Salmonella Outbreak: Numbers Continue to Climb, Peppers Suspected
The salmonella outbreak of 2008 continues to spread with more than 1,000 cases reported. While the source remains unknown, tomatoes are still the main suspect with a few new foods added to the "questionable" list
Health officials haven't changed their recommendations about what tomatoes are safe to eat, and tomatoes are still a prime suspect in the salmonella outbreak, at least 1,017 people have been sickened.
At least 300 people who came down with Salmonella infection became sick on or after June 1.
The recent cases are the basis for the CDC's new advice on jalapeno and serrano peppers. Based on that data, jalapeno peppers apparently caused some but not all of those illnesses. . Health officials are also investigating fresh cilantro but haven't made any recommendations about cilantro consumption.
FDA Tests Cilantro, Peppers for Salmonella
The FDA is testing cilantro, jalapeno peppers, and Serrano peppers, as well as tomatoes, to find the source of the
Salmonella outbreak that has sickened at least 1,017 people in 40 states and Washington, D.C.
The FDA began testing cilantro, jalapeno peppers, and Serrano peppers within the past few days. Jalapeno peppers and Serrano peppers are hot peppers that are often used in salsa.
But the FDA hasn't made any recommendations about eating -- or avoiding -- cilantro, jalapeno peppers, and Serrano peppers. For now, the FDA’s advice to consumers is still all about tomatoes.
Last week, the FDA announced that it was broadening its search for the source of the outbreak beyond tomatoes. At the time, FDA officials declined to get specific about what other types of produce they were probing, except that those items were commonly eaten with tomatoes.The salmonella outbreak is the largest food-borne outbreak of any kind in the U.S. in the past decade. Certain types of tomatoes started out as the leading suspects in the outbreak, but the FDA recently began testing cilantro, jalapeno peppers, and serrano peppers -- all typical salsa ingredients -- for Salmonella saintpaul, the rare salmonella strain implicated in the outbreak.
What is salmonella?
Salmonella are bacteria that can live in the intestinal tracts of humans and other animals. There are many strains of salmonella; the tomato outbreak involves an uncommon strain called Salmonella Saintpaul.
What are symptoms of salmonella infection?
Salmonella infection (salmonellosis) can cause diarrhea (which may be bloody), fever, nausea, vomiting, and
abdominal pain. Symptoms usually start 12-72 hours after infection.
How is salmonella infection diagnosed?
By a stool test.
How is salmonella infection treated?
Most people don't require treatment other than drinking plenty of fluids. People with severe diarrhea may require rehydration with intravenous fluids. Antibiotics are usually not used unless the salmonella infection has spread beyond the intestines.
How does salmonella spread?
Salmonella can pass from human or animal feces to soil, fruits, vegetables, water, or other surfaces. People usually get salmonella by eating contaminated foods. However, salmonella can also spread through contact with pet feces or by handling contaminated pet food. Reptiles are particularly likely to harbor salmonella bacteria, and chicks and ducklings can carry them too, notes the CDC. The U.S. government bans the sale of small pet turtles because of salmonella risk.
How common is salmonella infection?
Salmonella is commonly found in birds, in reptiles, in chickens, and in humans. There are more than 2,000 types of salmonella.
Every year, the CDC gets reports of about 40,000 cases of salmonella illnesses. The actual number of cases may be higher because not all cases get reported to the CDC. In fact, the CDC estimates that for every reported case, 38 cases go unreported.
An estimated 400 people per year die of acute salmonella infection, according to the CDC.
But the St. Paul salmonella strain is rare in humans. Last year, there were 400 reported cases. And last year there were only 25 cases of infection with the specific Saintpaul subtype causing the current outbreak.
I first heard the above quote in the movie The Italian Job, other than that I don’t know who to attribute the quote too. If you know who the author is I’d appreciate you letting me know.
The one and only Dark Shakespearean Angel Jim Morrison and The Doors….
Jim Morrison quotes are in between the youtube video’s
When you make your peace with authority, you become authority.
A friend is someone who gives you total freedom to be yourself.
I think the highest and lowest points are the important ones. Anything else is just...in between. I want the freedom to try everything.
The Doors - People Are Strange
Blake said that the body was the soul's prison unless the five senses are fully developed and open. He considered the senses the 'windows of the soul.' When sex involves all the senses intensely, it can be like a mystical experience.
