Why pediatricians are advocating a hot dog redesign

This is a transcript of an interview from CNN Time

This past Monday, the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) released a new policy statement on choking prevention for children, recommending, among other things, changes in government oversight of food choking hazards, and asking food manufacturers to consider redesigning potentially dangerous food products, such as hot dogs and hard candies. In the U.S., 10,000 children ages 14 and younger visit the emergency room due to food-related choking each year, and between 66 to 77 children age 10 and younger die each year from food-related choking. According to one study cited in the report, 17% of food-related choking deaths involve hot dogs. To better understand the magnitude of childhood choking risks, what the AAP hopes to accomplish with the new recommendations, and what a redesigned hot dog might look like, TIME spoke with Dr. Gary Smith, immediate past chairman of the Committee on Injury Violence and Poison Prevention at the American Academy of Pediatrics and lead author of the AAP policy statement:

TIME: Why is the American Academy of Pediatrics coming out with this new policy statement on choking now? Have choking deaths increased significantly in recent years?

Dr. SMITH: The American Academy of Pediatrics has been involved in this topic for over two decades and actually convened a task force back in the early 1980s to look at food choking and children. What has really been the impetus for doing something more is that, during the last two decades, we haven't seen huge steps forward. And, [in 2001] there was a wake-up call that really got us concerned again: this cluster of deaths occurred due to gel candies. These candies were being marketed internationally and there were children dying in Japan, Canada, the United States. What became very clear after this gel candy episode occurred was how unprepared the [Food and Drug Administration] (FDA) was and how ill-prepared in general we were for responding to choking hazards when it happens to be food. (See the top 10 dangerous foods.)

TIME: What's the difference between how food and non-food choking hazards are regulated?

DR. SMITH: Here's the contrast: you've got the Consumer Product Safety Commission that has a well oiled system of surveilling for issues, a protocol for responding, and if necessary, removing them from the market. In contrast, the FDA hardly does any of this. Kids had been dying for years because of these gel candies and no one had picked it up because there's not a good surveillance system. When it was discovered, it took too long a time for the FDA to respond and get them off the market. We have a lot of experience preventing choking among young children when it comes to toys. Why can't we use all that we've learned there, use the mechanisms we have in place, and apply those to foods to prevent choking in children? That was the bottom line of this policy statement. (See the top 10 dubious toys.)

TIME: Can you walk me through the AAP recommendations for changing the systems in place to regulate food choking hazards?

DR. SMITH: Right now, we have the National Electronic Injury Surveillance System (NEISS), run by the Consumer Product Safety Commission. It does a really good job at picking up specifics about which kinds of consumer products are associated with injury, or activities are associated with injury, but when it comes to food, it does not break it down into specific types. It's like saying "child hurt with child toy." It's so broad that it's not really that useful. What we're suggesting is, you have a surveillance system that is already in place, just add the coding to provide more detail. That's what the FDA is going to need to be able to identify an emerging hazard. That's the first step, the surveillance part. (See the top 10 food trends of 2008.)

TIME: What are the other steps?

DR. SMITH: The next part has to do with labeling. I think the industry has been making strides in the right direction. If you go to the grocery store today, you can find hot dog packages with statements that say that "this poses a choking risk to young children." The problem is, not all manufacturers are doing it, and [among those who are] the labeling is in very small print, mixed in with other information. It's not at all conspicuous, and there's no consistency in the message. We just need to do what we already know how to do for toys and apply it to food. That does not have to be a government mandate. Lots of our current consumer product safety guidelines are voluntary standards. The industry can decide to do something about this, or, if they don't act, it would then be up to the FDA to take some type of action. (See "The Year in Health 2009: From A to Z.")

TIME: But, as you point out in the policy statement, the FDA doesn't regulate all food products—such as hot dogs.

DR. SMITH: The FDA had jurisdiction over most food products, but the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) has jurisdiction over meat products. In these cases, the FDA is going to have to work very closely with the USDA and with the Consumer Product Safety Commission.

TIME: The study includes a list of 10 foods that pose a high choking risk: hot dogs, hard candy, whole grapes, raw carrots, peanut butter, chewing gum, marshmallows, peanuts/nuts, popcorn and sausages. For the man-made products, notably including the hot dog, the AAP policy suggests redesign as a way to reduce choking risk?

