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Family wins $40,000 over food tainted with urine by North Platte Bulletin Staff - 7/14/2008 A police officer from Sidney and his family won $40,000 from a restaurant that served them food tainted with an employee’s spit and urine. Officer Keith Andrew and his wife said in the lawsuit that a Taco Bell employee urinated and spit in food served to them and their children in October 2005. The owner of the restaurant is North Platte’s Mid-Plains Food and Lodging, owner of a KFC and Taco Bell here too. The jury sided with the Andrews July 11. In the lawsuit,...

Inuit oral stories could solve mystery of Franklin expedition Randy Boswell, Canwest News Service Published: Wednesday, June 25 More than 150 years after the disappearance of the Erebus and Terror - the famously ill-fated ships of the lost Franklin Expedition - fresh clues have emerged that could help solve Canadian history's most enduring mystery. A Montreal writer set to publish a book on Inuit oral chronicles from the era of Arctic exploration says she's gathered a "hitherto unreported" account of a British ship wintering in 1850 in the Royal Geographical Society Islands - a significant distance west of the search...

ALBUQUERQUE (AP) — Salmonella food poisoning first linked to uncooked tomatoes has spread to 16 states, federal health officials said Saturday. Investigations by the health departments of Texas and New Mexico and the federal Indian Health Service have tied 56 cases in Texas and 55 in New Mexico to raw, uncooked tomatoes. “We’re seeing a steady increase,” said Deborah Busemeyer, the communications director for the New Mexico Department of Health. An additional 50 people have been sickened by the same salmonella infection in Arizona, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Idaho, Illinois, Indiana, Kansas, Oklahoma, Oregon, Utah, Virginia, Washington and Wisconsin, the federal...

The terrorist cell that planned to poison an Israeli restaurant this month was led by jihadists who were recently granted amnesty by Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, WND has learned. The pardoned terrorists, members of Fatah's Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, were directly involved in orchestrating the foiled attack, according to defense sources. They were granted amnesty in October as a stated Israeli gesture to help bolster Palestinian Authority President and Fatah Chairman Mahmoud Abbas. The terrorists were given amnesty on condition they disarm, refrain from attacks and spend three months in PA detention facilities and another three months confined to Nablus,...

Afghanistan to Ask NATO for Bigger Army Afghan officials will go to the NATO summit in Romania Thursday with a request: pay to increase our national Army by 40 percent. A bigger Army, Afghan officials argue, will allow the US and other coalition members to scale back in the coming years. This appeal comes amid pleas from the US and Canada for other NATO members to commit more to the Afghanistan mission, which many analysts say has floundered over the past year for lack of resources and a coherent strategy. France is expected to contribute another 1,000 forces and...

March 3, 2008 China reports 32% rise in food-poisoning deaths BEIJING - CHINA saw a rise of almost a third in food-poisoning deaths last year even as the total number of incidents dropped, the Health Ministry said on Monday, underscoring the food safety challenge China still faces. China has been waging battle to improve product quality after a series of scandals at home and abroad involving substandard toys, fake medicines and food, as well as tainted pet feed. A total of 258 people died from food poisoning last year, up a little under 32 per cent on 2006, the ministry-published...

368 claim food poisoning / Victims of China-made gyoza reported in 30 prefectures The Yomiuri Shimbun Hebei Province government official answers questions from reporters in front of a factory of Hebei Foodstuffs Import and Export Group Tianyang Food Processing in Shijiazhuang, Hebei Province, on Thursday. The number of people who complained of sickness after eating frozen food products made in China has surged to 368 in 30 prefectures as of Thursday, The Yomiuri Shimbun has learned. It was revealed Wednesday that 10 people in three families in Chiba and Hyogo prefectures showed symptoms of food poisoning between Dec. 28 and...

AP MEDICAL WRITER WASHINGTON -- It's a dirty little secret of food poisoning: E. coli and certain other foodborne illnesses can sometimes trigger serious health problems months or years after patients survived that initial bout. Scientists only now are unraveling a legacy that has largely gone unnoticed. What they've spotted so far is troubling. In interviews with The Associated Press, they described high blood pressure, kidney damage, even full kidney failure striking 10 to 20 years later in people who survived severe E. coli infection as children, arthritis after a bout of salmonella or shigella, and a mysterious paralysis that...

