Food Safety Lawyer Fred Pritzker to Bourdain: Love Your Show But Medium Rare Hamburger Is Dangerous
I live in Minnesota. That means that for four or five months of the year, my exercise regimen is relegated to the basement of our St. Paul home.
Since using an elliptical trainer or riding an exercise bicycle is mind-numbingly dull, I distract myself with television. One of my favorite work-out programs is Anthony Bourdain’s “No Reservations” (and his new show, “The Layover”). I like Bourdain because he’s wry, mordant and cynical: the perfect companion for a visit to places I may never see on my own.
I also like the fact that he’s a dick. His persona is that of a self-absorbed and highly opinionated guy – traits you probably don’t want in your father or best friend but quite enjoyable as a travel guide (provided you have separate rooms and a lot of time apart).
Bourdain is also the quintessential (and disdainful) foodie. In a recent episode, “The Layover: New York,” Bourdain samples some of New York’s best burgers, including the $26 offering at Minetta Tavern (a blend of inexpressibly choice cuts of cow capable of exciting the salivary glands of any carnivore, me included).
Bourdain, of course, orders his burger medium rare and eats it with a verbal dollop of sanctimony about the virtues of less-cooked food. On some level, I think “good for him.” If he drinks too much or has no antipathy toward pathogenetic microorganisms, who am I to judge?
And yet…I wonder if Bourdain has ever cared about someone dying from foodborne illness or watched a child undergoing dialysis? I doubt it. The pleasure of food well-eaten pales in comparison to a young life lost to foodborne illness.
We tout the virtue of personal freedom and rebel against the sanctimonies of dictated behaviors. That tension will always exist and the line separating the extremes is, by necessity, ever shifting. But Bourdain is still a dick, albeit an entertaining one, and hamburger, even the priciest, is still a danger at less than 160°.
The Raw Milk Story in Wisconsin Keeps Churning
News photojournalist Mike Fisher interviewed me for an in-depth report on the aftermath of Wisconsin Governor Jim Doyle’s veto of a bill that would have legalized on-farm sales of raw milk and other unpasteurized dairy products.
His video aired this week on the NBC network affiliate NBC26 in Green Bay, Wisconsin.
Despite the uncontroverted scientific evidence that raw milk harbors E. coli O157:H7, Campylobacter, Salmonella and other potentially deadly pathogens, producers of raw milk and people who buy it are clamoring for a reversal of the ban.
I gave the reporter my insights based on all the families we represent who are in physical and emotional pain from bouts of infection caused by contaminated raw milk and other unpasteurized dairy products.
Here’s the NBC26 news clip:
Pritzker Olsen E. coli-HUS Client Featured in New York Times Article
My client Emily Grabowski was featured in a May 27, 2010 New York Times article about the E. coli O145 outbreak involving fresh romaine lettuce from Freshway Foods, Sidney, Ohio.
Ms. Grabowski, a college freshman in New York, is one of 26 confirmed and 7 probable cases related to this outbreak. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC):
As of May 20, 2010, a total of 26 confirmed and 7 probable cases related to this outbreak have been reported from 5 states since March 1, 2010. The number of ill persons identified in each state with this strain is: MI (11 confirmed and 2 probable), NY (5 confirmed and 2 probable), OH (8 confirmed and 3 probable), PA (1 confirmed), and TN (1 confirmed). The reported cases in Tennessee and Pennsylvania do not reflect expansion of the outbreak but retrospective identification of cases using the PulseNet system – these cases are part of the original cluster due to the original implicated lot of lettuce from March.
As a result of her E. coli O145 illness, Ms. Grabowski developed Hemolytic Uremic Syndrome (HUS), a potentially lethal condition known to cause severe kidney damage, neurologic deficits and hypertension.
This outbreak, another one involving leafy green vegetables, points to the need for significant regulation of an industry responsible for repeated outbreaks.