DR. SMITH: Hot dogs are the leading cause of food-related choking death in this country. A child dies every five days in this country due to choking on food, and among those cases, hot dogs are the most common type of food. The reasons for this are actually not hard to understand. If you were to take the best engineers in the world, and you said to them, 'Design for me the perfect plug for a child's airway,' you couldn't do better than a hot dog. Unfortunately, it's exactly the right shape of the airway, it's the right diameter—it forms a plug, completely sealing off the upper airway, right above the vocal chords. Because of its shape and size, and because it's compressible, it wedges itself in. It's almost impossible to dislodge. Then it's only a matter of minutes before there is irreparable brain damage and even death. As a pediatric emergency medicine physician, I can tell you, even if we are standing right there with all of our skill and experience, with all of the correct equipment and lighting, it is really hard to get those objects out of a child's airway once they're wedged in like that. It's almost impossible. That's why preventing this from occurring in the first place is so important. (See the top 10 medical breakthroughs of 2009.)

TIME: Many people have wondered if a policy shift like this—and efforts to redesign foods—are really necessary, when avoiding choking hazards could come down to simple efforts of parental common sense. Do you think that's a valid point?

DR. SMITH: We know from from a century and a half of experience with public health problems that the best way to prevent a problem is to design it out of existence. At the turn of the last century, dehydration due to diarrhea and vomiting was one of the leading causes of death among young children in this country. But we didn't tell parents to boil their water each time before they used it and then blame them when they didn't and their child got sick. We put in powerful water systems, we put in sewer systems, we designed the problem out of existence. We need to do that for food choking. It's a tried and true approach for public health. So that means taking high risk foods and when possible, redesigning them, or, when you're introducing a new food like gel candy, make sure [it doesn't] have characteristics that are potentially lethal to children. (See how to prevent illness at any age.)

TIME: But isn't the idea of redesigning the hot dog inevitably going to meet some resistance?

DR. SMITH: People are asking, 'How can we redesign a hot dog, won't that change what it is?' My response to that is that I grew up in a time when I used a slide rule to figure out math problems. We didn't have calculators. Now we have calculators and iPods and iPads and all of this stuff. Our society has reinvented itself so much, changing the characteristics of a hot dog pale in comparison. Beyond that, this is a great opportunity for the industry. This whole idea of redesigning existing foods isn't that far-fetched. When I was a child the only type of sucker that you could get were lollipops that had the round hard candy on the end of a stick, so if you fell it would get pushed way down your throat. The industry came up with what is appropriately called a safety pop. I think that's a marvelous example, where people just took a step back, looked at what was going on, and figured out how they could make that product a safer without changing it so much that they lost market share. I think that the entrepreneur who comes up with the first safety dog is going to find parents across this country lining up to buy that product. It's an opportunity, not a burden.

TIME: If, as is, the hot dog is about as dangerous a food as it can be, what characteristics would a new hot dog—or a "safety dog" as you put it earlier—need to have?

DR. SMITH: It would be almost anything other than the current shape and size. The skin on the hot dog helps it keep that plug form. What you want to do is get away from that, to some kind of shape and size that doesn't completely block the airway if it is aspirated, or breathed back down into the airway. Kids are distractable, if they jump up and are running with food in their mouths—which, of course, is something we try to avoid—but if they were to stumble or take a gasp for any reason, that food gets pulled right back and down, and if it's not that plug shape, they then have the opportunity to cough it back up. If it wedges itself in, they just don't have that opportunity. (See a quick guide on the FDA.)

TIME: In the meantime, while food engineers get to work on safer foods and government agencies are set to the task of implementing policy changes, what can parents do to eliminate food choking hazards?

DR. SMITH: The number one thing [parents] should do is avoid those high risk foods, simply don't give them to your child. Number two, if you have to give your child a high-risk food, let's say it's a grape, you can quarter a grape. Take away that high risk shape and size. If it's a hot dog, cut it lengthwise, so you take away the high risk shape and size. Take care of the re-engineering yourself in the meantime. But, as a long-term public health strategy, that will never adequately prevent kids from choking. On a population level, we know from experience that putting it on the parent and then blaming them when they don't do it is an inadequate and ill-informed approach.

*This interview was edited for length and continuity.

Dodgy eateries to be exposed

CONSUMERS will be able to see at a glance how safe their favourite restaurant is under a new "scores on doors" system that will rate all eateries.

High-end restaurants through to bakeries and the local greasy spoon could be forced to display a food hygiene and safety rating under plans being developed by the state's councils.

Brisbane City Council will be the first to introduce a voluntary system to rate the city's 6000 food businesses, with two plates the worst and five plates the best.