CHICAGO (AP) - More than 120 people who ate from the same booth at the Taste of Chicago food festival last week became ill, at least nine of them with salmonella poisoning and 10 who were hospitalized, the health department said Thursday. The Chicago Department of Health was investigating the cases and confirmed that nine were caused by salmonella bacteria. The number could increase because lab results are pending in some of the cases. The 126 people all ate at the Pars Cove Persian Cuisine booth, which served cucumber salad over hummus, grilled lamb and beef, pomegranate barbecued chicken and...

SHANGHAI, May 17 — Weeks after tainted Chinese pet food ingredients killed and sickened thousands of dogs and cats in the United States, this country is facing growing international pressure to prove that its food exports are safe to eat. But simmering beneath the surface is a thornier problem that worries Chinese officials: how to assure the world that this is not a nation of counterfeits and that “Made in China” means well made. Already, the contamination has produced one of the largest pet food recalls in American history, heightening global fears about the quality and safety of China’s agricultural...

A COUPLE of weeks ago I saw a new scientific paper from Clemson University that struck me as both pioneering and hilarious. Accompanied by six graphs, two tables and equations whose terms include “bologna” and “carpet,” it’s a thorough microbiological study of the five-second rule: the idea that if you pick up a dropped piece of food before you can count to five, it’s O.K. to eat it. I first heard about the rule from my then-young children and thought it was just a way of having fun at snack time and lunch. My daughter now tells me that fun...

China and the Food Supply: The Ugly Story of China’s Culture of Corruption By John E. Carey Peace and Freedom May 8, 2007SARS. Bird flu. Contaminated dog food. Contaminated pharmaceuticals. Chickens held off the market. Pigs dying.“Food fear” is real. There is and should be real fear about the way China, or at least many Chinese firms involved, handle their responsibilities in food and feed manufacturing and development.Every once in a while a journalist gets to go back into the archieves and find something that was “relevant then and even more important now”.On Sunday, May 4, 2003, The Washington Times published...

AN unhappy wife fed her husband dog excrement in a curry, the BBC has reported. Jill Martin, 47, pleaded guilty in a Scottish court to culpable and reckless conduct against her ex-husband Donald Martin. The court heard that Martin served the dinner to her husband and started laughing as he began to eat it. At first she claimed she had laced the dish with arsenic but then confessed she had added dog excrement , the BBC reported. Martin's defence lawyer Terry Gallanagh compared the case to "an episode of Desperate Housewives", and said that at the time of the curry...

FDA Warns Consumers About Potentially Contaminated Olives April 13, 2007 The Food and Drug Administration issued an alert Friday warning consumers that some canned and jarred imported olives may be contaminated with the bacteria that causes botulism, a potentially deadly illness. No cases have been reported, but the FDA issued an urgent recall of olives manufactured and imported by Charlie Brown di Rutigliano & Figli S.r.l, of Bari, Italy. The olives affected by the FDA recall are distributed and sold under the following brands: Borrelli, Bonta di Puglia, Cento, Corrado's, Dal Raccolto, Flora, Roland and Vantia, and have codes that...

Maybe the green onions were not the culprit after all. As the number of confirmed or suspected cases of E. coli infection rose to 400 yesterday, federal officials said that their testing had failed to confirm preliminary findings by Taco Bell that some green onions in its restaurants were contaminated. The chain removed green onions from its restaurants last week. “There’s nothing to implicate green onions right now,” said Dr. David Acheson, chief medical officer for food safety at the federal Food and Drug Administration. “We have not ruled out any food ingredient. We haven’t ruled any in, and we...

Number Of Confirmed Cases In N.Y., N.J. Reaches 39 Source Of Bacteria Undetermined, But Food Products Sent To Labs For Testing (CBS/AP) TRENTON, N.J. At least 14 people in two counties on Long Island have been affected by the recent E. coli outbreak that was first reported in central New Jersey. Officials say three people in Nassau County and 11 people in Suffolk County are being treated in the outbreak, though there is no confirmation yet as to whether the outbreak in New Jersey and the one in New York are related. Eight Taco Bell restaurants on Long Island have...

