Jack In The Box E. Coli Outbreak

Schwan’s Sales Enterprise had the largest foodborne illness outbreak in history in Marshall, Minnesota around 1994 (Rubenstein, 1998). Cliff Viessman, a tanker truck operator transported a shipment of raw eggs that may have been infected with salmonella bacteria. The suspected contamination was unknown to Viessman’s employees. A foodborne illness is an infection or irritation of the gastrointestinal that caused by food or beverages that contain harmful bacteria, parasites, viruses, or chemicals. The company truck was parked and pressure washed to eliminate the bacteria. The next assignment was to transport ice cream mix to the Schwan’s plant (Rubenstein, 1998). Schwan’s company heard about the bacteria that may have affected their product and

The book Poisoned by Jeff Benedict was not only enjoyable but also has a lot of information concerned food safety. The author writes chronologically a story about the Escherichia coli O157:H7 outbreak that took place in Washington State on 1993 because that event change the way American eating habits. The outbreak was confirmed by Dr, Phil Tarr after he was receiving many patient who were children under 10 years old, and had the same symptoms. The number of patient and the brutality of the symptoms leaded to Dr, Tarr to contact an old friend that they used to work together particularly in E.coli. Tarr's friend was John Kobayashi who has the high position in the Department on the public heath Washington State Public Department (Benedict, 2011).

Initially, the outbreak and recall was set for bagged spinach on September 14th, but the very next day the U.S. Food and Drug Administration recalled all spinach, both bagged and fresh. The outbreak was due to a suspected E. coli O157:H7. Because of the outbreak, 200 people were reported to the CDC from 26 states as having been infected with that particular outbreak strain; more than 100 of those cases were hospitalized, and 31 of them developed a form of kidney failure, which resulted in the deaths of three people. So why is a breakout that may only have affected 200 people so important and relevant to everyone? It’s important to make sure that our food is edible and not contaminated because in this situation with spinach—according to data collected through surveys— nearly half (48%) of Americans reported that they ate fresh spinach before the recall and did so frequently. There was no complete resolution on the exact cause of E. Coli on spinach, but it was believed to be from samples taken from a stream and from feces of cattle and wild pigs present on ranches, due to a genetic match from those who were infected. For some consumers, the spinach recall may be a type of “signal event” indicating a wider problem that they do not yet see as having been solved. Although spinach is something that is generally looked at as “healthy” to its consumers, it is apparent that there is still a problem with the safety and health concerning fresh produce for the public. This occurrence in 2006 was a turning point for many, realizing that even what should be our freshest food can be contaminated, and that more effort needs to be taken in order to protect the public from

Factory farming is the industrial production of raising animals such as cattle, poultry, swine, and sheep for meat. Many questions and concerns within the field are based on animal treatment and the cleanliness of the factory farm facilities. These questions and concerns are needed to guarantee the safety of both the animals and consumers. The unhealthy living environments combined with excessive antibiotic use in factory farms causes concern in the meat processing industry.

Escherichia coli O157:H7 causes 73,000 illnesses in the United States annually. A review of E. coli O157 outbreaks reported to Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to better understand its epidemiology. E. coli O157 outbreaks revealed that in that period, 49 states reported 350 outbreaks, representing 8,598 cases, 1,493 (17%) hospitalizations, 354 (4%) hemolytic uremic syndrome cases, and 40 (0.5%) deaths. Clinical laboratories began examining more stool specimens for E. coli O157. In 1994, E. coli O157 became a nationally notifiable infection, and by 2000, reporting was mandatory in 48 states. Escherichia coli O157:H7 was first recognized as a pathogen in 1982 during an outbreak investigation of hemorrhagic colitis.

Fast food has quickly managed to imprint itself on American culture. The greasy, unhealthy form of empty calories has infiltrated into the homes of many, including my own. In my younger days, my parents often took me out and treated me to french fries and chicken nuggets. It had become a tradition to go to McDonald’s every week. This poor eating pattern has now led to my family having a special fondness for the fast food chain, just as McDonald’s strives for.

coli, another undisclosed truth comes to light in this documentary. To get rid of the E. coli, our meat products are thoroughly cleansed with ammonia. Ammonia is a chemical that most Americans recognize as a household cleaning item, and now this chemical is in our meat. We are being secretly exposed to this chemical and it is not even guaranteed to work 100% of the time. However, this is not the only chemical used in our food. When eating an out of season fruit, Americans run the risk of eating a fruit that is artificially ripened. Since tomatoes cannot grow in America in the winter, they are picked while green from overseas. Once they arrive in America and are ready to go to market, they are ripened with ethylene gas. Ethylene gas “contains traces of arsenic and phosphorus hydride” (Siddiqui). These traces can cause chronic health defects such as “vomiting, diarrhea with or without blood, burning sensation of the chest and abdomen, thirst, weakness, permanent eye damage, etc.” (Siddiqui). As we can see, the major food companies hide very serious issues from the public, because if they knew the truth, many consumers would be appalled and possibly stop buying their products.

