Danger Still Lurks in Packaged Salad Greens
Foodborne illness outbreaks and recalls involving pre-packaged leafy greens have sickened thousands and killed scores of Americans during the past decade.
For example, just one incident, the 2006 California baby spinach outbreak, caused 205 confirmed illnesses and three deaths. In the face of intense pressure to reform following that outbreak, California growers adopted voluntary standards that were touted as a significant food safety improvement.
But one has to wonder how far we have come based on the results of a new Consumer Reports study of various pre-washed, packaged salad greens.
As reported in the March 2010 issue, Consumer Reports product testers found unacceptable concentrations of fecal contamination and other bacteria when sampling 208 containers representing 16 different brands purchased at stores in Connecticut, New Jersey, and New York.
“Several industry experts we consulted suggested that for leafy greens, an unacceptable level of total coliforms or enterococcus is 10,000 or more colony forming units per gram (CFU/g) or a comparable estimate. In our tests, 39 percent of samples exceeded that level for total coliforms and 23 percent for enterococcus,” the report said.
While this relatively small sample did not uncover traces of E. coli O157:H7, Salmonella or Listeria, the coliforms and enterococcus are often used to gauge possible pathogen contamination.
Packages with higher bacteria levels had similarities, the report said. Many contained spinach and were one to five days from their use-by date. Packages six to eight days from their use-by date fared better.
The sample included greens packed in plastic clamsells and bags, which made no difference. Nor did it matter if the packages contained “baby” greens, or were organic.
Since 1993, at least 20 E. coli O157:H7 outbreaks have been traced to California-grown leafy greens – primarily lettuce and spinach. Most of these outbreaks involved packaged product that, despite several chlorinated washes, contained sufficient numbers of E. coli O157:H7 to cause infection at the time of consumption.
Based on the Consumer Reports research, it’s only a matter of time before we get hit again.
Standing Up For Victims of Food Poisoning
More than a year after Peanut Corp. of America caused a nationwide outbreak of Salmonella that killed nine people and sickened more than 700 others, victims and their families are still waiting for justice.
The late Nellie Napier: Beloved mother, grandmother and baseball fan
By that I mean we are still waiting for criminal charges to be filed against principals of the company, which is now defunct. When state and federal investigators linked the company to the outbreak, production ceased and the company was quickly liquidated.
To be sure, there will be money for the survivors of this outbreak when litigation is settled. We are making sure of that as a leading plaintiffs’ law firm.
But in this case — where there was evidence that company officials had prior knowledge of a dangerous human pathogen but continued to manufacture and sell product — victims and their families want criminal sanctions.
We at Pritzker Olsen are well aware of the personal anguish families encountered. We filed the first wrongful death lawsuit in this outbreak, which was one of America’s largest ever known food poisoning disasters.
Our national food safety law firm represents the families of a third of those who died: Shirley Mae Almer, Doris Flatgard, both of Minnesota, and Nellie Napier of Ohio.
As advocates for victims, we believe strongly that outbreaks like this are preventable. Prevention starts with accountability by those who make a profit selling food. Criminal charges in this case would set an example that the penalty for willful neglect transcends money.
Report Says FDA’s Food Facility Registry is Inept
Recent outbreaks of E. coli O157:H7 and Salmonella involving peanut butter, peppers, and spinach have raised serious questions about FDA’s ability to protect our nation’s food supply. Those aren’t my words, they are the words of federal investigators who have studied the problem.
Too often it has been the case that outbreaks have festered with the agency unable to accurately and quickly trace matching illnesses to a common source of contaminated food. The 2008-2009 Salmonella Typhimurium outbreak caused by Peanut Corporation of America is the latest example. Nine people died in the outbreak, including three whose families are represented by our national food safety law firm, Pritzker Olsen Attorneys.
Now the Office of Inspector General (OIG) for the Department of Health and Human Services has issued a report that attributes part of the problem to a failure of FDA’s 4-year-old Food Facility Registry. The system is supposed to help FDA investigators quickly locate domestic food facilities for inspection during an outbreak.
But OIG inspectors found that almost half of the 130 food facilities they questioned failed to provide accurate information for the registry.
The inspectors also found that 7 percent of selected facilities either failed to register or failed to cancel their registration, as required. Their report said FDA’s regulations do not ensure that the registry contains certain information that may be needed to locate a facility in an emergency.
