Fw: [BITES-L] bites Oct. 2/10
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Date: Sat, 2 Oct 2010 20:00:08 -0500
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Subject: [BITES-L] bites Oct. 2/10
bites Oct. 2/10
Wales starts restaurant inspection disclosure; mom of E. coli child death says system sucks
Third-party food-safety audits fall under intense scrutiny
Salmonella outbreak in OKLAHOMA students
OKLAHOMA salmonella outbreak grows
Sprouts sicken lots
Food items fail HONG KONG safety checks
MARYLAND: Salmonella found in diverse patterns in chickens
CANADA: Illness linked to frozen rodents used as pet food
CANADA: ATRAHAN Transformation Inc. fined $62,000 for violations of the Meat Inspection Act
First global guidelines for aquaculture certification finalized
The Vibrio cholerae virulence regulatory cascade controls glucose uptake through activation of TarA, a small regulatory RNA
UK: Advice issued on apples glazed with morpholine
Reduction of Escherichia coli O157:H7 viability on leafy green vegetables by treatment with a bacteriophage mixture and trans-cinnamaldehyde
Nonthermal inactivation and sublethal injury of Lactobacillus plantarum in apple cider by a pilot plant scale continuous supercritical carbon dioxide system
CANADA: Expanded health hazard alert – Certain raw oysters may contain foodborne pathogens
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Wales starts restaurant inspection disclosure; mom of E. coli child death says system sucks
02.oct.10
barfblog
Doug Powell
http://www.barfblog.com/blog/144366/10/10/02/wales-starts-restaurant-inspection-disclosure-mom-e-coli-child-death-says-syste
I know golf is boring. I only play the game when I don't want to be with my wife. I like my wife, I don't golf anymore.
The golf world is all a twitter with the Ryder Cup being held in Newport, Wales. Amy and Sorenne and I were there in January to visit the Powell family tree.
But in the food safety world, Wales is probably most famous for its terrible food safety failings in 2005.
Sharon Mills, the mother of 5-year-old Mason Jones, who was tragically killed in a 2005 E. coli outbreak in Wales that sickened 160 school kids, said the U.K. Food Standards Agency is putting the interests of businesses before public safety.
Abby Alford of the Western Mail reports that Mills comments came as the roll-out of a new food hygiene rating scheme, which will grade the cleanliness of more than 30,000 Welsh food retailers, began Friday.
Ms Mills, of Deri, near Bargoed, Caerphilly, said: "The FSA's decision not to base ratings on existing environmental health inspection reports provides a get-out clause to failing restaurants, cafes, shops, pubs and takeaways, as does the decision not to make it mandatory for them to display their rating."
Environmental health officers in the 22 local authorities have been told to award the food hygiene ratings from 0 for the worst to five for the best, based on routine inspections carried out after today. Businesses are inspected at six, 12 and 18-month intervals depending on the risk they pose. After their next inspection their rating will be uploaded to a dedicated website www.food.gov.uk/ratings.
Ms Mills said it would be months before the ratings would be made available to the public.
An FSA spokeswoman said it was not feasible to launch the scheme with all Welsh food businesses listed from the outset. But she added that within a 12-month period the highest risk categories of food businesses would have been visited at least once and their score ratings would be available.
Regarding mandatory display of the ratings, she said it would have required a change in legislation, which would have resulted in an "unwelcome delay" in implementing the scheme.
This is bureaucratic nonsense which the FSA has become famous for, especially its piping hot cooking recommendation.
Ms Mills said,
"It was this soft-touch approach which allowed William Tudor to continue trading and which ultimately led to the 2005 outbreak which cost Mason his life."
http://www.walesonline.co.uk/news/wales-news/2010/10/01/mistakes-being-repeated-says-e-coli-victim-s-mum-91466-27376896/
Third-party food-safety audits fall under intense scrutiny
30.sep.10
barfblog
Doug Powell
http://www.barfblog.com/blog/144337/10/09/30/third-party-food-safety-audits-fall-under-intense-scrutiny
I spent the morning hanging out with a couple of visiting food safety types from Jordan. What was striking was how much we agreed that arguments about government turf, the inadequacy of audits, and the failure of food safety messages with consumers and other humans was a global phenomenon.
