Showing posts with label Foodborne Illness. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Foodborne Illness. Show all posts

6/29/2009

Raw Deal


So I'm reading Bill Marler on the Nestle cookie dough e. coli outbreak. While I agree with his stance on blaming the victim (apparently, Nestle is faulting the parents who let their children eat the raw dough--nice, right?), I'm also wondering who are these freaking people who eat raw dough or let their kids eat raw dough? At my house, my child has to don a Biohazard suit whenever she's near anything raw. Meat, when I allow it to cross my threshold, is cooked to 2,000 degrees Fahrenheit.

What really got me, however, was this post on his blog. His point in listing the numerous food terrorist incidents is to point out how inadequate and inept our current food safety systems are no matter the cause. It's so incredibly infuriating, particularly when you read about the severity of the illness, and most particularly in children.

BUT, what really got me was the food terrorism list in that post. I mean, I'm aware of Alexander Litvinenko and his polonium-laced food. FINE. That kind of thing happens when you're a KGB agent. It's an occupational hazard. But wait...what's this about cyanide-laced grapes from Chile, or a Michigan supermarket employee tainting hundreds of pounds of ground beef with an insecticide. Say what?? Why didn't I hear about that?

When he gets to the botulism modeling at Stanford, I could barely keep reading, because I was totally freaking out. It's things like this that edge me closer than ever to Julianne Moore-at-the-end-of-the-movie-Safe-porcelain-igloo territory.

But really, there's nothing funny about it. And tonight I'm having spaghetti for dinner--again.

3/26/2009

The Marler Blog


If you're interested in outbreaks of food-borne illness and litigation--and WHO ISN'T?--I highly recommend the Marler Blog. Here's a description of the author, attorney William Marler:

Bill has focused his practice on representing individuals, mostly children, in litigation resulting from E. coli, Salmonella, Shigella, hepatitis A, and other food-contamination cases, and has represented victims of nearly every large foodborne illness outbreak across the country. He has represented individuals against BJ's Wholesale Club, Chili's, Chi-Chi's, ConAgra, Dole, Excel, Golden Corral, KFC, Sheetz, Sizzler, Supervalu, and Wendy's, as well as other food companies and restaurants.

It's like a Who's Who list of restaurants NEVER to visit and food brands NEVER to buy. Thanks, Bill!

His blog is super-lively and there are scores of sub-blogs, like the Mad Cow blog; the Listeria blog; the Norovirus blog; and the Cyclospora blog.

Truly, I recommend:

http://www.marlerblog.com/

3/14/2009

Thank You, President Obama


For finally doing something about food safety!

Read about it on my new favorite blog:

http://obamafoodorama.blogspot.com/