FSnet Aug. 4/08 -- III

US: Fry Guy doesn't wash bathroom hands, gets public shaming

BLOG: Follow up to handwashing/Wendy's post

UK AND IRELAND: Probe follows salmonella outbreak

Ready, set, eat

MEXICO: Federal investigation into salmonella outbreak being condemned

KOREA: Civic groups to sue TV show for $10 million

ABSTRACT: Expanding the focus of cost-benefit analysis for food safety: a multi-factorial risk prioritization approach

ABSTRACT: The cost-benefit analysis of food safety policies: is it useful?

ABSTRACT: Food safety regulation, economic impact assessment and quantitative methods

ABSTRACT: Regulating food safety: the power of alignment and drive towards convergence

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US: Fry Guy doesn't wash bathroom hands, gets public shaming
04.aug.08
The Consumerist
http://consumerist.com/5032366/fry-guy-doesnt-wash-bathroom-hands-gets-public-shaming
http://barfblog.foodsafety.ksu.edu/2008/08/articles/handwashing/peer-pressure-to-enhance-handwashing-compliance/index.html
When the sign says, "employees must wash hands after using bathroom," Brent takes it very seriously. He says he was using the toilet at a Wendy's, and spotted a worker use the bathroom and head right back to fondling the fries without scrubbing his hands. That's when Brent decided to call out the guy in front of the entire restaurant. Here's his story and what happened next...
There I am going pee in Wendy's by my office when a Wendy's employee comes into the bathroom and goes into the stall to pee. I wash my hands, dry them and exit as I hear a flush. I get about 3 seconds out of the bathroom and guess who comes out of the bathroom! I'm in gross shock at this point but I think "Ok maybe he's going on break and he will wash after he smokes ones..."WRONG! He not only went behind the counter he started handling fries! So what do I do? "Excuse me, I would like to see your manager.""Um Larry, this guy wants you!... I don't know he wants a manager!" Larry the manager comes to the counter and about 5 employees are eyes glued! Including Mr. Dirty Hands Fry-man. "Yeah that guy right there working the fries with the mustache, he was just in the bathroom at the same time I was and he left without washing his hands."
The room fell SILENT!
About 6 people were standing at the counter waiting for their food, plus 10 people sitting close enough to hear this, plus the onlooking employees, INCLUDING Mr. Dirty Hands Fry-man.Now Mr. Dirty Hands Fry-man had this look on his face that can only be explained as a look that said "YOU SON OF A !!!" Without actually saying a word. Fearing he might come over the counter or throw something at my head I bid them farewell. "I'll just go to Burger King." I watched over my shoulder the whole way and I am pleased to say that I saw a couple of familiar faces at Burger King a few minutes later.
Chalk one up for customers!
Sure, he could have spoken privately to the manager to handle it more discreetly. Or filed a complaint with the Health Inspector. But I'll bet you every worker at that Wendy's washes their hands after using the bathroom now.



 
BLOG: Follow up to handwashing/Wendy's post
04.aug.08
20-Something-or-other
http://20-somethingorother.blogspot.com/2008/08/follow-up-to-handwashingwendys-post.html
While reading the article comments on the Consumerist page about the Wendy's employee who was called out for not washing his hands, I came across a web site called On the Yellow List. The goal of this web site is to publicly shame people who have been seen not washing their hands in restrooms. This is hilarious! I can't say I'd be mean enough to put someone's name on there, but it's a great idea. The main reason why I wouldn't put someone's name up is that the chances the person would see their name on this site are slim to none. Also, I believe face-to-face shaming is much better than shaming anonymously.



 
UK AND IRELAND: Probe follows salmonella outbreak
04.aug.08
The Press Association
http://ukpress.google.com/article/ALeqM5gNUQ1GTmPbAjYVniYyGjsc5miJ5Q
Food safety chiefs in the UK and Ireland have launched an investigation into a salmonella outbreak after 68 cases of the illness were reported since February.
The Health Protection Agency (HPA) said 60 people across England, Wales and Northern Ireland had fallen victim to a rare strain of Salmonella Agona.
Men were the most commonly affected accounting for 58% of the cases, while ages ranged from one to 79 years.
The Food Safety Authority of Ireland (FSAI) confirmed eight people contracted the infection, which it is understood causes diarrhoea and vomiting, between the end of June and early July.
Both agencies are working to try and find the source of the outbreak.