Beth Weise writes in tomorrow's USA Today that if you've never heard of a third-party food-safety audit, you're not alone. Few Americans know or care what they are. To the companies that produce much of our food, they're an important tool to make sure it's safe and wholesome — but critics say the certificates the auditors issue often aren't worth the paper they're printed on.
Recent foodborne illness outbreaks have raised questions in Congress and elsewhere about the effectiveness of these audits and the impartialness of the process.
Auditors are the eyes and ears of a company buying food from a producer. A frozen-pizza maker hires an auditor to make sure the company it buys tomato sauce from has a clean, safe and well-run plant. But many problems — including dead chickens, rats, manure and salmonella — can fall through the cracks of their visits.
Last year, the Peanut Corp. of America, whose products sickened over 600 and may have killed as many as nine, got a "superior" rating at its Texas plant even as it was churning out peanut paste tainted with salmonella.
And last week Congress showed that one of Wright County Egg's egg-packing plants got a "superior" rating from the same company on June 8, just two months before Wright became part of the largest known egg recall in the United States.
The company, AIB International (of Manhattan, Kansas, sigh), lists five standards on its website that inspectors expect to see in a "facility that maintains a food-safe processing environment." They are: ensuring that raw materials are safely stored and handled; equipment, buildings and grounds are properly maintained; cleaning and sanitizing is adequate; pests monitored and managed; and staffers are working together to deliver a safe final product.
When FDA inspectors actually went into Wright County's henhouses at its Galt, Iowa, plant, they found vermin, filthy dead chickens and manure oozing out of doorways. More than 1,600 people were sickened in a salmonella enteritidis outbreak linked to the farm, and over 550 million eggs were recalled due to contamination at this plant and at nearby Hillandale Farms, where lesser problems were found.
"Superior" clearly doesn't mean much, says Rep. Bart Stupak, D-Mich. "How many dead mice do you have to find in your food before you get an 'Excellent' rating?"
Third-party food audits, like restaurant inspection, are a snapshot in time. Given the international sourcing of ingredients, audits are a requirement, but so is internal food safety intelligence to make sense of audits that are useful and audits that are chicken poop.
The third-party food safety audit scheme that processors and retailers insisted upon is no better than a financial Ponzi scheme. The vast number of facilities and suppliers means audits are required, but people have been replaced by paper.
Audits, inspections, training and systems are no substitute for developing a strong food safety culture, farm-to-fork, and marketing food safety directly to consumers rather than the local/natural/organic hucksterism is a way to further reinforce the food safety culture.
After the salmonella-in-peanut paste crap, Costco, a retail store, which previously limited AIB's inspections to its bakery vendors, has now instructed suppliers to not use AIB at all.
"The American Institute of Baking is bakery experts," said R. Craig Wilson, the top safety official at Costco. "But you stick them in a peanut butter plant or in a beef plant, they are stuffed."
Or as Mansour Samadpour of Seattle said at the time,
"The contributions of third-party audits to food safety is the same as the contribution of mail-order diploma mills to education."
I asked weeks ago, who were the buyers of DeCoster eggs who used AIB audits to justify putting salmonella on grocery store shelves? Any retailers want to step forward?
And market food safety at retail so consumers can choose the poop they wish to purchase.
http://www.usatoday.com/yourlife/food/safety/2010-10-01-foodaudits01_ST_N.htm?csp=34news&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+usatoday-NewsTopStories+%28News+-+Top+Stories%29
http://barfblog.foodsafety.ksu.edu/blog/144252/10/09/23/food-safety-auditors-can-suck-salmonella-egg-producer-got-ok-same-auditor-oked-
Salmonella outbreak in OKLAHOMA students
01.oct.10
barfblog
Doug Powell
http://www.barfblog.com/blog/144338/10/10/01/salmonella-outbreak-oklahoma-students
The Oklahoma state health department has confirmed 10 children at four different Mustang elementary schools have contracted the same strain of Salmonella. The first case was spotted Sept. 2 and the last case was reported Sept. 13. The Health Department has teams in Mustang trying to determine the cause of the outbreak. No children have been hospitalized.