Specifically, 30 facilities did not provide accurate contact information for the facilities, 26 facilities did not provide an accurate emergency contact phone number, 20 facilities did not provide accurate contact information for the owner or operator, and 14 facilities did not provide accurate contact information for their parent company.
The report said the FDA generally agrees with OIG recommendations to seek additional authority under the law to compel registrations and issue daily fines to violators. The registry should also start to include an up-to-date listing of who to contact in an emergency, the report said.
The inspector general’s latest report on FDA’s Food Facility Registry is part of an overall body of work on food safety that will include additional investigations. Nine moths ago, the OIG issued a report about its attempt to trace the path of 40 food products through the supply chain. Traceback investigations are crucial to effectively pinpoint which food is making people sick in an outbreak of E. coli, Salmonella or other human pathogen.
The OIG report said that only 5 of the 40 food products it purchased could be traced through each stage of the food supply chain. That report on the traceability of contaminated food also found that 59 percent of selected food facilities did not comply with FDA’s record-keeping requirement.
Timeline for Reporting E coli O157:H7 Cases
When it comes to common source outbreaks of E. coli O157:H7 — regardless of whether the vehicle of transmission is ground beef, fresh produce, raw milk or fruit juice — the time from the beginning of the patient’s illness to the confirmation that he or she is part of an outbreak is typically about 2-3 weeks.
This is important when considering case counts in the midst of an outbreak investigation. Public health officials will sometimes announce an outbreak even if there are only one or two confirmed matches between a food source and an illness.
If officials say the investigation is continuing, usually that means the number of confirmed cases in an outbreak will grow because of the lag time between a person consuming the bacteria and health officials positively confirming an outbreak case of E. coli O157:H7 through DNA fingerprinting.
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), here’s a breakdown of the timeline and how long each step can take:
- Incubation time: The time from eating the contaminated food to the beginning of symptoms. For E. coli O157, this is typically 3-4 days.
- Time to treatment: The time from the first symptom until the person seeks medical care, when a diarrhea sample is collected for laboratory testing. This time lag may be 1-5 days.
- Time to diagnosis: The time from when a person gives a sample to when E. coli O157 is obtained from it in a laboratory. This may be 1-3 days from the time the sample is received in the laboratory.
- Sample shipping time: The time required to ship the bacteria from the laboratory to the state public health authorities that will perform “DNA fingerprinting”. This may take 0-7 days depending on transportation arrangements within a state and the distance between the clinical laboratory and public health department.
- Time to “DNA fingerprinting”: The time required for the state public health authorities to perform “DNA fingerprinting” on the E. coli O157 and compare it with the outbreak pattern. Ideally this can be accomplished in 1 day. However, many public health laboratories have limited staff and space, and experience multiple emergencies at the same time. Thus, the process may take 1-4 days.
Hepatitis with Your Happy Meal
A McDonald’s food handler in Milan, Illinois, was potentially serving Hepatitis A with every hamburger bun she touched while not wearing gloves to cover her improperly washed hands.
The result? Thirty-four confirmed cases of Hep A, including 14 people who were hospitalized this summer. Another 5,366 customers of the McDonald’s restaurant heeded a warning that stemmed from the outbreak by getting shots of prophylaxis to reduce their chances of infection. Up to 10,000 people were exposed to the disease.
Those are findings from the Illinois Department of Health report on the Milan McDonald’s hepatitis outbreak from June 11 through August 10. Not one, but two food handlers at the restaurant had Hepatitis A. The second one wasn’t diagnosed until July 15 — the day health officials “advised” closing the place for retraining and deep cleaning. But that worker also was handling bread while wearing no gloves.
From my experience handling hundreds of food poisoning cases for victims, Hep A outbreaks involving restaurants are all too common. They usually involve failure to train and supervise employees regarding proper hand washing — which the health department in Illinois substantiates happened in this case.
The report’s words, not mine: “If the first employee with hepatitis A had used proper hand washing technique while working the transmission of hepatitis A through food would not have occurred. ”
The underlying problem concerns the economics of fast food restaurants. Low paid workers who receive few if any benefits usually cannot afford to miss work. In this case, the first sick handler worked June 28-July 29 while she was infectious. Those dates match the dates of onset of 28 of the 34 confirmed illnesses.
Sick workers handling food sold to the public is a prescription for disaster.
Fred Pritzker On Newsmakers
