Don’t drink hand sanitizer or bleach: Poison center calls up 20% during pandemic, CDC says

Posted on May 1, 2020 by Douglas Powell

A preschool-aged girl was taken to the hospital after she drank an unknown amount of hand sanitizer out of a 64-ounce bottle, fell and hit her head, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control said.

Her blood alcohol level was .27% — over 3 times the legal limit in most states, according to the CDC. The little girl recovered and was released 48 hours later, but her case illustrates the sharp increase in poisoning reported during the rise of the coronavirus in the United States.

Between January and March there were 45,550 poisonings reported to U.S. poison control centers , which is a 20% increase from years passed, the CDC reported. The rise in cases directly correlates with increased media coverage of the coronavirus pandemic in the U.S., according to the CDC.

Children ages 5 and younger, who were poisoned by disinfectants like hand sanitizer, made up nearly half of calls involving disinfecetants in that time period, the CDC reported. Over 80% of calls involved people ingesting disinfectants, according to the CDC.

In response, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration is calling on the manufacturers to add a bitter ingredient to sanitizers so people will be less likely to drink them.

People are also calling more to report poisonings involving cleaners like bleach — more than 28,000 calls in that three-month period involved cleaners, News 4 San Antonio reported. The CDC cited a case where an adult woman soaked her produce in bleach, vinegar and hot water, and ended up in the hospital because she inhaled the toxic fumes.

The CDC says people should not wash produce with anything other than water, not even soap.

Researchers say they can’t show a direct link between chemical exposures and the coronavirus pandemic yet, but the correlation is alarming, Science Alert reported. The biggest surge in calls to poison control centers occurred at the beginning of March this year, according to Science Alert.

In Oregon, one of the most reported issues was people mixing bleach with water in a random container, like a soda can or water bottle, and leave it out in the open, KOIN 6 reported. Another household member will drink the solution, thinking it’s just water, according to KOIN 6.

After President Trump’s suggestion that ingesting cleaning products or applying a “very powerful light” to the body to kill the coronavirus, Lysol, the Centers for Disease Control, lawmakers, doctors, and Twitter users warned people not to do so.

“I see the disinfectant where it knocks [the coronavirus] out in a minute, one minute,” Trump said during a daily White House coronavirus briefing last week. “And is there a way we can do something like that by injection inside, or almost a cleaning? Because you see it gets in the lungs, and it does a tremendous number on the lungs. So it’d be interesting to check that.”

No, it wouldn’t. And by Friday, Lysol, the CDC, and others stepped in to emphasize that you should not drink or inject disinfectant.

The CDC tweeted, “Household cleaners and disinfectants can cause health problems when not used properly.” While Lysol took a more firm stance in response to “recent speculation and social media activity.”

“As a global leader in health and hygiene products, we must be clear that under no circumstances should our disinfectant products be administered into the human body (through injection, ingestion, or any other route.)”

When pressed about the remark during a bill signing last Friday, Trump claimed, “I was asking a question sarcastically to reporters like you just to see what would happen.”

Kids bored during the coronavirus lockdown have been warned to steer clear of the toxic TikTok “nutmeg challenge”.

Just a teaspoon of the cooking spice can “cause significant stomach pain, vomiting, racing heart, confusion, drowsiness, agitation and hallucinations,” say poison experts.

One girl who filmed herself swigging 12g of nutmeg from a cup said it “didn’t taste bad”.

In an update “three hours later” on its effects she claimed: “I can’t move my head.

“It’s like superglued to the wall; I’m so confused, oh my God.”

The New South Wales Poisons Centre in Australia warned parents about kids ingesting the potentially lethal spice on TikTok and social media.

On Facebook, it described the video sharing service’s nutmeg challenge as a “dangerous game”.

And in Ireland, a warning has been issued on fly infestations ahead of the summer months. Due to the current lockdown restrictions, many buildings, such as offices, shops and some homes, may be empty, allowing pests to proliferate.

Curiosity, not assumptions, makes life interesting

Posted on February 13, 2019 by Douglas Powell

I get lots of barfblog.com fan mail like the piece below.

Normally I just cc Chapman on my reply, so someone can take over when I die (me in the hospital last week with gall bladder issues, my partner and daughter bought me a nice light robe for the Australian summers, and I was with Larry, my portable IV unit I shared a shower and bed with), or get tired of doing this, or my brain sufficiently rots, but this was too ripe, so welcome to the daily insults of an unpaid blogger.

Hello Doug I trust all is well.
I have a question for you.
Do you (brilliant Scientist, food safety guru) really think the Fox host has not washed his hands in 10 years?
Doug you used a pile of E. dung to purposely smear the President of a country that you are not a citizen of.
I ask you to please rebuke your political opinions and stick with what has and always will help advance food safety – you!