In a letter to parents and guardians, Mustang Public Schools said, and I'm not making this up,
"Mustang Public Schools' Child Nutrition Department has a stellar record, and we want to assure our parents salmonellosis is not necessarily related to food preparation. Salmonella begins with a contaminated product, and we are working diligently with the State Department of Health officials to determine the origin of the cases.
OK, what's it related too?
http://www.kfor.com/news/local/kfor-news-mustang-students-salmonella-story,0,1874728.story
OKLAHOMA salmonella outbreak grows
02.oct.10
NewsOk
Sonya Colberg
http://www.newsok.com/oklahoma-salmonella-outbreak-grows/article/3500651?custom_click=pod_headline_health
Oklahoma's salmonella outbreak has grown to 15 cases in three counties. The state Health Department is investigating but has not yet been able to determine a source of contamination.
The Oklahoma salmonella outbreak has risen to 15 identified cases in three counties. The state Health Department's investigation also determined the outbreak may extend into two other states.
The department is monitoring the outbreak of a similar strain of salmonella identified in Iowa and Nebraska, said Laurence Burnsed, the Oklahoma Health Department's communicable disease division director.
Those states are reporting just a couple of cases, so far.
Sprouts sicken lots
30.sep.10
barfblog
Doug Powell
http://www.barfblog.com/blog/144339/10/10/01/sprouts-sicken-lots
Sprouts seem to be making barf in lots of places.
In addition to the 125 confirmed cases in the U.K., both New York and California today issued recalls for poop on sprouts.
The New York State Department of Agriculture & Markets alerted consumers that Essex Farm Inc. located at 120 Essex St. #32 & 33, in New York, New York, is recalling all packages of "Soybean Sprouts" due to the presence of Listeria monocytogenes.
Meanwhile, the California Department of Public Health today warned consumers not to eat Banner Mountain Alfalfa Sprouts because they might be contaminated with salmonella.
Consumers should discard the sprouts or return them to the place of purchase. No illnesses have been associated with the Banner Mountain product at this time, according to the CDPH.
The recalled alfalfa sprouts are packaged in four-ounce, clear, flexible, clamshell plastic containers with green labels containing sell by dates from September 7 to October 8, 2010.
http://barfblog.foodsafety.ksu.edu/blog/144325/10/09/30/uk-salmonella-sprout-outbreak-sickens-125
http://readme.readmedia.com/Consumer-Alert-Listeria-in-Soybean-Sprouts/1733960
http://www.mynews4.com/story.php?id=28845&n=122
Food items fail HONG KONG safety checks
30.sep.10
UPI
http://www.upi.com/Health_News/2010/09/30/Food-items-fail-Hong-Kong-safety-checks/UPI-11701285869140/
HONG KONG -- Food safety authorities in Hong Kong say recent tests of 3,900 food samples in local shops and restaurants found 14 food items that failed safety checks.
Hong Kong's Center for Food Safety took about 2,700 samples for chemical tests and the remainder for microbiological and other tests, Xinhua news agency reported.
Among the food items failing were frozen suckling pig with excessive levels of a veterinary drug, frozen fish and shrimp with high mercury levels, and some fresh fish with elevated levels of cadmium, Xinhua said.
A sample of Singaporean-style fried noodles was contaminated with bacteria, while other foods were found to contain banned preservative chemicals.
The food safety center issued citations to the shops and restaurants involved, Xinhua reported.
MARYLAND: Salmonella found in diverse patterns in chickens
01.oct.10
Meatingplace
Lisa M. Keefe
http://www.meatingplace.com/MembersOnly/webNews/details.aspx?item=18839
When salmonella is present on chicken carcasses, it exhibits a diverse pattern of contamination, and often more than one type of salmonella is present, according to new åresearch published in the September 2010 issue of the Journal of Food Protection.
