and lettuce from the Salinas Valley -- shows the state's policy of working cooperatively with farmers has failed.

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Margaret Prouse from the Gaurdian has a great article about food safety.
http://www.theguardian.pe.ca/index.cfm?sid=4228&sc=5

"Preventing foodborne illness, or food poisoning, is just as important as preventing injury from accidents or fire. Those who are young, old, pregnant or have impaired immune systems are most at risk, but no one wants to get food poisoning.

There is many things that can be done to keep foods safe in the home. Handwashing is the practice that can make the most difference. Wash your hands before and after handling food or eating, and after blowing your nose, using the bathroom, changing a diaper or touching a pet. Wash them with soap and water, rubbing the top and palm of the hand and between the fingers, rinse and dry thoroughly. There are germs everywhere, and washing hands does a lot to prevent them from contaminating foods or being ingested.

Special care is needed when handling meat, fish and poultry. The four key things to remember are chill, clean, separate and cook."

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Mexico is banning U.S. imports. More contries to follow?

Mexico's Department of Health announced Monday that the country's 105 ports of entry would block all U.S. lettuce from coming through the border as a result of Nunes Co.'s precautionary recall.

The family-run company recalled the lettuce after water from a reservoir at one of its grower's fields tested positive for generic E.coli, many harmless strains of which live in human intestines.

But on Tuesday, further tests of the recalled lettuce showed that the E.coli in the irrigation water was not the 0157:H7 strain, the form of the bacteria responsible for the outbreak linked to spinach that killed three people and sickened 199 others.

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Keith Warriner  from the University of Guelph commenting on recent recalls and questioning where Canidian's food comes from.

Part of the problem is the fact that Canada gets as much as 80 per cent of its produce from California, where health officials have warned growers three times in the last three years about their growing practices.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has issued several warnings to California producers over the last three years urging them to improve safety standards, said Keith Warriner, a professor of food science at the University of Guelph.

"There's definitely some sort of issues with the quality of irrigation water in California and that's no doubt due to the pressures to get water," Warriner said.

Water contamination is sometimes a problem when it's used in both animal and vegetable production systems, he added.

"It's a recipe for disaster in a lot of ways."

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FROM WIKIPEDIA - A foodborne illness or sometimes incorrectly referred to as food poisoning, is any illness resulting from the consumption of food contaminated with pathogenic bacteria, toxins, viruses, prions or parasites. Such contamination usually arises from improper handling, preparation, or food storage. Good hygiene practices before, during, and after food preparation can reduce the chances of contracting an illness. The action of monitoring food to ensure that it will not cause foodborne illness is known as food safety. Food poisoning refers to a particular category of foodborne illness caused by ingesting toxic chemicals or bacterial toxins and is more correctly referred to as a foodborne intoxication.

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