The United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA) issued its final report on the outbreak on May 21, but so far refused to identify the farm at which the implicated romaine lettuce was grown.
State Laws Vary in Recognizing Harms Suffered by Parents of Children with E. coli-induced HUS
Part of our job as food safety attorneys is to understand and explain the harms and losses – short and long-term – associated with foodborne illness. This means keeping abreast of the medical and scientific literature. But also, and more importantly, it means spending a lot of time with our clients and understanding their specific harms and losses.
Every case and every client is unique and deserves the benefit of a close attorney-client bond.
I recently wrote about the long-term prognosis for people who suffer hemolytic uremic syndrome (HUS) induced by E. coli O157:H7. This is because many people who suffer this devastating illness have life-long and very severe medical problems that show up long after the acute phase of the illness is over.
Many HUS victims are children. Their parents suffer along with them. The fear and uncertainty of loving a child with chronic medical problems is a constant stress that intrudes on the parents and siblings of a child with HUS.
A recent medical journal article supports the notion that the impact of HUS is not limited to the disease survivor. The paper, Emotional and Behavioral Changes in Parents of Children Affected by Hemolytic-Uremic Syndrome Associated With Verocytotoxin-Producing Escherichia Coli: A Qualitative Analysis, concludes:
This [data] demonstrated that intense emotional distress was commonplace at the 1-year follow-up, demonstrating that emotional strain is present long after the acute phase of the child’s illness. The finding that fear of unknown long-term repercussions, relapse, and reinfection were still causing distress and rumination 1 year later suggests that dealing with an infected child is chronic stress…
On a personal note, my wife and I are the parents of 25 year-old young man with a genetic disorder characterized by physical and cognitive challenges. Loving a child with medical issues is one of the most challenging problems faced by parents. It affects virtually every family decision and not a day goes by without its consequences reverberating throughout the home.
Are parents compensated for this emotional stress? From a legal standpoint that depends on the law of the state in which the illness occurred but, sadly, it’s not enough.
Many states only allow recovery for the diseased individual. Some allow recovery, but only in cases in which the parent was in the “zone of danger” (meaning they were at risk for injury as well).
Fewer still recognize the obvious harm and loss that parents suffer when their children face a life of medical problems related to HUS. It’s never right when common sense and the medical literature recognizes a problem for which the law offers little or no remedy.
Young HUS Victim From Ohio Escaped Death
A young woman from Ashtabula, Ohio, has retained me to represent her in connection with a nearly fatal E. coli O157:H7 infection she suffered in connection with an outbreak and beef recall late last year by National Steak and Poultry Co. of Owasso, Oklahoma.
This outbreak involved blade- or needle-tenderized beef that few people realize carries an E. coli risk similar to hamburger. Our office issued this press release today to keep the issue in the public light:
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Cleveland, OH – (Business Wire) - Attorney Fred Pritzker has been retained by an 18 year-old woman from Ashtabula, Ohio who suffered E. coli O157:H7 poisoning and hemolytic uremic syndrome (HUS) linked to adulterated beef products recalled by National Steak and Poultry, an Owasso, Oklahoma meat processor. The young woman was hospitalized for weeks and almost died. She was on dialysis for months and now suffers from decreased kidney function and hypertension. She faces a lifetime of medical problems and medical bills that should have been prevented.
National Steak and Poultry recalled 248,000 pounds of beef products on December 24, 2009, following an investigation that found an association between the company’s steaks and an E. coli O157 outbreak in Ohio and other states.
The recalled beef products, so-called “non-intact beef products,” were mechanically tenderized. This usually involves putting rougher cuts of beef through a machine that utilizes a set of needles or blades which pierce the meat and break down connective tissue.
Unfortunately, this process is also known to push E. coli O157:H7 on the surface of the raw meat into its center (so-called “translocation”). If the meat is then served rare or medium rare, its center is not heated sufficiently to kill off the E. coli O157:H7.
According to Fred Pritzker, “This is at least the fourth E. coli O157:H7 outbreak associated with mechanically tenderized beef.”