In the article, "Qualitative Map of Salmonella Contamination on Young Chicken Carcasses," researchers from USDA and the University of Maryland mapped the distribution of salmonella on young chicken carcasses in the Cornish game hen class. The chickens were bought at retail over a three-year period. The carcasses were sectioned into 12 parts and salmonella was isolated and cultured, and characterized for serotype and antibiotic resistance.
Salmonella was detected in 21.5 percent (181 of 840) of the parts, and in 57.1 percent (40 of 70) of the carcasses. The researchers determined that the rib back and the sacral back were the most contaminated parts of the carcass. Of the contaminated whole carcasses, researchers determined that there were 37 different patterns of contamination, and 33 of the 40 carcasses had more than one type of salmonella present.
The researchers concluded that "whole-carcass incubation succeeded by characterization of multiple isolates per carcass is needed to properly assess and manage this risk to public health."
CANADA: Illness linked to frozen rodents used as pet food
01.oct.10
Public Health Agency of Canada
http://www.marketwire.com/press-release/Illness-Linked-to-Frozen-Rodents-Used-as-pet-Food-1328075.htm////
OTTAWA, ONTARIO -- The Public Health Agency of Canada (PHAC) advises owners of pet reptiles such as snakes and lizards to take precautions when feeding them frozen mice, rats and chicks, as these products may be contaminated with Salmonella. There have been seven reported cases of human illness in Canada between April-August 2010 that are due to a specific strain of Salmonella that has been linked to frozen rodents. Salmonella bacteria are easily spread to others if proper precautions are not taken.
Always wash hands thoroughly with soap and water after feeding or handling or cleaning up after pet reptiles. Clean surfaces that come into contact with the reptiles or their food.
Other forms of pet food have been known to carry Salmonella bacteria. PHAC advises all pet owners to wash hands thoroughly with soap and water after feeding or handling or cleaning up after their pets.
Symptoms of a Salmonella infection, called salmonellosis, typically start 6 to 72 hours after exposure to a contaminated product. Symptoms include
* Diarrhea
* Fever
* Abdominal cramps
* Nausea
* Vomiting
* Chills
* Headache
These symptoms usually last four to seven days. In healthy people, salmonellosis often clears up without treatment. People who experience severe symptoms, or who have underlying medical conditions, should contact their health care providers if they suspect they have a Salmonella infection.
If you choose to dispose of frozen reptile food products, PHAC recommends that you seal them in a plastic bag and place them in a covered garbage can. Wash your hands with soap and water after handling the products.
PHAC is investigating with its provincial and territorial counterparts whether this outbreak of illness is associated with a similar illness in the United States and whether the product implicated in the U.S. outbreak was distributed in Canada. More information is available at http://www.cdc.gov/salmonella/frozenrodents/index.html.
CANADA: ATRAHAN Transformation Inc. fined $62,000 for violations of the Meat Inspection Act
30.sep.10
CFIA
http://inspection.gc.ca/english/corpaffr/projud/2010/20100930e.shtml
Montreal, Quebec - On July 20, 2010, at the Trois-Rivières courthouse, ATRAHAN Transformation Inc., located in Yamachiche, pleaded guilty to 27 charges of violating the Meat Inspection Act and Regulations.
The Court of Quebec fined the company $62,000.
ATRAHAN Transformation Inc., which operates Establishment 80 under the terms of the Meat Inspection Act, was convicted of offences occurring between October 2007 and May 2008. The violations of Part III of the Meat Inspection Regulations, 1990 involve failure to comply with the requirements of humane treatment and slaughter, improper operation of a bolt pistol, inadequate monitoring of carcasses and impeding the work of inspectors.
The Canadian Food Inspection Agency is responsible for enforcing a variety of federal statutes, including the Meat Inspection Act and Regulations. This legislation governs the humane treatment and slaughter of animals in federally registered abattoirs. Such establishments must also meet inspection standards for the animals and meat products prepared there.
First global guidelines for aquaculture certification finalized
01.oct.10
FAO
http://www.fao.org/news/story/en/item/45834/icode/
Rome/Phuket, Thailand - The first global guidelines for aquaculture certification have been adopted by the Sub-Committee on Aquaculture of the Committee on Fisheries, part of the UN Food and Agriculture Organization. Over 50 countries attended the meeting of the sub-committee, which is the only global intergovernmental forum discussing aquaculture development.
