IN THIS ISSUE
We haven't killed anyone yet ... have we?

By Bill McBride*

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More than five million cases of food borne illness occur in Australia each year.

It’s the standard response every time a small to medium-sized food business is required to implement a HACCP-based food safety program by their corporate customers – “why do we need to do all this stuff?  We’ve been operating for (pick a number) years and we haven't killed anyone yet!”  To which the obvious qualification is “well, not that you know of”, and response is “so let’s keep it that way”.

The Australian Government Department of Health and Ageing recently published an OzFoodNet report estimating the incidence of foodborne illness in Australia.  The report documented that annually 5.4 million cases of food borne illness occurred in Australia, with a credible interval of 4 to 6.9 million cases. Contaminated food causes approximately 18,000 hospitalisations and 120 deaths every year. The majority of food borne illness is due to gastroenteritis, which causes 2.1 million lost days off work, 1.2 million people to visit a doctor, and 300,000 prescriptions for antibiotics (source www.ozfoodnet.org.au). 

OzFoodNet produces a quarterly report of food borne disease surveillance across Australia.  While restaurants and caterers are generally the identified source of these outbreaks, small to medium processors are also implicated.

Unfortunately most do not make the mainstream press unless there is a fatality or it’s a slow news day on the current affairs programs.  Where they do become evident, there is no personal attachment.  It always relates to someone else, not us.  For example, the fact that there was a major recall in NSW in June of this year because of a severe allergy risk from undeclared walnuts in a snack bar, or the butcher fined $8,600 over potentially unsafe smallgoods, always seems to be someone else’s problem.  After all, they’re high risk – we’re not…….are we?

I was in USA recently and followed with interest the press coverage of a food safety issue in the land that does everything bigger and better than us – including food borne illness outbreaks.  Not only was there media and public interest, but the ripples resonated right through the multi-billion dollar food US food industry and caused the unprecedented and embarrassing move of Mexico banning imports of related products from USA.
The story of contaminated spinach from one (and possibly more) fresh produce suppliers based in California’s Salinas Valley was widespread in the media.  Even the money pages of the national broadsheet USA Today ran a half page article on the impact of the E. coli scare on the US$4.4 billion processed lettuce and spinach industry. 

Spinach processed and distributed by Natural Selection Foods was contaminated with E. coli 0157:H7 apparently from cattle faeces from four growers supplying this processor.  The affected spinach was distributed quickly and efficiently (it is labelled as a short shelf-life product) through the supply chains of most of the nation’s major retailers and resulted in 199 cases of illness including 102 hospitalizations, and three deaths. The reported illnesses occurred across 26 states and Canada.
Five other companies from the same area immediately instigated secondary recalls of leafy vegetables, although were subsequently found not to be implicated in the contamination.

Two months after the initial illness was notified, many of the major US retailers were yet to make plans to re-introduce spinach into their stores.
Of particular concern is the fact that this is not the first E.coli 0157:H7 outbreak from an apparently innocuous product from this area.  There has been a long history of such outbreaks involving leafy greens from the central California region, and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and the State of California have previously expressed serious concern with the continuing outbreaks of food borne illness associated with the consumption of fresh and fresh-cut lettuce and other leafy greens.

E.coli O157:H7 is a particularly virulent and nasty little bug. A member of the coliform family of bacterial pathogens, E.coli is a normal inhabitant of the guts of animals, including humans.   A few strains of E.coli are capable of causing severe human illness, including the 0157:H7 serotype.  Unlike our normal understanding of ‘food poisoning’ (feel terrible but I’ll get over it in the morning), the onset of symptoms may occur up to one week after ingestion, and can result in Haemolytic Uraemic Syndrome (HUS) particularly in vulnerable groups.  HUS can lead to serious kidney damage and possibly death.  31 of the cases from the recent spinach outbreak resulted in HUS.

The scary thing about E.coli O157:H7 (apart from the disease) is the infective dose.  Whilst most food poisoning organisms require the ingestion of millions of pathogens, this lethal bug can cause serious damage with as little as 10 – 100 micro-organisms.  As a result, it is very difficult to eradicate, particularly on sensitive products like leafy vegetables, and has been responsible for a number of food borne outbreaks in USA in products as varied as undercooked hamburger (ground beef), alfalfa sprouts, unpasteurized fruit juices, dry-cured salami, lettuce, game meat, cheese curds, and raw milk (although anyone who consumes raw milk these days is asking for trouble).

Couldn’t happen here?  It already has.  The now infamous Garibaldi Smallgoods incident in South Australia in the last decade was a fatal instance of contamination by E.coli O157:H7.  And it’s not the only pathogenic predator implicated in food borne illnesses.  Listeria monocytogenes, Salmonella spp, Clostridium perfringens, Campylobacter jejuni, amongst many pathogenic organisms are of public health concern and major contributors to the statistics on food borne illness on both sides of the Pacific Ocean.

Food businesses that resist the requirement for HACCP-based food safety programs do so at their own risk.  Unfortunately they also risk the health and safety of their patrons.

They include the food businesses who have never killed someone……until they do, or almost do.

- Bill McBride, General Manager- Food Division NCS International