Tag Archives: Barf

Memories of summer camp: ‘we were all just kind of throwing up everywhere;’ 100 Notre Dame sport camp participants treated for illness

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Daughter Courtlynn left for summer camp yesterday where she will finally get to be a councilor in the Muskokas of Ontario (that’s in Canada).

But every time she goes to camp, there’s an outbreak of something that makes me question what these guardians of our children know about food safety (no more or less than anyone else, I guess).

Indiana’s news leader, WSBT, reports that more than 100 middle and high school students participating in summer sports camps at the University of Notre Dame became suddenly ill early Wednesday morning. Some were so sick they had to be hospitalized.

The big question neither the St. Joseph County health officer nor the university could answer Wednesday was exactly what caused more than 100 teenagers to become ill with stomach flu-like symptoms such as nausea, vomiting and body aches?

Indiana’s Department of Health and the St. Joseph County Health Department are testing stool samples and food the campers ate to see whether the illnesses were caused by a nasty stomach bug or food poisoning.

It’s a summer camp 13-year-old Chicago friends Elaine Johnson and Maeve Sheehan will always remember.

“I just kind of woke up [in the middle of the night] and started to have a sick feeling,” Johnson said. “The coaches brought us out into the hallway and every single girl had a small trash can. And everybody had a little pillow and blanket there and we were all just kind of throwing up everywhere.”

Suddenly, several of their lacrosse camp friends were also getting sick.

“I don’t know, I was kind of scared a little. It was weird,” Sheehan recalled.
She began vomiting hours later.

“Everybody was puking last night,” added football camper Alex Bradt, from Chaffield, MN. Bradt did not become ill, but he noted his camp did not have enough players to create teams for a scheduled scrimmage Wednesday because so many of the teens were sick.

Here’s the video from Indiana’s other news leader, ABC57.

Throw up, pay up, in taxis and cop cars

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Puke in a Chicago cab and you’re gonna pay.

Starting July 1, any passenger who throws up in — or even on — a taxi has to cough up an extra 50 bucks. The dough, of course, covers cleanup costs.

Hacks in the Windy City started lobbying for the fee in 2009 after complaining for years about late-night drunks who barfed with abandon. The City Council finally signed off in January.

Austin, Texas, followed suit in February, imposing a $100 fine on any fare who loses his lunch. And Savannah, Ga., home of some of the wildest St. Patrick’s Day celebrations in the country, let cabbies tack on $75 to $150 to the tab of any rider who turns green and spews.

“I had a lady stick her head out of the window and [she] vomited on my cab,” Chicago driver Thaddeus Budzynski told CBS. “And who had to clean it up? I did.”

The two 23-year-olds who allegedly threw up on police cars in New Jersey may want to keep the fines in mind next time. Or the jail time.

Peter Cipollini, from Morristown, and Patrick Allocco, from Jersey City, were seen around 3:40 a.m. running away from two police cars at First and Hudson Streets after leaving behind "large amounts of vomit," according to police reports.

Sunday morning muffins

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I have a muffin problem.

As a kid the family would often drive the two hours to the grandparents for the weekend.

I barfed a lot.

This one time, I ate a muffin, and it came back up.

Everywhere.

I didn’t try them again until my 30s, and never made them.

But today, Sorenne and I made muffins. Half whole wheat, half all-purpose flour, baking soda, baking powder, honey, canola oil, blueberries, strawberries and cinnamon.

We’ll try these again.

Does organic food turn you into a jerk?

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Do you like to pontificate about organic food, your CSA and the evils of big ag? Then you may feel morally superior to others; you may be a jerk.

Continuing with Dr. Oz-inspired themes of insufferability and sanctimony, a new study confirms what I’ve anecdotally observed for decades: preaching organic makes you a jerk – and not in the adorable Steve Martin way, more in the self-perceived moral superiority way.

A paper published last week in the Journal of Social Psychological & Personality Science found that exposure to organic foods can “harshen moral judgments.”