The guidelines, which are non-binding, cover animal health, food safety, the environment and socio-economic issues relating to aquaculture workers. They will now go to the Committee on Fisheries when it meets in Rome in January 2011 for approval.
If the guidelines are followed in full by countries, certification will enable consumers standing at the fish counter to know whether the shrimp they are considering buying were raised without damaging a coastal mangrove swamp, whether the fish farm worker was paid a fair wage, and whether the shell fish is free of contamination.
Although aquatic animal health and food safety issues have been subjected to certification and international compliance for many years, the new guidelines mark the first time animal welfare, environmental issues and socio-economic aspects have been subjected to compliance or certification.
"These guidelines have been developed to bring some harmony to what is the fastest growing food sector in the world," said FAO aquaculture expert Rohana Subasinghe. "Certification of aquaculture products has proliferated over the years claiming all kinds of things. There was no criteria, no benchmarks or agreed principles. Aquaculture products are globally traded and it is important that we ensure responsible production and consumer satisfaction."
The guidelines were finalized after four years of consultation and debate among governments, producers, processors and traders.
Eighty percent of fish farmers are small-scale, often with a backyard pond for fish or a shrimp pond along the coast. One thorny issue that had to be resolved was how a costly certification process could be engineered so as not to shut small-scale producers out of the market.
The guidelines call on governments to support capacity building of fish producers for developing and complying with aquaculture certification systems. "There are ways for small producers to operate within a modern certification system. For example, in India and Thailand clusters of fish farmers share the costs of certification so they are not too heavy for each farmer," Subasinghe said.
The Vibrio cholerae virulence regulatory cascade controls glucose uptake through activation of TarA, a small regulatory RNA
01.oct.10
Molecular Microbiology
Aimee L. Richard, Jeffrey H. Withey, Sinem Beyhan, Fitnat Yildiz, Victor J. DiRita
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1365-2958.2010.07397.x/abstract
Summary
Vibrio cholerae causes the severe diarrhoeal disease cholera. A cascade of regulators controls expression of virulence determinants in V. cholerae at both transcriptional and post-transcriptional levels. ToxT is the direct transcription activator of the major virulence genes in V. cholerae. Here we describe TarA, a highly conserved, small regulatory RNA, whose transcription is activated by ToxT from toxboxes present upstream of the ToxT-activated gene tcpI. TarA regulates ptsG, encoding a major glucose transporter in V. cholerae. Cells overexpressing TarA exhibit decreased steady-state levels of ptsG mRNA and grow poorly in glucose-minimal media. A mutant lacking the ubiquitous regulatory protein Hfq expresses diminished TarA levels, indicating that TarA likely interacts with Hfq to regulate gene expression. RNAhybrid analysis of TarA and the putative ptsG mRNA leader suggests potential productive base-pairing between these two RNA molecules. A V. cholerae mutant lacking TarA is compromised for infant mouse colonization in competition with wild type, suggesting a role in the in vivo fitness of V. cholerae. Although somewhat functionally analogous to SgrS of Escherichia coli, TarA does not encode a regulatory peptide, and its expression is activated by the virulence gene pathway in V. cholerae and not by glycolytic intermediates.
UK: Advice issued on apples glazed with morpholine
01.oct.10
FSA
http://www.food.gov.uk/news/newsarchive/2010/oct/morpholine
Following information received via a sampling programme, the Food Standards Agency is informing local authorities that the non-permitted additive morpholine has been found on some apples imported to the UK from Chile.
Morpholine is used as a carrier for glazing agents applied to fruit and is permitted in various countries outside of the EU, including Chile, the USA and Canada. No application has been made to approve this additive in the EU, therefore it should not be present in food on sale in member states.
The Agency has undertaken an initial risk assessment based on information currently available. Exposure to morpholine at the levels detected on these apples is likely to be of low risk to consumers.