 
Ready, set, eat
05.aug.08
Sydney Morning Herald
Kelsey Munro
http://www.smh.com.au/news/good-living/ready-set-eat/2008/08/04/1217701929503.html
Beijing will be Garry Leahy's third Olympics. Not a bad run for anyone but Leahy isn't competing, he's responsible for managing the herculean task of feeding the athlete's village.
Between now and the end of the Paralympics, the Irish-born Sydney chef and his six international colleagues will preside over the production of about 3.5 million meals for athletes, coaches, staff, officials and media guests in a massive 24-hour, three-month kitchen operation.
At the Beijing Games there will be almost 7000 managers, chefs and employees working in catering for the Olympic Village dining hall: a vast facility the size of three US football fields that can seat up to 6000 diners. Leahy quit his Sydney chef job and left for China at the end of June to set up the vast kitchen in Beijing and plan the frenetic months ahead.
Leahy expects things to slowly build to a crescendo this week before the opening ceremony on Friday.
"The poor countries move into the village first because everything is free, paid for," he says. "I get a brief every day of how many people are coming in the next day. The Australians and Americans and the big teams don't come in until the last minute, they're in their training camps around the world. So it starts off slowly, then about a week out from the opening ceremony everybody will be in there. That four- or five-day period is when we peak.
"I will be just praying for the opening ceremony, as soon as that happens I will heave a big sigh of relief."
Leahy's employer, the US catering company Aramark, which has catered for every summer Olympic Games since 1968, has developed a world menu of more than 800 recipes for the Beijing Games. Chinese, Mediterranean and international food will feature and nutrition information for every meal is provided at the point of service in English, Chinese and French.
Leahy says the menu is broadly similar to that served in the Athens and Sydney Games. "For breakfast we're going to have scrambled eggs, sauteed zucchini, we have a red miso on, a congee, roasted vegetables, cauliflower with lemon and saffron rice, octopus with peppers, chicken with chickpeas," he says. "Red miso and congee are so popular - in Athens we were going through maybe 100-150 litres a day."
Now promoted to the position of senior executive chef, Leahy won't do any cooking. "My tools in the three months will be a Texta and a thermometer, so I can track food and do temperature checks," he says.
The temperature checks are an integral part of the vast food safety logistics of catering for the world's elite athletes: it would be disastrous if anyone contracted food poisoning from an Olympic village meal. Similarly, there's a vast range of special dietary needs to provide for: lean protein, whole grains and raw salads are available round the clock to meet the diverse needs of everyone from weightlifters to gymnasts. The caterers also have to take into account vegetarian, halal and kosher food requirements, plus food allergies and cultural differences. "It's really healthy food, it's good for you," Leahy says.



 
MEXICO: Federal investigation into salmonella outbreak being condemned
04.aug.08
Wired Health Reporter
http://www.wiredprnews.com/2008/08/04/federal-investigation-salmonella-outbreak_20080804521.html
Mexico City, Mexico -- Two days into a congressional hearing about the country's largest salmonella epidemic in ten years, it has been reported that a Keystone Kops state investigation is being brought to the forefront which spanned around two months. It originated from a fake alarm regarding U.S. tomatoes to uncertainties with respect to peppers from Mexico.
The growers and health officials in the state have been criticizing federal officials for not applying their common sense or having refused to ask for aid. Growers in Florida and California are still reeling from the loss for a contagion with which they had absolutely no connection, and have been asking for an inquiry of the already made investigation. The impatient federal officials have claimed "mom-and-pop" operations leave cluttered paper details which slowed down their work.
The Centers for Disease Control refused to rule out tomatoes which counted for one of the largely consumed foods, the FDA (Food and Drug Administration) has revealed that tomatoes were safe for consumption now. The report has shown that the extensive food chain in the US that is now supplying millions of meals every day and is not any stronger than its weakest tie. It has now become clear that were a plethora of weak links and ties.
Until now, the exact cause for the salmonella outbreak is not clear. It has been reported that the uncommon strain of saintpaul salmonella had infected approximately 1,304 people, though that number might be larger. Out of the 250 hospitalized, two people - a cancer patient and an elderly male, have died. Though the salmonella outburst has slowed to an extent, the inquiry into the outbreak is still continuing.
Federal officials have been heard saying that they have no idea as from where the contamination has occurred but, but they are now forewarning people to avoid the use of peppers grown in Mexico.



