Injury Law Report

The Mayo Clinic provides these prevention tips:

In rare cases, botulism can result in death due to respiratory failure. A patient with severe botulism may require a breathing machine as well as intensive medical and nursing care for several months. Fatigue and shortness of breath for years and long-term therapy may be needed to aid recovery from a severe case of botulism.

What Are the Signs of Botulism?

What is Botulism?

The bacterium called Clostridium botulinum produces a deadly nerve toxin that can cause a rare but deadly injury or illness characterized by paralysis. There are 3 main kinds of botulism.

Castleberry's Food announced a nationwide recall of potentially contaminated products in July. The company has recalled tens of millions of cans of more than 90 products including canned chili, hash and stew from over two years of production, under worries of botulism contamination.

In the last post, we talked about a Chinese restaurant owner and what he did that got him arrested. His crime? Substituting cardboard for meat in a popular Chinese dish. While there is no evidence that this food was used in any item sent to America, it's still scary. Check out the video.

We reported in our previous blog that the product Veggie Booty, an otherwise healthy snack made from puffed rice and corn with a vegetable coating, has been recalled after reports of salmonella poisoning. Findings indicate the presence of a strain of salmonella known as Salmonellawandsworth.

Food products made in China increasingly have come under fire. You will not believe what one restaurant owner did that got him arrested by the Chinese authorities. Stay tuned.

Veggie Booty, an otherwise healthly snack made from puffed rice and corn with a vegetable coating, has been recalled after reports of salmonella poisoning.

At least 3 dozen people in the New York/New Jersey area have become ill as a result of eating green onions at Taco Bell. The fast food chain, a unit of Yum Brands Inc., said preliminary tests showed three samples of green onions were found to be "presumptive positive" for the deadly E. coli 0157:H7 strain. Tests were not yet conclusive, the company said, but it closed nine restaurants to sanitize them and replace food ingredients. All of the injured customers became ill between November 17 and 28.

The E. coli spinach scare still is a real threat to U. S. produce.

The raw spinach that killed several people and made hundreds sick was tainted with a new, mutant strain of E. coli, called e-coli 015787. It is so potent as few as five to ten bacteria can sicken, even kill. Dr. Glenn Morris of the University of Maryland School of Public Health says, "Once this microorganism which carries the toxin sets up housekeeping, there is not much we can do medically. So the focus has to be on prevention." Read a recent investigative report from WJZ News.

Just prior to Thankgiving, another soft drinks firm has changed its ingredients and agreed to pay out compensation to head off a lawsuit over the presence of cancer chemical benzene in its drinks.

Meridian Beverage Company, producer of several flavored drinks, has agreed to pay two parents compensation, including legal fees, because of exposure of their children to the chemical benzene in the drinks.

The recent salmonella outbreak reported in the news has been traced to tomatoes served in restaurants, says federal health officials.

The outbreak has sickened 183 people in 21 states in the United States, as well as two people in Canada. 22 people have been hospitalized. Most of the cases have been east of the Mississippi River, with the exception of Washington state.

California officials are investigating the possibility that the recent E Coli outbreak might be caused by contamination from bateria in cow manure. The same strain of deadly E Coli that sickened dozens of people nationwide has been found at a cattle ranch in California's Salinas Valley. This ranch is within a mile of spinach fields. Contaminated spinach killed three people and sickened nearly 200 in nearly one half of the states in the country. It was the 20th such E Coli outbreak in lettuce or spinach in a little more than a decade. The produce company that processed and packaged the spinach at the center of the outbreak investigation, Natural Selection Foods LLC, has repeatedly asserted its factories are blameless and pointed to the fields where the greens are grown as the potential source of the problem. E Coli O157:H7, the deadly bateria strain that causes sickness and death for those with compromised immune systems, is a leading cause of foodborne illness.

The recent E coli contamination of spinach makes us wary of trusting our food supply. Hundreds have been injured from coast to coast. A major problem is how large agricultural concerns push more food out of the pipeline quicker for a greater profit. Giant farms and industrial-scale processing plants produce mammoth amounts of food that feed this Nation, but are we sacrificing safety for speed and convenience? Whose job is it to make sure that this modern large scale food machine is safe as well as productive? For example,some believe that a likely source of the recent California E coli infection is the growing number of nearby industrial-scale dairy farms that pollute the water supply. How is the water polluted? From the manure produced by cows on these farms that are fed large amounts of grain. Cows normally eat grasses, but this high grain diet makes them grow faster. Unfortunately, it also creates a climate in the gut of a cow's stomach that more readily produces the harmful E coli strain.

We need greater and more effective regulation of our food supply. Also, we need to consider holding accountable those companies that make quick profits by sacrificing food safety.

Contamination from this organism recently has dominated the news. You've probably read quite a bit about the spinach contamination cases. Don't think that this problem is confined to California. Foodborne illnesses have become a major issue --- affecting the food supply coast to coast. While the CDC states that such foodborne illnesses have decreased in number over the past few years, long standing problems remain with the handling and growing of food in this country. Perhaps it's time for more food companies to be held accountable.

What are the long-term consequences of E. coli infection? First, note that not all E. coli strains are harmful. E. coli O157:H7 is one of hundreds of strains of the bacterium Escherichia coli. This form, however, can cause everything from bloody diarrhea to kidney failure to death.

Persons who only have diarrhea usually recover completely. A small number of infected individuals can develop a serious disease called hemolytic uremic syndrome (HUS). Such an infection can have lifelong implications, such as blindness, paralysis, persistent kidney failure, and the effects of having part of their bowel removed. Some HUS victims have mild abnormalities in kidney function many years later.

More in the Injury Law Report soon about this food borne illness.