The number of illnesses connected to the Dinosaur Bar-B-Que in Syracuse is now up to more than 600. Initial complaints came from people who ate at the restaurant either last Friday or Saturday night. But now, people who ate leftovers taken from the Dinosaur on those nights and others who may have come into contact with those that were ill are coming forward. In excess of 600 cases have been reported to the county health department of people claiming they fell ill after eating food from the Dinosaur Bar-B-Que over the weekend. Preliminary tests show that the illness was not...

HUNDREDS of Iraqi policemen were poisoned and up to seven were reported dead yesterday after eating rotten meat at their base’s mess hall.The defence ministry said that about 400 were affected at the army and police training camp of Numaniyah, near the town of Kut, south of Baghdad. Officers at the base said, however, that about 1,300 fell ill soon after eating a meal on Monday night to break their daily Ramadan fast. Iraqi staff at the base accused senior officials of skimming more than 50 percent off the mess budget and providing poor food to the recruits. They said...

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan has received no information from any foreign government that would corroborate a French newspaper report on Saturday that al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden died of typhoid in Pakistan, government official said. "No government has shared any such information with us so far, which is the normal thing to do under such circumstances," the official told foreign news agency. A French daily reported that, according to a French secret service report, Saudi Arabia was convinced that bin Laden died of typhoid in Pakistan in late August. France's Defence Ministry said a secret service report saying al Qaeda leader...

See for example this thread first. At the ca-fe-ter-i-a There's panic, hysteria "I'm dead at the finish 'cause I ate the spinach!" E. Coli bacteria! "The recalled brands are: Bellissima, Cheney Brothers, Coastline, Compliments, Cross Valley, D'Arrigo Brothers, Dole, Earthbound Farm, Emeril, Fresh Point, Green Harvest, Jansal Valley, Mann, Mills Family Farm, Natural Selection Foods, Nature's Basket, O Organic, Premium Fresh, President's Choice, Pride of San Juan, Pro*Act, Pro-Mark, Rave Spinach, Ready Pac, River Ranch, Riverside Farms, Snoboy, Superior, Sysco, Tanimura & Antle, The Farmer's Market and Trader Joe's."

Tainted spinach traced to California By ANDREW BRIDGES, Associated Press Writer 1 hour, 43 minutes ago WASHINGTON - A California natural foods company was linked Friday to a nationwide E. coli outbreak that has killed one person and sickened nearly 100 others. Supermarkets across the country pulled spinach from shelves, and consumers tossed out the leafy green. Food and Drug Administration officials said that they had received reports of illness in 19 states. Twenty-nine people have been hospitalized, 14 of them with kidney failure. The outbreak was traced to Natural Selection Foods, a holding company based in San Juan Bautista,...

The massive security force deployed by Argentina for an Americas-wide presidential summit this week suffered its first glitch on Wednesday -- food poisoning. At least 70 federal police officers guarding the beach resort hotel where U.S. President George W. Bush and others will meet were overcome by diarrhea and vomiting after dining on lasagna at a nearby hotel late on Tuesday... The indisposed officers received medication and were expected to be well enough to resume their duties later in the day, Rodriguez said. The hotel is the preferred eating grounds for the 700-strong police squad patrolling the city, but was...

BAGHDAD, Aug 31 (Reuters) - Up to 500 people died when a crowd of Iraqi Shi'ites stampeded off a bridge over the River Tigris in Baghdad on Wednesday, Iraq's deputy Health Minister Jalil Al-Shumari told Reuters. The crowd, on its way to the Kadhimiya mosque for an important religious ceremony, panicked as rumours spread that a suicide bomber was preparing to blow himself up. Earlier at least seven people died in three separate mortar attacks on the crowd.

TIKRIT, Iraq, June 1 (Xinhuanet) -- An Iraqi soldier died and 12 others were hospitalized after they ate poisonous watermelon near the northern Iraqi city of Mosul, a statement said Wednesday. "An unknown driver of a truck full of watermelon gave late Tuesday poisonous watermelon to Iraqi soldiers on several checkpoints spread along the road from north of Sharqat to Hamam al-Alil town, near the northern Iraq city of Mosul," US-Iraqi liaison office in Tikrit said in the statement. "A soldier died and 12 others were evacuated to Mosul Hospital,"the statement said. Iraqi authorities are investigating the incident, it added....

