Salmonella

[Deleted]

Had a very very bad scare this week with the infant that I take care of three days a week. She is one year's old. Her parents and she went on a road trip the week before last,visited relatives in the Carolinas,Alabama,driving from NOLA to and fro.
Upon their return last weekend,the baby,the next day (Monday),developed severe diarrhea,then fever,(103.5),then nausea. They took her to her pediatrician,and were told the baby had "a virus". My husband spoke with the parents and advised them to ask for a stool culture the next day,as her condition worsened. They did.
Today,one week later,they only just find out, that the baby had Salmonella,actually,still has it technically,although her symptoms have abated,some.
She has been placed on an antibiotic,and were told that within 48 hours,she should be fine.
I spent a large portion of the day,disinfecting the house as the baby has been sleeping alot.
This was one of the more scary episodes,health wise,that I have been around, so close to home, so to speak, in quite some time.
No one else in the family had any symptoms. They are racking their brains out trying to figure out where she could have got this.

[bixaorellana]

I think it's entirely possible that her adult family may have been just as exposed as the baby, but their mature systems shrugged off something that her immature one could not. I know someone in Canada whose baby got it from infant formula. One doctor completely mis-diagnosed it, but luckily another one identified it.

You'd have to look it up, but I'm pretty sure that salmonella is one of those things which is more likely to attack infants, the frail elderly, someone who is already sick, etc.

[Deleted]

I did look up some stuff on it,and yes,in many cases it is as you say Bixa.(There was so so much info online,that I quickly became overwhelmed) However,I seem to recall a huge media blown up deal just a few years ago,of an outbreak,involving tomatoes or some such fresh vegetable.
Not being up to date on these specifics,I guess.
My experiences with food poisoning,and I guess, what I thought was salmonella,two of them,involved seafood and another one some rancid peanuts,generously donated ,to the orphanage where I was working (was that fun...13 young girls and yours truly vying for well...TMI...).In all the cases,the onset was almost immediate,included a massive headache accompanied by the violent gastro-intestinal symptoms. All ended within a 24 hour period of time.
The parents of this child thoroughly examined every item she ingested in a 24 hour period prior to the onset and remain flummoxed.
I will say,that for such a tiny body,to have been through so much,how incredibly resilient she has been despite this.
Scary stuff.

[Deleted]

Update on this,the mother took ill a few days ago....WTF???

[Deleted]

Salmonella seems to be quite rare in France. I'm not sure exactly what it done differently, because so many of the 'American' precautions (such as those concerning eggs) are considered laughable. Perhaps there is just greater immunity...?

I think that pregnant women are pretty careful with the rules, but nobody else worries about such things here.

[Deleted]

Well.I don't know that people are necessarily worried about "such things" here,until someone you know,and in this case a one year old infant becomes seriously ill. Clearly,from my OP, I am only vaguely familiar with it. And,yes,it did catch my attention when it occurred.
It isn't just a matter of being a preoccupation with people from the U.S.,and yes,I am being defensive about this. Not everything here boils down to being just what happens in the U.S. and comparing it with in this case another country,France, and their attitudes about!!
Had I said Canada,or somewhere else other than the U.S.,would you have posted the same post? I doubt it.

[Deleted]

I think the U.S. is the only country that puts warnings on absolutely everything, telling you not to eat raw oysters, runny eggs or meat that is not fully cooked, even though people do eat those things anyway. So yes, I do think that some of the attitudes are laughable when an entire country is infantilized to such an extent. Are the warnings on bottles of beer, wine and hard liquor supposed to exempt people from learning the basics of health and safety?

"Read label carefully before consuming."

[bixaorellana]

The US as a country does not put "warnings on absolutely everything". After outbreaks of food poisoning, there may be heightened publicity about how what caused the illness, and there will always be people everywhere who worry unnecessarily about what they hear on the news.

Casimira posted about a real incident, now two such, of illness that hit someone she knows. As it happens to be an illness that's received publicity but which never seemed to be as common as the publicity would indicate, her concerns about its cause are more than understandable.

"Salmonella seems to be quite rare in France."*
Based on my personal observation -- I don't know first-hand of any cases of Salmonella in the US -- and that of Casimira -- the single incident reported in the OP -- it would seem to be quite rare in the US as well. The fact remains that a well cared-for child contacted it and it's reasonable to wonder why.