As cited by Time magazine, “There’s a line of research showing that when people can pat themselves on the back for their moral behavior, they can become self-righteous,” the study’s lead author, Dr. Kendall J. Eskine, assistant professor of the psychological sciences department at Loyola University in New Orleans, told NBC’s Today show. Eskine and his team showed research subjects photographs of food, ranging from überorganic fruits and vegetables to fattening brownies and baked goods. He then gauged the primed eaters’ moral fiber with stories that warranted judgment, like one about a lawyer who lurks in an ER to try to persuade patients to sue for their injuries.

Reacting to the events on a numbered scale, the organic-food participants were more judgmental than those in the comfort-food category. They were also more reluctant when asked to volunteer time to help strangers, the study found, offering only 13 minutes vs. the brownie eaters’ 24 minutes. It’s like the group had already fulfilled its moral-justice quota by buying organic, so it felt all right slacking off in other ethics-based situations. Eskine labeled it “moral licensing.”

“There’s something about being exposed to organic food that made them feel better about themselves,” he told the Today show. “And that made them kind of jerks a little bit, I guess.”

The research doesn’t mean much, and I’m probably citing it only because it confirms my worldview, but still, there are a lot of preachers out there.

I’ll stick to focusing on food that makes people barf: organic, sustainable, local, dolphin-friendly or otherwise.

The abstract is below:

Wholesome foods and wholesome morals? Organic foods reduce prosocial behavior and harshen moral judgments
may.12
Social Psychological and Personality Science
Kendall J. Eskine
http://spp.sagepub.com/content/early/2012/05/14/1948550612447114.abstract
Abstract
Recent research has revealed that specific tastes can influence moral processing, with sweet tastes inducing prosocial behavior and disgusting tastes harshening moral judgments. Do similar effects apply to different food types (comfort foods, organic foods, etc.)? Although organic foods are often marketed with moral terms (e.g., Honest Tea, Purity Life, and Smart Balance), no research to date has investigated the extent to which exposure to organic foods influences moral judgments or behavior. After viewing a few organic foods, comfort foods, or control foods, participants who were exposed to organic foods volunteered significantly less time to help a needy stranger, and they judged moral transgressions significantly harsher than those who viewed nonorganic foods. These results suggest that exposure to organic foods may lead people to affirm their moral identities, which attenuates their desire to be altruistic. 

126 sick from the Old Barn in Thunder Bay; nostalgia no security when barfing

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People barfing because of crappy food safety don’t care if you’ve been doing things one way and never made anyone sick for millennia, dating back to your spaceship DNA founders visiting earth.

Instead, it’s, I’m barfing now because you can’t be bothered to learn something new.

Oh, and public health types: there’s a difference between E. coli and norovirus. Maybe it’s both. Probably never happened before; figure it out.

There’s a mess of an outbreak going on in Thunder Bay, Ontario (that’s in Canada, eh?)

The district health unit is looking into the cause of an illness that struck at least 126 people who visited This Old Barn last weekend. Christopher Beveridge, manager of environmental health for the district health unit, said Thursday that norovirus was found in a stool sample from a patient admitted to hospital.

"We’re not ruling out water just yet, because norovirus can survive in a water environment," Beveridge said. "But now we’re looking at more of the food handling, as well. Where earlier in the week with the contaminated water sample we were really looking at the water system."

Earlier health unit tests found E. coli in the water.

Beveridge said the department wasn’t ruling out the possibility that both E. coli and norovirus could have been involved.

Michael Ellchook, the owner of This Old Barn, has apologized to all those who got sick. He said he has operated the restaurant for 17 years, and has never before had a problem like this.

"They found E. coli levels are a little bit high, so I’m figuring it’s got to do with the water. We had a storm on the weekend. And being a well — we have a well system — I’m thinking that’s where most of it came from," Ellchook said earlier in the day.

A well? Is the water ever tested? Is that data available? Would you make it publicly available?