Tin SoldierAn American Vigilante In Afghanistan, Using the Press for Profit and Glory By Mariah Blake In April 2004, a former U.S. Special Forces soldier named Jonathan Keith Idema started shopping a sizzling story to the media. He claimed terrorists in Afghanistan planned to use bomb-laden taxicabs to kill key U.S. and Afghan officials, and that he himself intended to thwart the attack. Shortly thereafter, he headed to Afghanistan, where he spent the next two months conducting a series of raids with his team, which he called Task Force Saber 7. By late June, he claimed to have captured the...

VERONA, N.Y., April 7 - For years, David L. Smith cooked wild game for his Fire Department's annual fund-raising sportsmen banquet. It was his way to help out after he retired from the department's volunteer corps. At this year's banquet, on March 13, more than 300 townsfolk sampled his dishes - the venison meatballs, chili and patties. Three weeks later, Mr. Smith was trying to forget the whole affair with a whiskey at the local V.F.W. "My wife said they'd come to get me," he said. Through unlucky circumstance, tissue samples from a deer that one farmer donated for the...

Thirty elementary school children died of food poisoning yesterday after eating a native delicacy made from cassava flour at the San Jose Elementary School in Mabini town, Bohol. San Jose Vice Mayor Ester Tabigi said authorities had not yet determined exactly how many children had fallen ill, but at least 50 were still in critical condition last night in various hospitals in the nearby towns of Ubay and Talibon. Some children were brought as far as the provincial capital of Tagbilaran City, some 100 kilometers from Mabini. Reports said the children, mostly second and third-grade pupils, started complaining of stomach...

REALLY? THE FACTS Recent studies have found that a little alcohol may help ward off heart disease and slow dementia. But an old wives' tale suggests another reason to indulge in a drink or two with dinner: preventing food poisoning. Research over the years appears to confirm this. In 2002, for example, health officials in Spain studied an outbreak of salmonella among people who had been exposed to contaminated potato salad and tuna at a large banquet. Their findings, which were published in the journal Epidemiology, showed that the rate of sickness was lowest in those who had consumed large...

BOGOTA, Colombia - President Alvaro Uribe was hospitalized with a stomach infection Thursday, forcing the postponement of a fence-mending summit with Venezuela's president, officials said. Uribe was taken to a hospital in the coastal city of Cartagena, his office said in a statement. It provided no other details. Earlier, the office said he had contracted food poisoning. Uribe's trip to Caracas, set for Thursday, was put on hold until his medical team determines he's fit to travel, a statement from his office said. Uribe was in Cartagena to attend the opening of a two-day international donors' conference. The two...

THE extent of a food poisoning outbreak at two Turkish restaurants in Melbourne's inner-north continues to grow, with authorities investigating more than 400 suspected cases. The Department of Human Services (DHS) has confirmed 24 cases, with seven people in hospital, including an 18-month-old baby. The Alasya Restaurant and Alasya 2, both in Sydney Road, Brunswick, were closed on Wednesday night after the outbreak was discovered. They underwent heavy cleaning yesterday. Bread from an adjoining bakery, Alasya Cakes, which was distributed to a number of restaurants and cafes around Melbourne, was recalled today after the department discovered it had not undergone...

A possible new case of mad cow disease has been found in the United States, the Agriculture Department said yesterday. The agency said the brain of a cow tested positive three times on a rapid test for the presence of prions, the misfolded proteins that cause the disease. The department considers the rapid test inconclusive. The results await confirmation by more complex tests, and experts expect those to take four to seven days at the National Veterinary Services Laboratory in Ames, Iowa. A food safety expert who frequently criticizes the testing program said the results made it almost certain that...

In the months after Sept. 11, 2001, the US government advised the public to be aware of suspicious persons, avoid certain landmarks, and prepare for future terror attacks. The government did not advise anyone to stop eating at Arabic restaurants. Yet across the country, Middle Eastern restaurants saw sales drop dramatically as Americans spurned falafel and kebabs as the symbolic food of the terrorists. In some parts of the country, businesses owned by Middle Easterners were sprayed with malicious graffiti and vandalized. Many Arab business owners placed the blame on the media portrayal of Arabs as turbaned terrorists. Though Arabs...