I am an American citizen. I worked long and hard for that distinction, given my Canadian prison record. I voted in the last election, and not for Mr. Trump. The Fox News dude is now saying his lack of handwashing was a joke, but given the discourse on Fox, I kinda doubt it. More like covering his ass (like a HACCP plan).

I am a citizen of three countries and have three passports – Canadian, American and Australian. So does Sorenne. Amy has two. It’s not a secret and could easily been discovered, but you chose to assume rather than ask. That’s a problem for science and journalism: People making up shit.

Others might call it fake news.

To paraphrase what I told sceptics in 1987 when I started the University of Guelph alternative newspaper, if you don’t like my blog, don’t read it, start your own, and stop wasting my time.

Peace.

And here’s a video from another citizen of Canada and America.

‘I spent $50000 on IVF… and it failed’

Posted on December 20, 2018 by Douglas Powell

There isn’t much food safety stuff that interests me, but writers gotta write.

An Australian woman spent $50,000 on in vitro fertilization, and it didn’t work.

We spent less than $1,000 10 years ago on a turkey baster procedure and it worked first go (tough hockey chicks, right)

It’s not a big secret, since it was written up in the USA Today back in 2011, but I find it helpful to have frank discussions about biology.

And if the virgin Mary was miraculously inseminated, she could only have a daughter. It’s that X and Y chromosome thing.

Surveys still suck; so do organics

Posted on December 4, 2018 by Douglas Powell

As my friend Farmer Jeff used to say, 20 years ago, if someone can make a living farming, even if it involves duping consumers, more power to the farmers.

I have a less charitable view and figure it’s primarily 21st century snake oil.

Ashley Nicole of Produce Retailer reports that 45 per cent of U.S. adults believe organic fruits and vegetables are healthier than conventional produce, according to a Pew Research Center survey.

That share has fallen from two years ago, when 55% of people responded that they viewed organic produce as better for them.

Groups that more heavily favor organic fruits and vegetables include younger people, people who care about the topic of genetic modification of food, and people who buy organic.

Own it: Gossip goes away

Posted on November 30, 2018 by Douglas Powell

I knew I wouldn’t get into rehab Friday morning because I had been drinking at 3 a.m. in a vain attempt to go back to sleep.

Gotta blow zero to get into rehab, which I’ll do Monday.

But, as I said to one of my rehab buddies, whose life has spun out of control, yet he got 90% in the law courses he has taken, own it. Don’t be ashamed.

He said, I read your blog and it seems you had a falling out with Ben.

I said I’ve had a falling out with my wife of 13 years every week (she’s at hockey practice, 6 a.m. in Brisbane).

Ben, about the same.

Bad wiring.

Or, the people you are closest with and feel vulnerable enough to share your fears, are the ones to lash out at.

The produce industry needs a similar self-reckoning.

Candice Choi of APwrites that after repeated food poisoning outbreaks linked to romaine lettuce, the produce industry is confronting the failure of its own safety measures in preventing contaminations.

The E. coli outbreak announced just before Thanksgiving follows one in the spring that sickened more than 200 people and killed five, and another last year that sickened 25 and killed one. No deaths have been reported in the latest outbreak, but the dozens of illnesses highlight the challenge of eliminating risk for vegetables grown in open fields and eaten raw, the role of nearby cattle operations that produce huge volumes of manure and the delay of stricter federal food safety regulations.

A contested aspect of the regulation, for example, would require testing irrigation water for E. coli. The Food and Drug Administration put the measure on hold when the produce industry said such tests wouldn’t necessarily help prevent outbreaks. Additional regulations on sanitation for workers and equipment — other potential sources of contamination — only recently started being implemented.

We’ve been saying the same thing for over 20 years.

‘A kinder gentler machine gun hand’ Food safety realities in the biz

Posted on May 19, 2018 by Douglas Powell

Chapman has always been the kinder, gentler version of me.

But sometimes, ya gotta get stuff done.

I’m proud of everything he has accomplished but then thought, I was applying for about the 200^th job in Australia, and I always put Dr. Chapman down as a reference.

“Ben, has anyone ever called or e-mailed you about my job application?”

Nope.

That’s some harsh reality, but puts food safety where it is usually treated: An afterthought, and only if someone gets caught.

That’s why we’re gonna do our own thing: 2 weeks, 2 books, Australia, 2018.

I don’t see gender: ‘Sitting on the fence: Biology, feminism and gender-bending environments’

Posted on March 29, 2018 by Douglas Powell

Somehow, I was quoted in a Jan. 2000 publication of the Women s Studies International Forum, and received notification today.

“The story of endocrine disrupters is no different. Yet science has long been a slippery ally for environmental campaigners: on the one hand, it is the products of science and technology that seem to present problems through pollution, while on the other, campaigners must turn to science in order to demonstrate the problems (Powell and Leiss, 1997; Yearley, 1991).”