Food business operators have been advised that affected apples should not be on sale in the UK. In addition, any affected produce in transit should be returned to the country of origin or any other non-EU country where the use of morpholine is permitted. Produce located at UK ports should not enter the UK supply chain.
Reduction of Escherichia coli O157:H7 viability on leafy green vegetables by treatment with a bacteriophage mixture and trans-cinnamaldehyde
30.sep.10
Food Microbiology
Stelios Viazisa, Mastura Akhtara, Joellen Feirtaga and Francisco Diez-Gonzalez
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=ArticleURL&_udi=B6WFP-514P5W4-1&_user=10&_coverDate=09%2F30%2F2010&_rdoc=1&_fmt=high&_orig=search&_origin=search&_sort=d&_docanchor=&view=c&_acct=C000050221&_version=1&_urlVersion=0&_userid=10&md5=753b45145d433d9fa52a13a90b1bce98&searchtype=a
Abstract
Enterohemorrhagic Escherichia coli (EHEC) O157:H7 has been recognized as a major foodborne pathogen responsible for frequent gastroenteritis outbreaks. Phages and essential olis can be used as a natural antimicrobial method to reduce bacterial pathogens from the food supply. The objective of this study was to determine the effect of a bacteriophage cocktail, BEC8, alone and in combination with the essential oil trans-cinnameldehyde (TC) on the viability of a mixture of EHEC O157:H7 strains applied on whole baby romaine lettuce and baby spinach leaves. The EHEC O157:H7 strains used were NalR mutants of EK27, ATCC 43895, and 472. Exponentially growing cells from tryptic soy (TS) broth cultures were spot inoculated on leaves and dried. EHEC cells were placed at low, medium, and high inoculum levels (104, 105, and 106 CFU/mL, respectively). Appropriate controls, BEC8 (approx. 106 PFU/leaf), and TC (0.5% v/v) were applied on treated leaves. The leaves were incubated at 4, 8, room temperature (RT), and 37°C in Petri dishes with moistened filter papers. EHEC survival was determined using standard plate count on nalidixic acid (50 μg/mL) Sorbitol MacConkey agar. No survivors were detected when both leaves were treated with BEC8 or TC individually at low inoculum levels after 24 h at 23 and 37°C. When the EHEC inoculum size increased and/or incubation temperature decreased, the efficacy of BEC8 and TC decreased. However, when the two treatments were combined, no survivors were detected after 10 min at all temperatures and inoculum levels on both leafy greens. These results indicated that the BEC8/TC combination was highly effective against EHEC on both leafy greens. This combination could potentially be used as an antimicrobial to inactivate EHEC O157:H7 and reduce their incidence in the food chain.
Nonthermal inactivation and sublethal injury of Lactobacillus plantarum in apple cider by a pilot plant scale continuous supercritical carbon dioxide system
30.sep.10
Food Microbiology
Hyun-Gyun Yuk and David J. Geveke
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=ArticleURL&_udi=B6WFP-514P5W4-2&_user=10&_coverDate=09%2F30%2F2010&_rdoc=1&_fmt=high&_orig=search&_origin=search&_sort=d&_docanchor=&view=c&_acct=C000050221&_version=1&_urlVersion=0&_userid=10&md5=4a3776413eb655e400a9d327031b6f77&searchtype=a
Abstract
The objective of this study was to evaluate the efficacy of supercritical carbon dioxide (SCCO2) for inactivating Lactobacillus plantarum in apple cider using a continuous system with a gas-liquid metal contactor. Pasteurized apple cider without preservatives was inoculated with L. plantarum and processed using a SCCO2 system at a CO2 concentration range of 0 – 12% (g CO2/100 g product), outlet temperatures of 34, 38, and 42 °C, a system pressure of 7.6 MPa, and a flow rate of 1 L/min. Processing with SCCO2 significantly (P < 0.05) enhanced inactivation of L. plantarum in apple cider, resulting in a 5-log reduction with 8% CO2 at 42 °C. The response surface model indicated that both CO2 concentration and temperature contributed to the microbial inactivation. The extent of sublethal injury in surviving cells in processed apple cider increased as CO2 concentration and processing temperature increased, however the percent injury dramatically decreased during SCCO2 processing at 42 °C. Structural damage in cell membranes after SCCO2 processing was observed by SEM. Refrigeration (4 °C) after SCCO2 processing effectively inhibited the re-growth of surviving L. plantarum during storage for 28 days. Thus this study suggests that SCCO2 processing is effective in eliminating L. plantarum and could be applicable for nonthermal pasteurization of apple cider.