By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS LOS ANGELES, May 28 (AP) - A salmonella outbreak traced to one of the world's largest almond producers has sickened about 25 people and prompted a nationwide recall of more than 13 million pounds of almonds. The size of the recall is likely to grow as federal investigators continue to identify distributors and repackagers of almonds that originated from the company, Paramount Farms in the Central Valley of California, a spokesman for the Food and Drug Administration said on Friday. An initial recall covered 2.7 million packages of raw almonds sold under the brand names Kirkland...

FDA: Outbreaks May Be From Salad Packages May 22,2004 WASHINGTON (AP) -- Federal regulators are alerting consumers that raw basil and spring mix salad may be linked to food-poisoning outbreaks that reportedly sickened more than 90 people in Illinois and Texas. The Food and Drug Administration issued the alert late Friday. The agency has been working with the federal Centers of Disease Control and Prevention to determine the source of the outbreaks of cyclosporiasis, an infection in the small intestine. Cyclosporiasis can cause flu-like symptoms such as diarrhea, stomach cramps, nausea, muscle aches and fever. Signs of infection usually develop...

CDC Suggests Change in Treatment for Gay, Bisexual Men The number of gay and bisexual men who are getting infected with gonorrhea that cannot be cured by the most commonly used antibiotics is increasing rapidly, federal health officials said yesterday. Antibiotic-resistant gonorrhea more than doubled between 2002 and 2003, primarily because of a jump from a rate of 1.8 percent to 4.9 percent among gay and bisexual men, according to preliminary data collected at sexually transmitted disease clinics in 23 cities, the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported. Massachusetts and New York City have reported similar findings. As...

<p>Mayor Ron Gonzales abruptly left the stage in the middle of his State of the City speech Wednesday night.</p> <p>According to council members, the mayor stumbled as he approached the podium for his speech.</p> <p>When the lights went down for a taped speech, he reportedly leaned on the lectern, took off his glasses, slumped and then walked off the stage. He was nauseated and perspiring profusely.</p>

Holy cow. Thanks for all the care, concern, and prayers, my friends!I'm back home with a walker and a cane, and doin' the exercises I have to do to get back in shape. Hell, the only exercise I used to get was coughing.It was a garden-variety pneumonia that damn near killed me (40% chance of survival were the odds I was given), but how I got it is the story. After a long day of loading a truck with furniture stuff in South Bend, I went to a local eatery (they'll be named in the lawsuit) and had half a...

Last week a couple friends and I drove down to the coastal town of Puerto Nuevo, Mexico. We ventured into a local restaurant to enjoy los especiales del día which featured lobster and margaritas. After ordering I went to wash up, and to my surprise I found that the bathroom was minus toilet paper, hand soap or running water. Wearily, I left the bathroom and walked past the kitchen where I peeked inside and noticed the same neglect for cleanliness. Raw meat and fishes were basking in the sun, dirty knives and towels were scattered around the room and there...

Superstars battle food poisoning by Phil Speer TAMPA, Fla. – Dec. 17, 2002 – After watching the SmackDown! taping tonight, it seemed hard to believe that many of the Superstars on the show are only starting to get over a major case of food poisoning. Chris Benoit wrestled Kurt Angle in the main event tonight. Eddie and Chavo Guerrero were also major parts of the taping. All of them seemed like they were 100 percent healthy. But last night, both Guerreros, Benoit, Dawn Marie, about a half-dozen other SmackDown! Superstars, as well as all of the SmackDown! referees, were dealing...

MADISON, Wis., Sept. 27 (UPI) -- Public health officials said Friday 59 people have been sickened by E. coli in Wisconsin, Minnesota and Illinois but it still is unclear where the contamination originated and whether the cases are related. The majority of the cases are in Wisconsin, with Minnesota reporting six and Illinois one. The U.S. Agriculture Department is investigating the Minnesota and Wisconsin cases. Samples of ground beef obtained from the homes of two Minnesota victims tested positive for E. coli bacteria. Health officials have not yet said where the ground beef was purchased or processed. Nineteen of those...