Green Onions Linked to Hepatitis Outbreak (I love mexican food)

AP NEWS

November 21, 2003
Green Onions Linked to Hepatitis Outbreak
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

Filed at 12:39 p.m. ET

BEAVER, Pa. (AP) -- Green onions were the likely source of a deadly hepatitis A outbreak at a Mexican restaurant last month, but the origin of the onions and how they were tainted remains unclear, state health officials said Friday.

``All the evidence suggests that people had direct contact with the green onions,'' said Joel Hersh, director of epidemiology for the Pennsylvania Department of Health.

The outbreak, which has killed three people and sickened at least 575, is the nation's largest ever from a single source -- a Chi-Chi's restaurant at the Beaver Valley Mall, about 25 miles northwest of Pittsburgh.

...cut.....


But shortly after the outbreak was confirmed Nov. 3, the Food and Drug Administration issued a national advisory that to ensure safety, purchased green onions should be cooked and not eaten raw.

It is not known whether the green onions behind the Pennsylvania outbreak are linked to those already known to have caused smaller outbreaks of hepatitis A in Tennessee and Georgia in September.

The FDA announced Thursday that it has traced green onions in those outbreaks to three Mexican suppliers and is inspecting all green onion shipments from them.


..more at article....

There are much better and more authentic options most everywhere.

Then Chi-Chi/Chevys started changing.....

I never even knew that was an 'acceptable' practice----certainly wouldn't be if i ran the world. Remember when a bunch of people got sick from contaminated cantalopes? Same thing--human waste as fertilizer. Gross.

...is used for fertilizer across the third world, most especially in India, China, and other parts of Asia. Any seasoned traveler will tell you not to eat any food which has not been cooked from any of these places.

Peeling and cooking fresh veggies during the winter here in the USA is a very good idea, since so many of them come from Mexico rather than California (thank you, NAFTA).

Fertilizing with human waste is a widespread practice in poor countries where fertilizer is at a premium. The best policy is to expect that this is the case, and cook your food.

"Any seasoned traveler will tell you not to eat any food which has not been cooked from any of these places."


I've seen a case study on a guy who got E. coli 0:157 from a mixed leaf salad in Delhi. Very nasty... cholera-like symptoms.

Ever notice that Chinese cuisine doesn't include raw foods? They learned early on.

.

There is no shortage of sewage, and it "does" act as fertilizer, but it also can contain disease..

Mexico is desperately low on water in lots of places, so they use "treated" water, but what if they do not inspect or test the water?? The produce gets watered with sewer water,fertilized with human waste, and then washed with the polluted water..

Something to think about when we buy those 3/$1.00 onions, radishes etc..:(

We import lots of food.. remember the alar on the apples a few years back??

We have very few agricultural inspectors, and we turn a "blind eye" because people here like CHEAP food..

Younger folks here do not remember a time when certain foods were "in season/cheap) and then there would be months with no grapes,melons,fresh tomatoes, apples..

Summer time was wonderful.. after a long winter with only a few fruits, we would have peaches, cherries, grapes..

They actually tasted better then too..:)

for many years. All produce went directly into a sink of bottled water with a tablespoon or so of clorox and soaked for 20 min/half hour. I work with food now and every fruit that comes into my kitchen gets soaked the same way. You can get salmonella off a grapefruit.

And handwashing is an issue - even with my volunteers. Another precaution I use - I never touch the handle on the ladies room door. I always use a fresh towel. Seen too many people exit without hitting the sink!

I know you! Is your initial "J"?

Sewage sludge is used as fertilizer in the USA and Canada and has been for many years. For a small look, check here: http://www.life.ca/nl/58/sludge.html

And odds are really good that commercial farmers in your area, golf courses, university lawns and other large institutional users are spraying their goods with non-potable water treated from your local plant, as well.

What I'm REALLY trying to figure out is what kind of Mexican food uses chives? We live in Wes Texas in a town with a couple dozen really good family owned places with Tex-Mex, Norteno, Jalisco and other kinds of Mexican food, but the only thing I can think of with chives is sometimes in salsa, a little bit as an appearance item.