CANADA: Expanded health hazard alert – Certain raw oysters may contain foodborne pathogens
01.oct.10
CFIA
http://www.inspection.gc.ca/english/corpaffr/recarapp/2010/20101001e.shtml
OTTAWA -- The public warning issued on September 30, 2010 has been expanded to include various additional raw oysters. These raw oysters were harvested between September 7 and 21, 2010 from site 23-6 (land file #1403799) of the Effingham inlet Vancouver Coastal region of British Columbia.
The Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA) is warning the public not to consume various types of the raw oysters described below because they may contain foodborne pathogens.
The following raw oysters are affected by this alert:
Processed & Distributed By
Type of Oysters & Size
Code (Lot #)
Distributed in
Evening Cove Oyster Processing Ltd.,
Nanaimo, BC Effingham XSM
(5 dozen)
FP 150
FP 150 W
FP 155
FP 155 W
FP 158
FP 158 W
British Columbia
Albion Fisheries Ltd.,
Victoria, BC
Effingham XSM
(variable quantity)
416703
416704
416789
416790
416893
416894
British Columbia
Pacific Rim Shellfish
(2003) Corporation,
Vancouver, BC
Pacific Rim Petite
(variable quantity)
1090804
British Columbia
Albion Fisheries Ltd., Vancouver, BC
Pacific Rim Petite
(5 dozen)
172688
British Columbia and Alberta
Albion Fisheries Ltd., Vancouver, BC
Effingham XSM
(5 dozen)
173235
British Columbia
Sea World Fisheries Ltd., Vancouver, BC
Live Effingham Inlet
Shell Oyster
(5 dozen)
NW-OY-10090701
British Columbia
Sea World Fisheries Ltd., Vancouver, BC
Live Effingham Inlet
Shell Oyster
(5 dozen)
NW-OY-10092101
British Columbia and Ontario
These raw oysters were distributed to various retail and institutional clients. In addition, these oysters may have been sold in smaller quantities at some retail seafood counters. Consumers who are unsure whether they have the affected product are advised to check with their retailer or supplier.
There have been illnesses associated with the consumption of these raw oysters. Symptoms of the reported illness include nausea, vomiting, diarrhoea, and stomach cramps.
The CFIA is collaborating with its partners, Vancouver Coastal Health (VCH), British Columbia Centre for Disease Control (BC CDC), Public Health Agency of Canada (PHAC) and Health Canada to investigate these illnesses. This investigation is ongoing.
Food contaminated with foodborne pathogens may not look or smell spoiled. Consumption of food contaminated with these organisms may cause foodborne illness, sometimes called food poisoning. Symptoms vary by organism, but can include nausea, vomiting, diarrhoea, abdominal pain, fever, headache, dizziness and neck stiffness. Young children, pregnant women, the elderly and people with weakened immune systems may be more at risk.
The processors and distributors listed above are voluntarily recalling the affected oysters from the marketplace. The CFIA is monitoring the effectiveness of the recall.
For more information consumers and industry can call the CFIA at 1-800-442-2342 / TTY 1-800-465-7735 (8:00 a.m. to 8:00 p.m. Eastern time, Monday to Friday).
For information on the Common Causes of Foodborne Illness, visit the Food Facts web page at: http://www.inspection.gc.ca/english/fssa/concen/causee.shtml
For information on all food recalls, visit the CFIA's Food Recall Report at: http://active.inspection.gc.ca/eng/corp/recarapp_dbe.asp.
To find out more about receiving recalls by e-mail, and other food safety facts, visit: www.foodsafety.gc.ca. Food and consumer product recalls are also available at http://www.healthycanadians.gc.ca.
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