The ratings will be based on how well eateries meet Food Act standards. Those with anything less than a two-plate rating could face closure.

Logan City Council will make its system mandatory. Councillors yesterday voted to lobby Queensland Health and other bodies to change or remove a privacy provision in the Food Act to allow it to force businesses to show a rating in their windows.

The privacy provision bars council inspectors from revealing their findings unless the eatery is prosecuted.

Retail groups fear it will be akin to"naming and shaming" and innocent eateries could be unfairly marked.

Cr Graham Able said it would be a win for consumers but the system had to be compulsory.

"This is just going to give an assurance to people that while they are out at restaurants or hotels or clubs, that we are serious in Logan about hygiene and satisfaction," he said.

Brisbane City Council is relying on pressure from consumers and industry to force eateries to show their rating.

Lord Mayor Campbell Newman said the Brisbane system, dubbed Eat Safe, was about improving food safety for consumers as well as helping businesses who do the right thing.

"It will be a voluntary scheme, but I anticipate that a significant number of fine establishments will be eager to sign up to prove their worth," he said.

Restaurant and Catering Queensland vice-president David Pugh, who is on the board developing Brisbane's restaurant rating system, said it would be in place before Christmas.

"You've got an overwhelming majority, about 85 per cent of people, who said they would like to see how a place stacks up. It could be anywhere from the local bakery to the local Chinese. It makes everybody open and accountable," he said.

Eateries with poor results would face more inspections and costs than those with good ratings.

If a business receives a poor rating, it will be given time to fix the problems before being given a second grading.

The Retailers Association national executive director Scott Driscoll warned the scheme had the potential to ruin a business for what could be a relatively minor mistake.

"This approach is a little bit akin to naming and shaming if you are not meeting a perceived standard temporarily," Mr Driscoll said.

Local Government Association of Queensland executive director Greg Hallam said most Queensland councils would wait and see how Brisbane's scheme will work.

"As a consumer, I think it is a great idea," he said.

"I think people have a right to know what condition their food premises are in and whether or not their food is safe."

Curry house boss hits back after hygiene fine

A restaurant owner, fined for food hygiene offences, has defended his business.

Jamal Uddin, 39, has run the Newent Tandoori takeaway in the town for 17 years, and said he had never received a complaint from a customer.

But after council officials took him to court and released images of a dirty storeroom in his restaurant next door to the takeaway, he said he lost almost a third of his business.

But Mr Uddin, who was fined £1,650 at Gloucester Magistrates’ Court, said the picture released by the council, which was sent out with a report on the restaurant’s food hygiene, was taken in a storeroom.

He admitted four offences under the Food Hygiene Regulations Act.

Mr Uddin said the restaurant had seen a dramatic drop in trade as a result of the report.

He said: “As soon as that picture went out, I lost 30 per cent of my customers.

“That was last week, I have no idea whether this week will be any better.

“Some of my customers have been coming here since we opened, and some of their children now come here.

“I’ve never, in all my time here, had a complaint from customers, or any complaints to the council. No one’s ever got food poisoning or put in any official complaint.”

He added that he was hoping to turn over a new leaf and would comply with all hygiene rules.

He said: “We have even demolished that store room. We didn’t need to, but we’ve done it to please the council and give customers peace of mind.

“I would like to say to my customers that we don’t operate a dirty kitchen here. We never have and we never will operate a kitchen in that state.” He added the restaurant had received a new three-star hygiene rating from Forest of Dean District Council after a recent re-inspection, but they could have got a higher grade.

He said: “They told me that if the building work on the storeroom hadn’t been going on, I would have got four stars.”

Keith Leslie, food and safety team manager for the Forest of Dean District Council, said: “The picture was taken in a storeroom used for the storage of food.

“The requirements are the same for kitchens and storerooms. In either case it needed to be in a decent condition, which it clearly wasn’t.

“The positive side is the fact that, after the court case was all done and dusted, he was due a re-assessment and he had improved so much he received a good rating.”

A new challenge...

I've just agreed to 'ghost write' the David Wilson blog for my old school mate, Dave 'Snooks' Wilson. The URL is http://thedavidwilson.blogspot.com/ and although I have a free hand in what I report, I have been given strict boundaries including a must inclusion of Aston Villa at least once a week. As we, along with Phil Finney and Richard (1099) Phillips were the only Villa fans in our year at school, then that shouldn't be too hard.

in reference to: Bob De Bilde (view on Google Sidewiki)

130 school students suffer food poisoning

Ahmedabad, Jan 27: Over 130 students of a primary school in Junagadh district of Gujarat suffered from food poisoning after participating in mid-day meal today, police said.