Must be kind of like trying to find decent Mexican food in the Rockies - just cannot be done! (The mountains are pretty!)

I especially dislike those little green onions on Mexican food.

were up to no good . . . :shrug:

didn't wash their hands before they handled the onions. And didn't wash the onions, either.

This si sickening, esp since I love to eat out.

This was what was originally claimed but they seem to be satisfied that the green onions came from Mexico and they noted in the article I read that it is impossible to completely remove all traces of dirt from green onions because it is a layered vegetable. It has nothing to do anyone not washing her hands or not washing the vegetables. I have eaten at the restaurant in Tennessee where the man died and many dozens were sickened, and it seems to be the same green onions. The restaurant and help seemed perfectly clean and middle class and shiny to me. But I admit if I'd known that they could sell salad veggies in the U.S. from Mexico, without cooking them, I would not have eaten the salad, any more than I eat the salad in Mexico.

I grow my own green onions and salad greens.

irrigation source...common with onions, lettuce and strawberries from Mexico.

is that anywhere near Intercourse, PA?

Intercourse is near Blue Ball. North of Cockeysville.

Beaver is in between Moon and Mars.

Most of the sexual names come from Amish country of all places!

You'd be amazed, even in medical facilities people are lax about the basics of hygiene. One reason to be choosey where you 'eat out',you might be putting your life in someone else's dirty hands.

I hope everone recovers , to live as normal as possible
life

A man already died in Tennessee in the outbreak, and I'm fairly sure 3 or 4 have died in Pennsylvania. A real shame.

There is a Hep A vaccine and a typhoid oral vaccine that you can get. Travel/infectious disease clinics have it.

I have my "Twinrex" Hep A/B vaccine, before I went out of the country. Veggies, especially fruits like raspberries, are dangerous.

Typhoid vaccine is something I'm still concidering, but I'm more concerned about Cholera nowdays, in case someone sneaks in some shellfish in my normally nothing that lives in water is on my plate diet. :)

And the tetnus booster never hurts to have, just hurts to have it. :D

If you want to read books on this subject:

Spoiled: Why Our Food Is Making Us Sick and What We Can Do about It
by Nicols Fox
Paperback, May 1998

It Was Probably Something You Ate
by Nicols Fox
Paperback, July 1999

They basically threw it in for free with the rest. Maybe they had a lot of sample packs or something.

Cholera vaccine is no longer available, at least not in the U.S.

Grow your own veggies, including green onions. If you can't grow them, go buy them in season at your local farmers market(help the local growers, they need it). You may or may not pay a higher price, but even if you are, it is well worth it, for you know where your food came from, and it is much tastier than that factory crap that gets passed off as produce these days.

Then start storing it for the winter. Onions, potatoes, and other tuber veggies like cool, dark, dry places(hence the root cellar). Other stuff you can can, freeze or keep in the fridge. Learn to do without every single veggie durning the winter.

What with NAFTA and our lax food inspection, this kind of situation is only going to get worse.

I noticed yesterday in my local, small library, a new book that advocated living off your own efforts and the land you own by giving good advice on how to garden, how to dig a well, how to cut wood, how to subsist and how to make the tax payments. LOL. I have not seen a book like that in ages and wondered if there was something new going on that would be more beneficial, more deeply committed to life, in this age, than the buying frenzies we are bombarded with--this is the Christmas season already--Thanksgiving seems to have taken a back seat--and I see huge, absolutely huge, plastic Christmas displays that one can buy to set on their front lawn or even in thier house--five foot tall nutcracker men--six foot tall snowmen etc. etc.--this back to basics movement was mildly popular during the sixties. I bought a wire for a wreath in my local age old hardware store for one dollar and will go out on Sunday (not during the week because it is hunting season) to cut some fir to make my own wreath.)