“Meat companies and restaurants don’t warn consumers about mechanical tenderization and the dangers that go with it,” Pritzker said. “They don’t want consumers to be able to make informed choices because they’re afraid it will hurt sales.”
According to Pritzker, this outbreak highlights the need for a number of changes including
- Requiring producers to use microbiological decontamination technologies on meat products before mechanical tenderization
- Requiring labeling changes that alert consumers to the existence of and dangers associated with mechanical tenderization
- Creating and mandating public outreach programs alerting consumers to this practice
Attorney Fred Pritzker represents E. coli victims nationwide. He can be reached at 1-888-377-8900 (TOLL FREE). His offices are in Minneapolis, Minnesota.
Restaurants Need Prevention Training to Curtail Risk of Steak E. coli Outbreaks
An investigation by national food safety law firm Pritzker Olsen into a possible beef steak E. coli outbreak associated with at least one national restaurant chain raises the issue once again of bacterial contamination in non-intact cuts of beef.
There are preliminary indications that the current restaurant steak E. coli outbreak — which may have peaked in November — involves meat injected with tenderizing ingredients, which would classify them as non-intact. Between 1999 and 2003, five of six steak E. coli outbreaks associated with non-intact beef involved moisture-enhanced steaks, according to a 2003 study at Colorado State University.
Injections and mechanical blade tenderizing techniques may enhance flavor of a steak, but it can be dangerous to consumers when brine is contaminated and when meat isn’t cooked well. That is why in 1999 the federal government lumped non-intact beef together with hamburger, meaning they are considered adulterated if they carry E. coli O157:H7 — a virulent pathogen that can cause hemolytic uremic syndrome (HUS) and thrombotic thrombocytopenic purpura (TTP)
The risks associated with non-intact beef were outlined nicely in a 1996 Masters Thesis by Kansas State University graduate student Sarah Sporing. She noted that many restaurant cooks mistakenly handle injected and blade-tenderized steaks as whole cuts that can be served rare or medium rare. When cooking whole cuts, surface contamination can be killed merely by cooking the meat until it changes color.
They often don’t realize that injections translocate surface E. coli into the muscle, where it can survive if the center is undercooked. Sporing’s study showed that a standard food industry blade tenderizer transferred 3- to 4 percent of surface E. coli to the center of the meat. Injections of cross-contaminated flavoring can do the same thing.
Sporing studied the thermal destruction of bacteria in the center of E. coli steaks and found that oven broiling was more effective (shorter cooking time) at killing the pathogens than grilling the meat on a commercial gas grill or cooking it in an electric skillet. But regardless of the cooking method, she determined that the population of E. coli O157:H7 in non-intact steak could be reduced to the same safety level as intact beef if cooked to at least 140 degrees.
“To reduce risks… it is in the best interest of the meat and food service industries to encourage the use of thermometers to determine degree of doneness in all meat products,” not just ground beef, Sporing wrote.
E. coli lawyers at Pritzker Olson have been contacted by survivors of this non-intact steak E. coli outbreak. If you believe you or a loved one have suffered damages from this potential outbreak or know anything about it, please contact us at 1-888-377-8900 (Toll Free) or complete our online contact and information form on the side of this web page.
Our firm is one of the few in the country that practices extensively in the area of foodborne illness litigation. We have the resources and experience to collect compensation from the parties responsible for this outbreak, including meat suppliers and restaurant corporations. If you contact us, we will provide a free case consultation. If we agree to take your case, you owe us nothing until you win.
This outbreak could have been prevented and our firm actively supports a variety of initiatives to strengthen the food safety system in America, which hasn’t undergone broad, meaningful change in 70 years. One of our clients testified this year before a Congressional food safety panel in Washington, D.C., and another client is featured in the current issue of Consumer Reports magazine that exposes widespread bacterial hazards in poultry.
Fred Pritzker On Newsmakers