I didn’t write that, Leiss did, although I probably edited the sentence to make it coherent.

And some folks wonder why I didn’t want anything to do with a second edition.

At the time, this is what I sent Bill (without the pretty pic, upper right).

Food safety in hospitals: Chemotherapy patients may be ill because they aren’t aware of the food poisoning risks (and neither are the food service types)

Posted on December 17, 2017 by Douglas Powell

It’s no secret I have my share of demons, but I’ve always shared them publicly, (whether you wanted to know or not; if you don’t, go start your own blog and stop reading mine).

Every Friday, on average, I am fortunate enough to go to a place called Damascus at the Brisbane Private Hospital, where a group of 10-15 of us sit and tell stories and get better.

Some people have been sober for 10 years.

Some are straight out of the detox ward upstairs.

I’m somewhere in between.

But I value this community of lawyers, doctors, vets – both the military and animal kind – financial planners and people who just got lost along the way.

When Bill Leiss asked me to write a second edition of my first book, Mad Cows and Mothers Milk, I quoted a Neil Young line: “Heart of Gold put me in the middle of the road. Traveling there soon became a bore so I headed for the ditch.”

The ditch trilogy stands up strong 45 years later, and was featured during Neil’s solo show in Omemee, Ontario (that’s in Canada) a few weeks ago.

To add insult to injury, his next studio recording was the harrowing “Tonight’s The Night”, though with a perversity that was becoming typical of him the latter wasn’t released until after the subsequently-cut “On The Beach”. Both albums stand up strongly to this day. Both use the rock format as a means of redemption and rejuvenation, the very act of recording (no overdubs) serving as therapy. “Tonight’s The Night” and “On The Beach” were pretty free records,” Young pondered, lighting another unfiltered Pall Mall.

“I was pretty down I guess at the time, but I just did what I wanted to do, at that time. I think if everybody looks back at their own lives they’ll realise that they went through something like that. There’s periods of depression, periods of elation, optimism and scepticism, the whole thing is…. it just keeps coming in waves.

You go down to the beach and watch the same thing, just imagine every wave is a different set of emotions coming in. Just keep coming. As long as you don’t ignore it, it’ll still be there. If you start shutting yourself off and not letting yourself live through the things that are coming through you, I think that’s when people start getting old really fast, that’s when they really age.

‘Cause they decide that, they’re happy to be what they were at a certain time in their lives when they were the happiest, and they say ‘that’s where I’m gonna be for the rest of my life’. From that minute on they’re dead, y’know, just walking around. I try to avoid that.”

I can’t swim, but the quote above encapsulates why I like being near the beach.

I’m no Neil Young, but I do have my passions, like safe food, so when Brisbane Private Hospital keeps serving funeral home sandwiches loaded with raw sprouts, I say something.

No change, though the hospital is serving an immunocompromised population.

As Ellen W. Evans, junior research fellow, Cardiff Metropolitan University, writes in The Conversation, chemotherapy treatment can reduce immune function and the body’s ability to defend against opportunistic pathogens. It is well documented that people undergoing chemotherapy are at an increased risk of infection, including those transmitted via food.

This is not just about suffering through a tummy bug. People who are already undergoing the gruelling side effects of chemotherapy can be made seriously ill simply because the food they are eating isn’t being handled properly at home. Added to that is the fact that foodborne infection could cause delays in treatment, and potentially increase patient mortality.

But the problem is not down to patients’ laziness. In our newly published research, we have found that they are not being given consistent information, nor do they recognise the serious risks that food can pose.

In our study, we investigated the availability and adequacy of food safety information available to UK cancer patients. We looked at online food-related resources, and conducted in-depth interviews with patients and their families on their food experiences during chemotherapy treatment.

Although some food safety information exists for chemotherapy patients, their access to it is limited. In total, we found just 45 resources online that related to food safety. These included 35 from the 154 NHS chemotherapy providers in England, Scotland and Wales, the Department of Health, and three from 184 identified UK cancer charities.

Looking at the content, 67% of the food-related information resources we identified included food safety advice – for example, “ensure eggs are thoroughly cooked”. Guidance on hand decontamination routines, such as hand washing, was most frequently included (49%). But information on how to reduce the risk of listeriosis, or safe alternatives to particular foods – such as unpasteurised dairy products, and raw or under-cooked meat – were lacking.

Most worryingly, we found that some of the online advice actually promoted potentially unsafe practices. For example, some suggested eating lukewarm food, when this temperature range can encourage bacteria growth.

The most comprehensive food safety resources that we found were tailored to the needs of neutropenic patients – those that have very low levels of white blood cells – but these are unlikely to be given to, or accessed by, all people undergoing chemotherapy.