*Food-Borne Disease: Salmonellosis: An unusually high number of cases of Salmonella typhimurium were reported in France in June 2008. Contamination of a food product distributed nationally was suggested as the cause of the outbreak but investigations did not reveal any specific food source. Cases with the same bacterial strain have also been detected in Switzerland, where pork sausages seem to be the likely source.
• Salmonella typhimurium is a particular strain of Salmonella enterica. Up to 2000 salmonella strains have been described, the best known being Salmonella typhi, the cause of typhoid fever. Strains such as Typhimurium (now endemic in France and other European countries) can lead to a form of human bacterial gastroenteritis, sometimes referred to as salmonellosis.
• Salmonellosis is the second most common food-borne infection in the European Union (EU). Symptoms include nausea and vomiting, abdominal cramps, diarrhea, and fever starting 12 to 72 hours after infection; symptoms may last for up to 7 days. Severe cases should be hospitalised. Salmonella infections can lead to septicemia and sometimes death. Salmonella bacteria are readily transmitted through the feces of people or animals. Humans generally become infected by eating contaminated, insufficiently cooked food or consuming contaminated dairy products. source

[Deleted]

I was reading the salmonella wiki a bit later, and it turns out that French and American salmonella rates are nearly identical, so I was confusing it with some of the other food diseases.

I don't think there is a need to get combat uniforms on every time there is a disagreement about the United States. The U.S. has been #1 in most things long enough not to also be #1 in inferiority complexes. Giant with feet of clay?

[Deleted]

Warning on a bag of peanuts I bought last week: "May contain traces of peanuts"

[bixaorellana]

Thank goodness you read the warning! I hope you didn't consume the dangerous contents.

My sister is a school nurse & says she is mystified by all the peanut allergies she hears about from students' parents. I don't know about the rest of the world, but zillions of American kids of my generation and our children survived their peanut butter and jelly sandwiches.

Question: did the incidence of peanut allergy increase incrementally with the publication of The DaVinci Code and the release of the subsequent movie?

[Deleted]

Even though I read that awful book, my mind has blanked out any memory of peanut allergy in it. However, I am pretty sure that the peanut obsession was well in place before the book came out.

I think that a lot of problems that were not big problems in the past have been transformed into all-or-nothing situations -- peanut allergy, gluten intolerance, lactic acidosis.... When I was little, it was called "indigestion" and there were various pills to take or chew on to neutralize the problem. Now, people make it sound like death is in the offing.

Like Lagatta, I have lactic problems, but I refuse to give up things that I love. Basically this just means that if I have yogurt for breakfast and not other items, I have to chew an antacid tablet afterwards, and then I have no problem at all. If I forget to do this, I will experience discomfort for about two hours. Big deal.

I know that some people have more serious problems, but I really do think that a lot of it has been blown up out of proportion over the years. It often even seems as though people are proud to announce their allergies so that they can demand special treatment.

My father had a lot of "indigestion" as well, but he never gave up any of the items that he loved. He just kept a big jar of Tums next to the bed.

The only thing that I have now learned not to do is to eat ice cream after 11pm and go straight to bed. It will attack me around 1am, and it is not a nice moment at all.

[bixaorellana]

Ever since this OP was posted, I've tried to find out more about salmonella. Along with everyone else in the world, I consumed steak tartar and homemade ice cream and mayonnaise without worry for ages. However, repeatedly hearing warnings about raw eggs in the past few years did make me wonder if there were grounds for those warnings.

From my recent reading I learned that eggs, even uncracked ones, may harbor salmonella and that the incidence of it is more prevalent in the northeast US and is on the rise in other industrialized countries. It's hard not to think about all the exposés of the chicken industry in the US and not make the connection to the strong possibility of contaminated eggs.

And this morning when I got online, look what story was included in the capsule news on my email page: www.fda.gov/Safety/Recalls/ucm223139.htm <-- absolutely read this if you live in the US!

Since the family in the OP was traveling, there is every possibility that they may have ingested a contaminated egg. This is how widespread the problem is:
Wright County Egg recall includes thirteen brands -- 18 Aug 2010 ... An Iowa egg producer has issued a nationwide recall of 228 million eggs after a rash of salmonella cases were reported in California ...

Hits page here

[Deleted]

I love learning technical terms like "shell eggs."

[bixaorellana]

;D Yeah, I though "Duh!" when I read it, but I guess it's easier than saying "eggs in the shell". It sort of sidesteps an obvious question, though -- how do they keep track of where the unshelled eggs from a contaminated batch went?

[Deleted]

I don't think it matters, because unshelled eggs will have the bejesus cooked out of them in industrial preparations, so the salmonella will not be a problem.