 
KOREA: Civic groups to sue TV show for $10 million
05.aug.08
Dong-A Ilbo
donga.com
http://english.donga.com/srv/service.php3?bicode=040000&biid=2008080569398
Two civic groups said yesterday that they will sue the TV program "PD Notebook" for 10 billion won (10 million U.S. dollars) over its alleged fabrication of facts to exaggerate the risks of American beef.
Lawyers for Citizens and the People's Solidarity against Violent Candlelight Protests, or Nono Demo for short, will file the suit.
Lee Heon, secretary general of the lawyers group, said, "'PD Notebook's compounded the candlelight vigils and caused great confusion in our society by exaggerating the dangers of mad cow disease and distorting facts in its report on U.S. beef imports."
"We will demand one million won in compensation for each of 10,000 plaintiffs through the 'zono Demo' Web site."
Lee said getting the 10,000 plaintiffs will be easy since the Web site has more than 30,000 members.



 
ABSTRACT: Expanding the focus of cost-benefit analysis for food safety: a multi-factorial risk prioritization approach
01.jun.08
Julie A. Caswell a
Innovation: The European Journal of Social Science Research, Volume 21, Issue 2 June 2008, pages 165-169
http://www.informaworld.com/smpp/content~content=a795460385~db=all~order=page
A pressing need in the area of food safety is a tool for making overall, macro-judgments about which risks should be given priority for management. Governments often seek to base this prioritization on public health impacts only to find that other considerations also influence the prioritization process. A multi-factorial approach formally recognizes that public health, market-level impacts, consumer risk preferences and acceptance, and the social sensitivity of particular risks all play a role in prioritization. It also provides decision-makers with a variety of information outputs that allow risk prioritization to be considered along different dimensions. Macro-level prioritization of risks based on multiple factors is an important expanded use of cost-benefit analysis to manage risk.



 
ABSTRACT: The cost-benefit analysis of food safety policies: is it useful?
01.jun.08
Innovation: The European Journal of Social Science Research, Volume 21, Issue 2 June 2008, pages 159-164
Xavier Irz a
a MTT Economic Research, Helsinki, Finland
http://www.informaworld.com/smpp/content~content=a795460337~db=all~order=page
This article investigates the usefulness of cost-benefit analysis for the assessment of food safety policies, drawing on the experience of professional economists at the UK Food Standards Agency (FSA). After reviewing the history of Impact Assessment at the FSA, the example of the review of the over-thirty-months (OTM) rule is used to illustrate the advantages of the approach. We also highlight issues of uncertainty and intangibility, which create particular difficulties in applying cost-benefit analysis in the area of food safety. The paper concludes, however, that given the limited number of practical alternatives, cost-benefit analysis currently represents the best available approach to the assessment of food safety policies.




 
ABSTRACT: Food safety regulation, economic impact assessment and quantitative methods
01.jun.08
Innovation: The European Journal of Social Science Research, Volume 21, Issue 2 June 2008, pages 145-158
Maddalena Ragona a; Mario Mazzocchi a
a Department of Statistics, University of Bologna, Bologna, Italy http://www.informaworld.com/smpp/content~content=a795459091~db=all~order=page
Together with a call for more efficient regulations in the EU, there is a growing demand for transparency in the evaluation techniques to assess and predict their effects. This article explores the potential impacts of food safety regulations and discusses the quantitative methods used in the policy evaluation literature. Along with the strengths and limitations of each method, this review highlights other transversal issues relevant to the assessment strategies. Among these are the imbalance between ex ante and ex post evaluation, the lack of adequate data, the difficulty of estimating the dynamic effects of regulations, and the possibility of endogenous relationships.



 
ABSTRACT: Regulating food safety: the power of alignment and drive towards convergence
01.jun.08
Innovation: The European Journal of Social Science Research, Volume 21, Issue 2 June 2008, pages 133-143
Line Friis Lindner a
a Interdisciplinary Centre for Comparative Research in the Social Sciences, Vienna, Austria http://www.informaworld.com/smpp/content~content=a795460123~db=all~order=page
Food safety is a complex policy domain: it involves a variety of stakeholders, touches upon a variety of issues and disciplines, and has an important international dimension. While countries are free to set their own standards, their policy autonomy in the process of regulating food safety is restricted by a number of factors. The EU and each member state are confronted with two aspects of compliance: the power of alignment with Codex standards, and the drive towards convergence with standards developed by trading partners. The importance attributed to the WTO and its reference organization, the Codex Alimentarius Commission, sheds light on the institutional constraints inherent in the international framework governing food safety while revealing the indirect power of alignment with international standards. Equally important, on the other hand, are the standards adhered to or required by key trade partners. This is often a stronger factor pointing towards convergence in the mid to long term. These constraints are inherent components of the present-day European regulatory framework governing food safety.
 


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