An assessment of food safety information provision for UK chemotherapy patients to reduce the risk od foodborne infection

Public Health, December 2017, vol. 153, pg 25-35, E.W. Evans, E.C. Redmond, DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.puhe.2017.06.017

http://www.publichealthjrnl.com/article/S0033-3506(17)30220-2/fulltext

Objectives

Given the increased risk of foodborne infection to cancer patients receiving chemotherapy treatment, and the risk of listeriosis reportedly five-times greater to this immunocompromised patient group, there is a need to ensure the implementation of domestic food safety practices among chemotherapy patients and their family caregivers. However, information regarding the adequacy of resources to inform and enable patients to implement domestic food safety practices to reduce the risk of foodborne infection is limited. Consequently, this study aimed to evaluate the provision of food safety information available to UK chemotherapy patients.

Study design

In-depth semi-structured interviews and content analysis of online patient information resources.

Methods

Interviews with patients and family caregivers (n = 15) were conducted to explore food-related experiences during chemotherapy treatment. Online food-related information resources for chemotherapy patients (n = 45) were obtained from 35 of 154 National Health Service chemotherapy providers in England, Scotland, and Wales, the Department of Health (DoH) and three of 184 identified UK cancer charities. Identified food-related information resources were reviewed using a content-analysis approach to assess the inclusion of food safety information for chemotherapy patients.

Results

In-depth interviews established that many patients indicated awareness of immunosuppression during treatment. Although patients reported practicing caution to reduce the risk of communicable diseases by avoiding crowded spaces/public transport, food safety was reported to be of minimal concern during treatment and the risk of foodborne infection was often underestimated. The review of online food-related patient information resources established that many resources failed to highlight the increased risk of foodborne infection and emphasize the importance of food safety for patients during chemotherapy treatment. Considerable information gaps exist, particularly in relation to listeriosis prevention practices. Cumulatively, information was inconsistent, insufficient, and varied between resources.

Conclusion

The study has identified the need for an effective, standardized food safety resource specifically targeting chemotherapy patients and family caregivers. Such intervention is essential to assist efforts in reducing the risks associated with foodborne infection among chemotherapy patients.

Neil Young – 2017-12-01 Coronation Hall, Omemee, Ontario, Canada [720p] from JoeRay Skrha on Vimeo.

Neil Young, at home

Posted on December 2, 2017 by Douglas Powell

If the Tragically Hip were the house band for my laboratory back in Guelph, then Neil Young was the spirit.

Right now, he’s performing an acoustic set in his childhood hometown of Omemee, Ont. (that’s in Canada, near Peterborough).

In 1981 or 1982, my uni girlfriend and I went and saw Neil do a solo acoustic set at Maple Leaf Gardens.

I was for always amazed that a single performer could captivate an audience of 20,000 for two hours.

About 2004, I took Chapman to go see him, to show the young fella how to rock.

I’m sure Neil has his demons and missteps, but at 72-years-old, and on stage in Omemee, these are signs of a life fully lived.

I always told – and still tell – students, colleagues, whoever, you got ideas, get them out there.

Australian masterchef (I just threw up a bit in my mouth) Calombaris sued for Norovirus outbreak; sought solace from Heston-Norovirus-Blumenthal

Posted on May 15, 2017 by Douglas Powell

The problem with celebrity chefs is they tend to be morons.

Food safety morons.

Their practices make people sick.

The only skill they have is describing cooking in prose equivalent to some soft-core porn Harold Robbins novel.

Avert your eyes, because the more attention they get, the more stupid their pronouncements.

(And yes, others have recently published about the food safety failings of celebrity chefs, but me and my gang did it first, 13 years ago, so all you posers, go find some authenticity, and go fuck yourselves.)

According to the Canberra Times, MasterChef star George Calombaris is facing legal action over food poisoning at his Hellenic Republic restaurant in Kew (some suburb in Australia).

According to a writ filed in the County Court earlier this month, Mr Schreuder claims to have become seriously ill with norovirus encephalitis after dining at the Cotham Road restaurant on Mothers Day in 2014.

At the time, Hellenic Republic was forced to close its doors for 24 hours when dozens of patrons who’d eaten from a set menu complained of vomiting, diarrhoea and stomach cramps.

An investigation by the Victorian Department of Health subsequently found that a staff member was most likely responsible for the infection of norovirus – a common, highly contagious cause of gastroenteritis.

“Of the 300-plus diners we interviewed, around 90 reported illness, which could have been associated with eating at Hellenic Republic Kew,” a department spokesperson said in 2014.

Mr Schreuder is seeking damages for the injuries which he claims were suffered due to negligence and breach of contract by the restaurant in “causing or permitting the infected food to be served to him”.

barfblog

safe food from farm to fork

Tag Archives: Neil Young