The time to hesitate is through.
Friends can help each other. A true friend is someone who lets you have total freedom to be yourself-and especially to feel. Or, not feel. Whatever you happen to be feeling at the moment is fine with them. That's what real love amounts to-letting a person be what he really is.
The Doors -Wild Child
The most important kind of freedom is to be what you really are. You trade in your reality for a role. You give up your ability to feel, and in exchange, put on a mask.
The most loving parents and relatives commit murder with smiles on their faces. They force us to destroy the person we really are: a subtle kind of murder.
Sex is full of lies. The body tries to tell the truth. But, it's usually too battered with rules to be heard, and bound with pretenses so it can hardly move. We cripple ourselves with lies.
The Doors -Who Scared You
Hatred is a very underestimated emotion.
Violence isn't always evil. What's evil is the infatuation with violence.
We fear violence less than our own feelings. Personal, private, solitary pain is more terrifying than what anyone else can inflict.
The Doors - Roadhouse Blues
Listen, real poetry doesn't say anything; it just ticks off the possibilities. Opens all doors. You can walk through anyone that suits you.
If my poetry aims to achieve anything, it's to deliver people from the limited ways in which they see and feel.
I think in art, but especially in films, people are trying to confirm their own existences.
The Doors -The Changeling
Whoever controls the media controls the mind.
I think the highest and lowest points are the important ones. Anything else is just...in between. I want the freedom to try everything.
Each generation wants new symbols, new people, new names. They want to divorce themselves from their predecessors.
In the southernmost reaches of Hocking Hills is Ash Cave - beyond doubt the most spectacular feature of the entire park. Ash Cave is the largest, most impressive recess cave in the state. We forgot our camera but we did take some pictures with a few disposable cameras, I don’t have a scanner so the pictures below are from photobucket.
The path to Ash Cave is through a narrow gorge that boasts stately hemlocks, huge beech trees and various other hardwoods. The valley floor is filled with a brilliant display of wildflowers, such as Dutchman’s breeches, trout lily, Jack-in-the Pulpit, jewelweed and includes large flowered trillium. The narrow gorge is about one-fourth mile long, an astonishing suddenness gives way to the tremendous overhanging ledge and cave shelter.
The horseshoe-shaped cave is massive; measuring 700 feet from end to end, 100 feet deep from the rear cave wall to its front edge with the rim rising 90 feet high. A small tributary of the East Fork of Queer Creek cascades over the rim into a small plunge pool below. The cave was formed like the others in this region, the middle layer of the Blackhand has been weathered or eroded while the more resistant upper and lower zones have remained intact.
Ash Cave is named after the huge pile of ashes found under the shelter by early settlers. The largest pile was recorded as being 100 feet long, 30 feet wide and 3 feet deep. The source of the ashes is unknown but is believed to be from Indian campfires built up over hundreds of years. One other belief is that the Indians were smelting silver or lead from the rocks. Still another theory claims that saltpeter was made in the cave. No matter the source, several thousand bushels of ashes were found. A test excavation of the ashes in 1877 revealed sticks, arrows, stalks of coarse grasses, animal bones in great variety, bits of pottery, flints and corn cobs.
It is obvious early inhabitants used the cave for shelter. The recess shelter also served as a workshop for Indians where maidens ground corn and prepared meals, and where braves fashioned arrow and spear points and skinned and dressed game. The cave provided a resting-place for travelers along the main Indian trail that followed the valleys of Queer and Salt creeks. This trail connected the Shawnee villages and the Kanawha River region of West Virginia with their villages along the Scioto River at Chillicothe. The trail was used after the start of the frontier wars to march prisoners captured along the Ohio River to the Indian towns on the upper Scioto River.
The old Indian trail is now State Route 56. More recent uses of Ash Cave were for camp and township meetings. Pulpit Rock, the largest slump block at the cave’s entrance served as the pulpit for Sunday worship service until a local church could be built. The cave lends itself well for large gatherings due to its enormous size and incredible acoustic qualities. In fact, two spots under the recess have the qualities of a "whispering gallery."
Many Blogstream members are there
already! Quotes from members: "It's like blog lite!" -- "I like the instant
gratification!" -- "Stop spectating, get in the game!"
If you have not joined in, you are really missing out!