Beveridge said 256 people ate or drank at the restaurant between May 11 and May 13. The health unit has contacted 208 of these people and is trying to reach the remainder to get information to assist in the investigation.

The health unit became aware of the situation after being contacted by emergency-room staff the Thunder Bay Regional Health Sciences Centre, where 12 people were admitted with E. coli infection symptoms.

Salmonella in sushi may have sickened 90

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I don’t eat sushi. I have and it tastes like barf.

Word from JoNel Aleccia of msnbc that health tyes are investigating a growing outbreak of salmonella food poisoning possibly tied to restaurant sushi that has sickened at least 90 people in 19 states and the District of Columbia.

The outbreak of Salmonella Bareilly that has sent seven people to the hospital is mostly clustered on the eastern seaboard and the Gulf Coast, although cases have been reported as far west as Missouri and Texas, said Curtis Allen, a spokesman for the Food and Drug Administration. No deaths have been reported.

The FDA and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention are investigating the outbreak, which appears to be ongoing and expanding rapidly, according to an internal FDA email. There may be a lag of more than a month from the time people ate tainted food to the time they reported it.

Allen said the outbreak appears to be tied to seafood, and possibly sushi, but it’s still far too early to identify the actual cause.

The email identified spicy tuna roll sushi as “highly suspect,” but Allen emphasized that that is a preliminary speculation that may be proved wrong later.

The federal agencies are focusing on six restaurant clusters in Texas, Wisconsin, Maryland and Connecticut, according to the email, which was distributed outside the agency.

Salmonella Bareilly is a strain sometimes associated with bean sprouts.

Norovirus confirmed in Michigan hockey rink barfing outbreak

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Wayne County health officials confirmed today that the outbreak of vomiting and diarrhea that sent nearly 100 people to area hospitals Sunday from a hockey tournament at the Taylor Sportsplex was caused by a fast-spreading norovirus.

The Detroit Free Press reports the Sportsplex reopened Thursday, and "the majority of individuals who suffered norovirus symptoms have recovered or have nearly recovered — they’re showing the classic progression of the virus running its course." Wayne County Department of Health spokeswoman Mary Mazur said.

The city-owned building was shut down Sunday night so that water and air testing could be performed, and the entire building has been disinfected, Mazur said Friday. It had been scheduled to reopen Wednesday, but managers of the facilities "decided to err on the side of caution" and gave an additional day to the clean-up and testing, she said.

Norovirus suspected in Michigan hockey rink illnesses

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Before personal hockey idol and goaltending great, Tony Espositio, there was Glenn Hall backstopping the Chicago Blackhawks for a bit.

Being a goaltender in hockey is just weird, and attracts psychologically, uh, different people.

Hall was famous for vomiting before every game.

Someone started barfing during a Detroit-area high-school hockey game Sunday night, and others soon followed: at least 30 others. Up to 80 people are believed to have been sickened.

Norovirus is suspected in the outbreak.

Some were taken for treatment by ambulance and others were taken by private vehicles to area hospitals. The city-owned complex was shut down so air and water tests could be performed.

Carol Austerberry of the Wayne County Health Department said yesterday afternoon that about 80 reports have come in of people suffering gastrointestinal problems that include diarrhea, vomiting and stomach cramping. The number might grow as reports continue to come in.

County workers are contacting health care officials to collect stool samples for the investigation, to be sent to a state lab for testing. Surveys also will be sent to the people who attended the hockey tournament.

Fire Chief Robert Tompos said water samples were shipped to an independent lab in Monroe for testing and came back clean, ruling out contamination.

Tompos said people got sick simultaneously, causing several players to vomit on benches and in locker rooms.

Tompos said some hockey players share equipment and water bottles, which could be considered mini-petri dishes.

Austerberry said good prevention starts with parents.

“If your child is sick, don’t let them go to school,” she said. “Don’t let them participate in sports where they are around a lot of people.”

Tennis and hockey and barf

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An outbreak of illness might have more to do with the final results than the actual tennis at the BNP Paribas Open tournament in Indian Wells, California, which is about to move into its second week.

