Good News on Bird Flu, Less So on E. Coli
Funny—this time last year, I was scrambling to write a quick-turn story on the threat of avian influenza, or bird flu.
Now the press is asking where bird flu has gone.
I'm not saying it's totally gone—not by a long shot, as that AP story makes clear. And while there was understandably a lot of drama as the press and the restaurant industry followed that outbreak, I never feared for the safety of our food supply. Thanks to another bug, salmonella, everyone knows you've got to handle and cook chicken safely, and chances are very tiny any one of us is handling chicken carcasses or excrement.
Just saying it's strange, and maybe a little scary, how quickly things can change. Let's just be happy we're dealing with an ebb, not a surge.
Speaking of surging, there are more cases of E. coli poisoning, this time in Iowa. The Taco John's chain has been implicated in many, but not all, of the Iowa cases. Responding quickly, Taco John's discarded all food from one franchised location, sanitized the restaurant and kitchen, and restocked. The company also issued a public statement right away.
Comments
If you were to look at our site today, you will see that the South Korean Agriculture and Forestry Ministry, has today announced the country's THIRD positive bird flu outbreak in the last 3 weeks.
This is after South Korea had just completed culling hundreds of thousands of poultry from two earlier outbreaks.
Where bird flu has gone?
Well nowhere really. It is still here and is slowly, but steadily growing!
We have to day added the "Good News on Bird Flu, Less So on E. Coli" post of your blog, to the Best-Bird-Flu-Blogs sections of our site.
The-Best-Bird-Flu-Blogs-team.
www.birdflubreakingnews.com
Posted by: The-Best-Bird-Flu-Blogs-team. | December 11, 2006 09:17 AM
"chances are very tiny any one of us is handling chicken carcasses or excrement."
Go take a look at http://birdflubook.com and see just how much bird fecal matter, i.e. excrement, you are handling.
"Cooking the Crap Out of It"
http://birdflubook.com/a.php?id=22
short exert:
"Medical researchers at the University of Minnesota recently took more than a thousand food samples from multiple retail markets and found evidence of fecal contamination in 69% of the pork and beef and 92% of the poultry samples, as evidenced by contamination with the intestinal bug E. coli."
Also check out the next section "Handle with Care": http://birdflubook.com/a.php?id=23
http://birdflubook.com
Posted by: David | December 12, 2006 10:14 AM