[lagatta]

yoghourt, even cow's milk, has very little lactic acid left due to the fermentation. What I absolutely can't do is drink a glass of milk.

Casimira lives in a hot, humid part of the US. Could that have any bearing on this (in terms of different "modern" countries)?

[cristina]

It appears that the majority of the eggs sold in US supermarkets come from a handful of suppliers. The eggs I buy in my Phoenix supermarket were laid by the same hens that someone in Boston buys at their supermarket.

I do use eggs quite a bit as part of normal cooking/baking and after reading about the consolidation of the egg market in the US, I think I have no choice but to start buying local eggs. In fact, I would keep laying hens if I could (not that I am an expert in hygienic egg laying...whatever that is.)

On the other hand, I eat so many things that I shouldn't, or prepare things the way I shouldn't, I really should already be dead. *

For example, top of mind...
Steak tartare
Undercooked eggs
I cook my Thanksgiving turkey with the dressing inside
Medium rare pork

Frankly, I think we build an immunity to these things, but I also worry that the turkey I am stuffing today is already harboring more weird strains of bacteria than the turkey my mother stuffed.

[joanne28]

I think it's the way our food is produced by agribusiness nowadays that is the root of many of our food problems. Having said that, we have always had food poisoning problems, but we haven't had media which make a major feast of every single occurence - blowing things out of all possible proportion. In the same vein, think of how the media handled the SARS and H1N1 illnesses.

[Deleted]

I couldn't agree more Joanne!(particularly about the media blitz).

I have an ongoing battle with my husband over how I prefer my beef cooked,(rare),and he shudders with disdain when he hears that I go to a French Restaurant in NY and have steak tartarre whenever I go visit.
I have never become ill from...
I long to try the pork tartarre that I've heard mentioned on here served in France. He would freak...

[Deleted]

Frankly, I have never seen pork tartare in France, but it would certainly not bother me to try it. Pork is handled the same as beef (or any other meat) these days, so I really do not understand why people would be afraid of getting a disease from it, unless they have no faith whatsoever in the health authorities that approve the items for sale.

[Deleted]

Aug 24, 2010 17:49:28 GMT kerouac2 said:

Frankly, I have never seen pork tartare in France, but it would certainly not bother me to try it. Pork is handled the same as beef (or any other meat) these days, so I really do not understand why people would be afraid of getting a disease from it, unless they have no faith whatsoever in the health authorities that approve the items for sale.

My mistake, read on here somewhere about pork tartare,thought it was you Kerouac who posted it...don't know where I got this from... ::)Maybe, I dreamt it

[Deleted]

I have mentioned eating rare pork but not raw pork. But I'm sure it would be no different from raw beef.

[cigalechanta]

Here in my Boston area of the East Coast, we are not tainted by those eggs (that are not sold here)

Alot of false information here. For instance there are no warnings about eating raw oysters
(a favorite treat of mine)

[Deleted]

When I have eaten at Shells in Florida, the menu contains a health warning against eating raw oysters, even though it is one of their specialties.

If you zoom in on the menu here, you can see the warning for yourself under the listing of oysters on the half shell.

[bixaorellana]

I suspect a warning like that would be an attempt to ward off lawsuits. Drink too much, then eat oysters, then get sick? Sue the restaurant!

Okay - back to salmonella. Check out this article by clicking on the headline:
U.S. Rejected Hen Vaccine Despite Britain’s Success

It reads in part:
In 1997, there were 14,771 reported cases in England and Wales of the most common type of the bacteria, a strain known as Salmonella Enteritidis PT4. Vaccine trials began that year, and the next year, egg producers began vaccinating in large numbers.

The number of human illnesses has dropped almost every year since then. Last year, according to data from the Health Protection Agency of England and Wales, there were just 581 cases, a drop of 96 percent from 1997.

[cigalechanta]

kerouac, I shoiuld have said here in Boston1

[Deleted]

Anyway, I am horrified by their proposal for "pasteurized oysters."

[Deleted]

Aug 25, 2010 17:04:49 GMT kerouac2 said:

Anyway, I am horrified by their proposal for "pasteurized oysters."

I posted a major rant about this last year in the shellfish section of the Galley board and it fell on deaf ears...or blind eyes as it were...
All the restaurants here that serve oysters are required by law (Health Dept. ) to post warnings about eating raw oysters...I'm trying to remember when this was first instituted,I want to say sometime in the mid to late 1980's.

[Deleted]

The Galley board has a shellfish section?? Wow, that sounds cool!