The incident took place in a government-run primary school of Navadra village, they said.

"Nearly 160 students took the mid-day meal at the school today, out of which 130 complained of feeling sick," Junagadh District Development Officer (DDO), Banchhandi Pani told PTI.

"Nearly 103 students have been referred to Veraval civil hospital, while 16 are getting treatment at Prabhas Patan primary health centre (PHC) while some have been sent home after treatment," he said.

According to Bani, the students were served Lapsi (prepared using wheat flour, sugar and ghee) and potato curry.

Police said samples of the cooked food as well as the raw material have been sent to the forensic science laboratory at Junagadh district headquarters for tests.

Be cool: Don't risk food poisoning in school lunches

NSW Spokesman Steve Whan

A NSW Food Authority survey has found that school children in Australia are at heightened risk of food poisoning from the food inside their lunch boxes if they are not kept cool throughout the morning.

According to the New South Wales (NSW) media release, “Keep lunches cool for school – simple tips to avoid food poisoning,“ over 70% of students are at increased risk of food poisoning because they do not keep their food lunches at cool temperatures for the four or five hours before it is eaten.

The NSW Food Authority survey looked at 766 students from Sydney primary schools. The survey found that 29% of the lunches were kept at a safe, cool temperature so that bacteria does not build up on and in the food.

However, over 70% of the lunches were up to 12% warmer than considered safe by the NSW agency.

Steve Whan, Minister for Primary Industries for the NSW government, stated, “It is essential lunches are kept cool for school – sandwiches with meat or chicken can sit for up to five hours before kids eat them, so they can have much more bacteria if food is stored at room temperature.”

He added, “On a very hot day that can be a recipe for food poisoning – the warm summer temperatures provide an ideal environment for bacteria to multiply.”

Whan also stated, “While the majority of lunchboxes are kept inside the classroom, alarmingly the survey also revealed there were a handful of students which kept their lunch outside in the sun – which should be moved to the shade immediately.”

Page two continues with solutions to the problem of food poisoning and school lunches.

Was it my multi-blogged moan?

Was it my multi-blogged moan that un-locked my new blog http://sequels-and-trilogies.blogspot.com/ ?
I know that blogger took the full 20 days to un-lock a blog of a friend of mine. Now his block WAS highly political but there should be no difference.
Perhaps it was my genuine threat to move to wordpress?

Who knows?

Thank You blogger for acting quickly

Bob de Bilde

in reference to: Prequels, Sequels & Trilogies (view on Google Sidewiki)

Food poisoning bug is found in two thirds of supermarket chicken

Contamination fears: Fresh chickens on sale at a superstore

Nearly two thirds of chicken sold in supermarkets carry the bug that causes most cases of food poisoning in Britain.

Now the Food Standards Agency is calling on stores to reduce contamination levels.

It said 65.2 per cent of all fresh chicken sold in supermarkets across the country is contaminated with campylobacter.

An estimated 440,000 people fall ill and 80 die each year after becoming infected.

Cooking chicken properly and disinfecting contaminated areas kills the bug.

But the number of human cases has leapt by more than 40,000 compared to four years ago.

Yesterday FSA chief executive Tim Smith told the watchdog's board: 'I wrote to the chief executives of the major food retailers - Asda, Sainsbury's, the Co-op, Tesco, Marks & Spencer, Waitrose and Morrisons - to highlight the issue of campylobacter in chicken and to request their help in tackling this problem.

'We sense the time is right for retailers to make the sort of changes to buying policies, specifications and future purchasing strategies which will ensure the speediest most effective reduction in campylobacter incidence in their own products.'

The FSA has called on supermarkets to attend an international summit in March looking at ways to clean up chicken. Officials are investigating whether steam cleaning or deep freezing the birds for a short period will eliminate contamination.

In its survey of 3,274 samples of chicken from major supermarkets, the FSA also found strains of the bug resistant to antibiotics had risen from 48 per cent in 2001 to 87 per cent last year.

Andrew Wadge, the FSA's chief scientist, said: 'For a lot of us who are fit and healthy, food poisoning is unpleasant and inconvenient - but for others it is a very serious issue.

'The concern is not limited to eating under-cooked chicken. When you bring it into your kitchen, you may be cross-contaminating your hands and transferring campylobacter to salads and fresh produce.'