In late-in-the-day matches Sunday, third-seeded Petra Kvitova, last year’s Wimbledon champion, was ousted by fast-rising American Christina McHale, 2-6, 6-2, 6-3, and said afterward that she had been ill, had taken antibiotics and had "lost a bit of my fitness."

Roger Federer went through his opponent, Denis Kudla of the U.S., 6-4, 6-1, and then, looking pale and sounding hoarse, admitted afterward in his news conference that he wasn’t feeling well, nor were members of his family.

"I’m the best off in the family," he said.

At least eight players have defaulted since the tournament began, most of them complaining of a stomach virus.

In Michigan, the Taylor Sportsplex was evacuated Sunday after an unknown illness swept a wave of hockey players into local emergency rooms, according to officials.?

Fire Chief Bob Tompos said about 20-25 high-school-age hockey players got sick simultaneously with apparent flu-like symptoms, causing several players to vomit on benches and inside the locker room.??

The sudden occurrance prompted a call to the fire department to investigate the building as the sick players began heading to nearby hospitals with families. Some went by ambulance if parents weren’t yet on the scene.??"Rather than make them wait, we wanted to err on the side of caution," Tompos said, "so they were transported [by ambulance] with implied consent." An official evacuation was called about 10:30 p.m.

Firefighters first checked the building’s air quality to rule out issues like unsafe levels of carbon monoxide.??"The oxygen level was fine, so we weren’t too concerned about that," Tompos said, adding that other samples from the Sportsplex — including the water supply — will immediately be sent to an independent lab in the morning for analysis.?? Unseasonably warm temperatures and possibly the crowd’s size caused the air conditioning system to unexpectantly kick on, so air duct samples also will get tested, Tompos said.??

When I dream, I dream of barf and sanitizer concentration

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Ben had a dream.

“I was at a Chick-Fil-A by myself, sat down at a table next to a family (bunch of boys, mom and dad). One of the kids, probably a 6-year-old, threw up on my back and it splattered all over the floor, table and seats.

“Staff came out to clean it up – but I didn’t leave to go clean myself up, I just stood there watching, taking pictures with my phone and asking them what kind of sanitizer they were using, whether it was a different concentration that what they would normally use, and how far from the puke they were going to clean and sanitize.”

I won’t get into the Freudian or Jungian or Bromancian aspects of Ben sharing his dream with me via e-mail (and Amy and Schaffner); it’s how we roll. But Ben’s dream is grounded in the reality of stories we see daily, where people barf and a bunch of others get sick with norovirus.

Researchers from the Netherlands and Germany report in the current Eurosurveillance about a norovirus outbreak triggered by copper intoxication on a coach trip from the Netherlands to Germany.

From the abstract:

Overall, 30 of 40 people (including drivers and crew) developed nausea, vomiting and/or diarrhoea, 11 of them on the first day of the trip. The incidence epidemic curve showed a first peak on Day 1 and a second on Day 4. Nine passengers were hospitalised with gastrointestinal symptoms. Norovirus was found in stool samples from two patients, but the infection could not explain the first peak in the epidemic curve only a few hours after departure. Interviews with the passengers and an inspection of the coach and its water supply implicated the water used for coffee and tea as the potential source.

Microbiological investigations of the water were negative, but chemical analysis showed a toxic concentration of copper. Blood copper levels as well as renal and liver function were determined in 28 of the 32 passengers who had been exposed to the water. One passenger who did not have gastrointestinal symptoms had an elevated copper level of 25.9 µmol/L, without loss of liver or renal function. It is likely that the spread of norovirus was enhanced because of vomiting of one of the passengers due to copper intoxication.

The complete paper is available at http://www.eurosurveillance.org/ViewArticle.aspx?ArticleId=20104.

In response to Ben’s e-mail this morning, I asked if he could get paid to do anything else, and that maybe he needs a change.

He replied, “Don’t want to change a thing. In related news, I don’t really have any other skills.”