Taco Bell Corp.

One of Taco Bell's new breakfast offerings, the "Johnsonville sausage and egg wrap."

​When there was a multistate outbreak of Salmonella enteritidis in October, the Centers for Disease Control would identify the culprit only as "Mexican-style, fast-food Restaurant Chain A." Turns out, that's longhand for Taco Bell. At the time, the CDC refused to name the restaurant chain, saying there was no public-health reason to do so, according to Food Safety News. This despite the fact that 68 people in 10 states had been sickened, with nearly a third of them requiring hospitalization.

Confirmation that Taco Bell was central to the investigation comes in a document from the Oklahoma State Department of Health's Acute Disease Service, "Summary of Supplemental Questionnaire Responses Specific to Taco Bell Exposure of Oklahoma Outbreak associated cases Multistate Salmonella Enterititis Outbreak Investigation." Oklahoma was second only to Texas (43 cases), with 16 confirmed cases in the outbreak. Ill Oklahomans reported onset dates from Oct. 21 to Nov. 18, 2011. Other affected states were Kansas (2), Iowa (1), Michigan (1), Missouri (1), Nebraska (1), New Mexico (1), Ohio (1) and Tennessee (1).

More >>

Flickr/WayTru

Six EU countries have outlawed genetically modified corn.

​Occupy cornfields! Support is growing for a petition calling for the ouster of Michael Taylor, a senior adviser for the FDA who formerly served as vice president of Monsanto, the controversial agricultural multinational at the forefront of genetically modified foods, the Washington Post reports. President Obama took a lot of flak when he appointed Taylor to the position three years ago. As the second highest-ranking official at the FDA, Taylor is responsible for implementing the day-to-day policies that govern food safety laws in the U.S.

Tipping off the current anti-Taylor campaign is his alleged practice of going after small raw-milk producers, including the Amish, while letting large factory farms responsible for huge food-borne illness outbreaks go scot-free. As an example, activists cite the fact that Iowa agribusinessman Jack DeCoster -- who was responsible for the more than 500 million salmonella-tainted eggs that were recalled in 2010 -- has not been fined or arrested by the FDA, while Amish dairy farmers have been subjected to yearlong stings and hauled away in handcuffs.

More >>

Flickr/freedom-studios

Leave the wildlife eating to the wildlife.

​Eating monkey meat is a really bad idea -- that's the bottom line. According to BBC News, scientists have documented potentially dangerous viruses entering the U.S. through illegally imported "bushmeat" (African wild animal meat). The research is reported in the journal PLoS One.

Testing of meats confiscated at American airports revealed the presence of several pathogens that could pose a risk to human health, including retroviruses and herpesviruses. Most of the pathogens were isolated from the remains of various primate species, some of them from endangered monkeys. Multiple viruses were detected within some samples.

More >>

Flickr/manwithface

Americans love their orange juice.

​The U.S. Food and Drug Administration is looking into banning all orange juice imports from Brazil after an illegal fungicide was found in a sample, Reuters reports. Brazil is the world's top grower of oranges for juice, accounting for more than 10% of the U.S. supply. About half of the orange juice imported into the U.S. comes from the South American country.

The pesticide, carbendazim, is banned in U.S. citrus but is used on orange trees in Brazil to fight mold. According to the agency, a U.S. juice producer detected low levels of carbendazim in orange juice concentrate imported from Brazil. The FDA said low levels of carbendazim were not dangerous and the agency had no plans for a recall. However, the agency said it would stop any shipments of orange juice at the border that test positive for the fungicide.

More >>

A. Scattergood

​It was a bad year for orange fruit (papayas, cantaloupes) and leafy greens (especially romaine). Ground turkey took a big hit (36 million pounds recalled), and raw milk products were pulled from shelves. Here's a look back at 2011 in food recalls, a year of E. coli conundrums, Listeria hysteria and Salmonella scares.

More >>

Flickr/Wonderlane

Make sure you cook your cookies

​
Last week we reported on a new study that implicated raw chocolate chip cookie dough as the cause of a large outbreak of E. coli in 2009. Researchers said it was the first time an outbreak of food poisoning caused by the dangerous Shiga toxin-producing E. coli has been traced to store-bought, ready-to-bake cookie dough. The outbreak, between March and July 2009, sickened at least 80 people across 30 states, 35 of whom had to be hospitalized.

Now new data suggests the culprit in the sickenings was not contaminated raw eggs, as many suspected, but instead the flour used in the mixtures, according to researcher Dr. Karen Neil, a medical epidemiologist with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

More >>

Flickr/Dano

It looks so harmless.

​
First it was apple juice. Now researchers say there is inorganic arsenic in rice, and that it could particularly affect pregnant women, CBS News reports. Arsenic is able to cross the placenta and may harm a developing baby.

For the study, researchers measured arsenic levels in the urine of 229 pregnant women in New Hampshire, a state where 40% of people get their water from wells. (Well water sometimes has higher arsenic levels than tap water, which must meet federal safety standards.)

More >>

[puamelia]/Flickr

Cup Noodles' lightweight packaging makes it prone to spilling

​One of the many reasons why hospital emergency rooms are overflowing with patients? Instant cups of noodles. NPR reports that a good number of hospital intakes each week are victims who burn themselves with the scalding, but well-seasoned, hot water that cooks the instant noodles. In what inevitably will be fodder for products liability lawyers everywhere, doctors interviewed for the story look past user stupidity error and attribute the burns directly to an inherent defect in the cup's design.

According to the article, "The cups are tall, lightweight, and have an unstable base that makes them tip over easily." Dr. Warren Garner, director of USC's County Hospital burn unit, says that as a result of the cup's size and shape, toddlers often tip the cup on themselves. He does not, we note, volunteer an expert opinion about why toddlers are handling hot liquids in the first place.

More >>

Flickr/Ben Garney

​Thanks a lot, Mott's. Dr. Oz threw down the gauntlet a couple months ago when he commissioned a study that found that 10 of three dozen apple juice samples had a total arsenic level exceeding federal safety standards of 10 parts per billion (ppb). Now a new study from Consumer Reports backs up his findings, finding high levels of arsenic and lead in some popular apple and grape juices. (There's no federal arsenic threshold for juice or most foods, though the limit for bottled and public water is 10 ppb.)

The magazine announced Wednesday that it had tested 88 juice samples, and found roughly 10 percent -- mostly from five brands -- had arsenic levels above 10 parts per billion (ppb). You know, the stuff that killed Madame Bovary and various characters in Agatha Christie novels. (Read CR's full report here if you really want to freak yourself out.)

More >>

Flickr/Calgary Reviews

McDonald's will find a new egg source for its McMuffins.

​
McDonald's and Target dropped one of the nation's largest egg suppliers after an animal rights group released an undercover video last Friday of the egg producer's farms in three states, according to the Associated Press.

McDonald's Corp. said the same day that it had dropped Sparboe Farms as a supplier after a video by the group Mercy for Animals showed cases of animal cruelty at five facilities in Iowa, Minnesota and Colorado. Target Corp. soon followed, going so far as to say it would pull eggs from the Litchfield, Minn.-based company off its shelves.

Sparboe produces 300 million eggs a year, in regular, liquid, frozen and dried form, and ships them to restaurants and stores across the country. The company's Vincent, Iowa, plant had billed itself as the sole fresh egg supplier to every McDonald's west of the Mississippi.

More >>