Other countries, notably New Zealand, have reduced campylobacter contamination by disinfecting chicken meat with chlorine washes before it reaches the shops but this method is banned in the EU.

The British Retail Consortium said: 'This is a complex issue. The biology of campylobacter is not yet fully understood and, so far, there is no proven single solution.'

Bob de Bilde gets his 15 minutes of fame...

on IS A C*NT...

http://isacunt.blogspot.com/2010/01/bob-de-bilde.html

Thanks to GOT & the crew

in reference to: Bob De Bilde (view on Google Sidewiki)

My Disgust at Blogger

Blogger has marked one of my blogs (Prequels, Sequels & Trilogies) as spam...

It will be deleted within 20 days if I do not lodge a review

WTF Blogger... I am seriously considering moving all my blogs to the more versatile Wordpress !

I am reposting this on ALL my other open blogs using the sidewikibar thingy!!!

in reference to: My Sony Ericsson Sucks: My Disgust at Blogger (view on Google Sidewiki)

Pâté sandwiches leave hundreds sick in Binh Thuan

More than 200 people were rushed to the hospital with severe food poisoning after eating homemade pâté sandwiches at two local shops in Binh Thuan Province, the local health department has said.

Binh Thuan authorities forced local resident Vo Thi Cam Tu to close her Cam Tu bread shop in Bac Binh District indefinitely on Wednesday after finding discovering nearly 180 of the patients had eaten at the establishment prior to becoming sick.

“The main cause of the poisoning was pâté,” the Bac Binh Preventive Health Center was quoted by the press as saying on Friday

Cam Tu shop, based in Cho Lau Town, self-processed all the paste and meat in their sandwiches, said the center’s director Dinh The Hung.

Bui Thi Phuong Binh, who lives next to the Cam Tu shop, said she bought two loaves of bread from the shop on Monday, one plain and another with stuffing including the pate.

She ate the stuffed one and got sick while her child ate the other loaf with an omelet and was fine, Binh said.

More than 170 people in Cho Lau were admitted to the province general hospital between Monday and Wednesday with symptoms such as vomiting, diarrhea and headaches. They had all eaten sandwiches from Cam Tu on Sunday.

The hospital said it had treated 173 people in the case but many more had treated themselves at home or visited private clinics.

Nguyen Quang Thoa, deputy director of the hospital, said this was the first mass poisoning case he had seen after 20 years working in the district. Rooms for in-patients at the Infectious Diseases Department were filled to the brim and the hospital had some patients lying on the floor in the halls, he said.

Forty others in Hong Thai Commune were hospitalized the same way after they ate sandwiches from Thuy Giang shop in Dang Thi Chau Giang, which bought its pâté from Cam Tu.

Giang’s shop has also been indefinitely closed.

“There are problems in the way Tu makes pâté,” Hung said.

“It’s very lucky Tu has only supplied her homemade pâté to Giang, or many more people would have been poisoned.”

Cam Tu shop is known as a popular sandwich shop in Cho Lau and has been granted food safety and hygiene certificates. Bread at the shop is a favorite breakfast among local residents.

Authorities are inspecting the pâté to pinpoint the cause of the poisoning

School food: serving up salmonella and E. coli

From The Boston Globe: Not to give fast-food companies any bright ideas, but a wicked ad campaign could show Ronald McDonald, the Burger King, and the KFC colonel waiting outside America’s high schools with Pied Piper smiles as students flee buildings at lunch time.

A USA Today investigative report found that the nation’s fast-food franchises test their beef far more stringently for harmful salmonella or E. coli bacteria than the US Department of Agriculture does for the beef it purchases for the National School Lunch Program.

The newspaper found that the government will buy beef with generic E. coli counts 10 times the amount that goes into Jack in the Box burgers.

The USDA still purchases the meat of old, “spent hens,’’ a practice long ago discarded by KFC and Campbell Soup because the meat is tougher and there’s a possibility that older chickens have more bone splinters that may aid the transmission of salmonella.

For decades, the mediocre quality of school lunches has been the butt of student jokes and sober Government Accountability Office reports.

The laudable intention of President Obama and Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack to make the school lunch program a more nutritious tool against obesity and hunger does not stand a chance if the perception grows that school food is not only dull, but dangerous. The USDA has a lot on its plate, but it can ill afford parent panic over cafeteria cutlets.

The agency must revise its standards immediately before Ronald McDonald, the Burger King, and the colonel stare at us on TV to say with a straight - and legitimate - face, “We’re more safe than your school lunch.’’