Corn is the number one grain used to feed animals for slaughter. Feeding cows corn instead of their natural diet lead to the unintentional creation of 157H7 E. coli, a deadly bacteria that can kill. The film reveals how food standards have dropped, with only 9,164 safety inspections from the FDA each year as compared to over 50,000 in 1972. The food industry has become consolidated to the point of a few companies having a great deal of power and influence via the government. The USDA is no longer able to shutdown plants with contaminated meat. A bill titled “Kevin’s Law” had the intent of changing that, but, after 6 years, the bill still has not been passed. Food companies have made some attempts to reduce E. coli by cleaning their meats in an ammonia solution. However, unhealthy food is being subsidized and contributing to American obesity and the rise of type 2 diabetes in adolescents.

According to Ronnie Cummings of In Motion Magazine, after several dozen consumers in Colorado were poisoned by E-coli feces in their burgers, 25 million pounds of hamburger meat had to be recalled from the Hudson Foods Corporation. Much of the E. coli found in meat appears to be a product of feedlot life of cattle getting a feedlot diet and living in their own manure. The feedlot lifestyle is a common practice of corporate manufactured meat.

Therefore, a PhD Microbiologist Lance Price with his teammates speculate the meat as one of a source of E. coli that cause the urinary tract infections. Also, dirty hands and equipment, or undercooked meat could give a rise of creating bacterias on the meat and result in threatening infections. They compare the bacteria on the supermarket meat and the specimen from the hospital to find if there are any connection inside. They end up a guessing conclusion of infections from meat that the E. coli in the urinary tract infection, the E. coli in the food derive from the same indigenous E. coli population; however, it is hard to continue further research on it due to the lack of data on how antibiotics are being used on farm. Moreover, the agency Food and Drug Administration tries to regulate the number of using farm antibiotics nearly 40 years ago. In 1977, a commissioner, Donald Kennedy, who is a Stanford biologist, proposed restrictions on two of the most general used farm antibiotics which are penicillin and tetracycline. He says that, “ we’re creating resistant that may ultimately transfer that resistant to organisms that cause human disease.”

From 2006 to 2011 Taco Bell’s reputation was suffering tremendously and it all started when there was an E. Coli outbreak. E. Coli or Escherichia coli is for the most part being a common yet harmless bacteria but extreme strains have been known to cause a variety of symptoms from abdominal cramps to diarrhea. The E. coli outbreak resulted in 71 infections, 53 hospitalizations, and 8 cases of people with kidney failure that spread over the course of 5 states. Taco Bell which is a Mexican-style restaurant market in the U.S. that serves burritos, tacos and other Mexican specialties. The illnesses onset ranged from November 20 to December 6. The peak of the people becoming ill was the very last week of November. Past December 6 there was no further outbreak of the disease. After the outbreak CDC, the center for disease and control and

Foodborne diseases result from the ingestion of over 200 pathogens, chemicals, and parasites, which are contaminated in foods and food products at different points in the food production and preparation process. 1 The Center for Disease Prevention and Control (CDC) is tracks foodborne diseases through reports from state and local health departments and various surveillance systems. Though there have been many methods of control and prevention within food safety laws, there are high chances of underreporting incidents of foodborne diseases. Foodborne illnesses can be severe or even fatal; milder cases are often not detected through routine surveillance.12 Medical professionals, health departments, and laboratories play key roles in identifying foodborne diseases and their sources and reporting them through surveillance systems. Also, some agents transmitted commonly through food (e.g., norovirus) are not monitored by certain surveillance systems because clinical laboratories do not routinely test for them. Most foodborne diseases can be prevented, and progress has been made in decreasing contamination of some foods and reducing illness caused by pathogens, but much remains to be done.4

The high level of resistance to antimicrobial drugs among bacteria colonizing commercial livestock has raised concerns about the significance to human health of such resistance. The transmissibility of resistant organisms from animal to human hosts has been fundamental to this concern. Kathy Parsonnet and Edward Kass, conducted a study on women who compared Escherichia coli (E. coli) and the rate of contracting the disease. Parsonnet and Kass studied about seven hundred and fifty women from a meat production facility. The average number of antibiotic infused meat handled per shift by each worker was one thousand. In addition to repeated contact by the handling of the meat carcasses, the hands and arms of the women came into frequent

The burden of foodborne illness in the United States is serious; “about 1 in 6 people in the United States get sick each year, 128,000 are hospitalized, and about 3,000 die annually.”2 There are various agencies (governmental and non-governmental) advocating for food safety and the health of the public. The three federal governmental agencies with the most control on food safety are the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), and the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). The CDC serves as “the national focus for developing and applying disease prevention and control, environmental health, health promotion and health education activities designed to improve the health of the people of the U.S.”3 All medical professionals and health departments are required to report foodborne diseases cases and outbreaks to the CDC through these

Industrial farming feeding practices and mistreatment of animals poses many health risks to consumers. Animals raised on industrial farms are confined in feedlots and neglected in these contaminated facilities. First, industrial farming animals have no access to sunlight, fresh air or open pasture. Often, they are densely packed in cattle pens filled with their own waste. Additionally, during long distance transports they are not given food, water or time to rest. As a result, agribusinesses deliver unhealthy and treacherous food to supermarkets that deceive the public into buying food that is not safe. For instance, because factory farms use antibiotics excessively to prevent disease in animals consumers become antibiotic resistant themselves, which is very dangerous when they are hospitalized. Then, the antibiotic overexposure common in consumers who