Today’s inspirational words may be found in the New York Times:
Dangerous Imports
Published: June 24, 2011
“The Food and Drug Administration has proposed sensible steps to cope with the dangers posed by a flood of imported food, drugs, cosmetics and medical devices. The trouble is, Congressional Republicans are determined to cut the agency’s budget when it ought to be getting an increase to deal with this worsening risk…”
Cassi Creek:
Since Congress is about to take another paid vacation, hammering home yet again their self-elevation above the once middle-class; we may wish to consider some political theater. Since many foods commonly served at picnics are prone to bacterial infection during processing or during final preparation, perhaps those of us who believe that the FDA serves a necessary purpose in protecting the American food chain should host one or more picnics and invite, as guests of honor, those legislators who have voiced their contempt for the FDA.
Fried chicken often arrives with salmonella species resident in the raw flesh. Careless preparation can easily spread that contamination to other chicken and to side dishes. Packing it while it is warm and then holding it through a long-winded, self-agrandizing campaign speech or two makes it quite likely to infect any number of attendees. If lucky, the politician will be among those so chosen by their own failure to fund the FDA.
I never eat chicken at any sort of pot luck, picnic, or other event where the purchase, storage, preparation, and transportation are out of my direct control. I’m not running for political office and don’t have to worry about offending a voter. Congresspersons, on the other hand, are always running for re-election.
Ground beef is an excellent source of enteric upset. Campylobacter and many other pathogens such as E. coli can spread rapidly and widely as a result of poor sanitation at preparation and packaging. See the chart below for more information than you want to know.
Green salads are havens for bacteria. They are often composed of vegetables and fruits contaminated in the fields by workers and not properly cleaned at processing and packing. Bits and pieces of lettuces, peppers, tomatoes, and other veggies and greens can and do harbor enteric pathogens that can sicken and even kill consumer/tax payers.
Potato salad, macaroni salad, and other sides can be contaminated with Staph aureus, producing a fast-acting entero-toxin that will appear rapidly after ingestion. The effect is brutal, producing upset at both ends of the GI tract.
I’m not, of course, suggesting that anyone should attempt to infect or otherwise transmit a food-borne illness to a GOP or teavangelist legislator. However, since they show so little concern for the well-being of our citizenry, and are pledged to destroy the FDA by defunding it; as the Beachboys sang,” Wouldn’t it be nice.”
Gastrointestinal infection
Certain strains of E. coli, such as O157:H7, O104:H4, O121, O26, O103, O111, O145,and O104:H21, produce potentially lethaltoxins. Food poisoning caused by E. coli can result from eating unwashed vegetables or undercooked meat. O157:H7 is also notorious for causing serious and even life-threatening complications such as hemolytic-uremic syndrome. This particular strain is linked to the 2006 United States E. coli outbreak due to fresh spinach. The O104:H4 strain is equally virulent. Antibiotic and supportive treatment protocols for it are not as well-developed (it has the ability to be very enterohemorrhagic like O157:H7, causing bloody diarrhea, but also is more enteroaggregative, meaning it adheres well and clumps to intestinal membranes). It is the strain behind the ongoing and deadly June 2011 E. coli outbreak in Europe. Severity of the illness varies considerably; it can be fatal, particularly to young children, the elderly or the immunocompromised, but is more often mild. Earlier, poor hygienic methods of preparing meat in Scotland killed seven people in 1996 due to E. coli poisoning, and left hundreds more infected. E. coli can harbour both heat-stable and heat-labile enterotoxins. The latter, termed LT, contain one A subunit and five B subunits arranged into one holotoxin, and are highly similar in structure and function to cholera toxins. The B subunits assist in adherence and entry of the toxin into host intestinal cells, while the A subunit is cleaved and prevents cells from absorbing water, causing diarrhea. LT is secreted by the Type 2 secretion pathway
If E. coli bacteria escape the intestinal tract through a perforation (for example from an ulcer, a ruptured appendix, or due to asurgical error) and enter the abdomen, they usually cause peritonitis that can be fatal without prompt treatment. However, E. coli are extremely sensitive to such antibiotics asstreptomycin or gentamicin. This could change since, as noted below, E. coli quickly acquires drug resistance.[ Recent research suggests treatment with antibiotics does not improve the outcome of the disease[citation needed], and may in fact significantly increase the chance of developing haemolytic-uremic syndrome
Intestinal mucosa-associated E. coli are observed in increased numbers in the inflammatory bowel diseases, Crohn's disease and ulcerative colitis Invasive strains of E. coli exist in high numbers in the inflamed tissue, and the number of bacteria in the inflamed regions correlates to the severity of the bowel inflammation
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Enteric E. coli (EC) are classified on the basis of serological characteristics and virulence properties.Virotypes include: see chart at link
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Escherichia_coli
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Escherichia_coli
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