Re: Food poisoning

["Nathan Pell" <npell@rsoinc.com>]

One of the classes I had to take for my degree was Environmental
Eppidemiology. In this class we studied food born diseases. If I remember
correctly, there are two types of "disease" you can get from food. One is
eating the bacteria in which they infect you themselves. That being, did not
cook the food. Examples would be Salmonella, E. Coli, ect. But the most
about this stuff that bothered me was Cholstridium Botulitis. I am not sure
if I am spelling this correctly, but I remember this being one of the worst
types of "food poising". This is the one that lives in a low pH environment,
usually associated with canning of vegetables. You cannot smell it, nor
taste it. It will cause death by attacking your nervous system.  I remember
reviewing a case of a young boy that ate some tomatoes his grandmother made
from stuff she canned. He was dead at the end of the day.

Just wondering if I am correct about this. I can see what you mean about
irradiating would not help, because you cannot irradiate food yourself.
Also, the toxins are released when the can is sealed up, and cooking the
stuff as said earlier does not harm the toxins, but does kill the organism
that makes it.

Just my two cents worth.

Nathan Pell
Health Physicist,
RSO, Inc.
Laurel MD
-----Original Message-----
From: carol marcus <csmarcus@ucla.edu>
To: Multiple recipients of list <radsafe@romulus.ehs.uiuc.edu>
Date: Monday, September 20, 1999 4:11 PM
Subject: Re: Food poisoning


>At 12:39 PM 9/20/99 -0500, you wrote:
>>The following are compelling statistics to support radiation processing
>>of food, though it's not mentioned in the article:
>>
>>STUDY PUTS U.S. FOOD-POISONING TOLL AT 76 MILLION YEARLY
>>from The New York Times
>>
>>WASHINGTON -- Although the United States has one of the
>>safest food supplies in the world, about 76 million Americans
>>suffer food poisoning each year and about 5,000 die from it, the Federal
>>Government said on Thursday.
>>
>>The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta said the
>>estimates
>>in a study it released today were the most complete ever compiled on
>>food-borne illnesses (the agency avoided the everyday term "food
>>poisoning")
>>and were based on many sources, including death certificates, hospital
>>surveys and academic studies.
>>
>>"These new estimates provide a snapshot of the problem and do not
>>measure
>>trends and do not indicate that the problem is getting better or worse,"
>>Dr.
>>Jeffrey Koplan, the centers director, said in a statement.
>><http://www.nytimes.com/library/national/science/health/091799hth-food.htm
l>
>>--
>>In my personal opinion, SLG
>>==================================================
>>Susan L. Gawarecki, Ph.D., Executive Director
>>Oak Ridge Reservation Local Oversight Committee, Inc.
>>136 South Illinois Avenue, Suite 208
>>Oak Ridge, Tennessee  37830
>>Phone (423) 483-1333; Fax (423) 482-6572; E-mail loc@icx.net
>>VISIT OUR UPDATED WEB SITE:  http://www.local-oversight.org
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>
>Dear Radsafers:
>
>I am, of course, in favor of food irradiation, but not all "food poisoning"
>is caused by live bacteria.  Much of it, perhaps even most of it, is caused
>by toxins produced by the bacteria before they were cooked to death.  The
>toxins are not significantly changed by cooking, and would not be
>radiosensitive, either.
>
>Just a clarification.
>
>Ciao, Carol
>
>Carol S. Marcus, Ph.D., M.D.
><csmarcus@ucla.edu>
>
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