I have a freezer full of food harvested from my garden. I know a freezer is somewhat of a luxury item, but I do also know how to sun dry food and have canned food for a whole lot of years--mmm bread and butter pickles, jams and jellies, tomatoes, pickled beets, home made crock sauerkraut from cabbage grown inthe garden. This is really a very satisfying pursuit and, imo, a great way to teach children to value the importance of toiling to feed oneself.

I sold sixty dollars worth of pumpkins this season from a display in front of my house. That is double the amount I spent on seeds--and most of those seeds were really flower seeds. I have saved a lot of them to plant next spring and will sell cut flowers as well. We are simple folk--but we have a freezer full of delicious, good tasting chard, pumpkin, green beans, peas, strawberries, raspberries, blueberries, squash and it is delicious!

My wife and I just bought a little acreage with a house on it. I'm already starting to plan what to plant, both for our own larder and for sale. Next spring I'm going to start the orchard up front(starting with apples, pears and paw-paws), and start planting some ginseng and shitaki mushrooms in the woods. These are long term crops that will pay off in ten years, and they need to go in now. As for as the traditional garden plot, well next spring and fall I'm going to clear it off and till in a couple of loads of horse and sheep manure(soil is ok, but I really want to give it a boost). In 2005 the fun really begins.

We also have plans in the works for a cistern and rainwater collection system, along with solar and wind power. Realisticly I'm looking at a ten year, fifty thousand dollar project before everything is they way we want it, but I'm really looking forward to being self sufficient. I have a feeling that a major infrastructure breakdown is in the cards.

:toast: :bounce:

One of the lessons I get out of this is that dismal conditions in foreign nations and the exploitation of the poor that makes consumables cheap in the US can and will catch up with us -- sickening and even killing Americans worlds away.

As long as we tolerate wage slavery/slavery to fill our shelves, we are going to be vulnerable to viruses transmitted by people who are horrifically ill, don't get medical care, and in *having* to continue to worth regardless of their state of health will potentially contaminate the food supply and effect hundreds or thousands of people in the market nation.

Gephardt is *very* correct in demanding humane conditions for workers all over the world.

One of the lessons I get out of this is that dismal conditions in foreign nations and the exploitation of the poor that makes consumables cheap in the US can and will catch up with us -- sickening and even killing Americans worlds away.

As long as we tolerate wage slavery/slavery to fill our shelves, we are going to be vulnerable to viruses transmitted by people who are horrifically ill, don't get medical care, and in *having* to continue to worth regardless of their state of health will potentially contaminate the food supply and effect hundreds or thousands of people in the market nation.

Gephardt is *very* correct in demanding humane conditions for workers all over the world.

So -- Third World diseases cause havoc in middle America.

One of the lessons I get out of this is that dismal conditions in foreign nations and the exploitation of the poor that makes consumables cheap in the US can and will catch up with us -- sickening and even killing Americans worlds away.

As long as we tolerate wage slavery/slavery to fill our shelves, we are going to be vulnerable to viruses transmitted by people who are horrifically ill, don't get medical care, and in *having* to continue to worth regardless of their state of health will potentially contaminate the food supply and effect hundreds or thousands of people in the market nation.

Gephardt is *very* correct in demanding humane conditions for workers all over the world.

the portable toilets.. I have never seen a hand sanitizing station in the fields.. :wow: :cry:

the plants are often not operated properly because of shortages of qualified employees, due to "tax cuts"...an an economy that sucks... I think it was about this time that Bush Sr said,... "The recession is over!" ..also

and green onions..YES they do use sewage sludge in their fields and many nearby areas still have no running water so people's sewage gets into the irrigation anyway.

and fish might have mercury, the only food source I see left is insects. This is starting to really suck.

...and well cooked chicken and eggs are safe. Fish/seafood needs to be limited because of the mercury. Raw veggies might be something best only consumed if grown in your backyard. Salad greens and most herbs are very easy to grow and take little work. We are going to lose more and more raw foods; in the 1970s, raw eggs were a health food, and I consumed them in everything from smoothies to homemade salmonella. It has been many a year since it has been safe to consume raw eggs. Perhaps fresh veggies will go the same way; in many countries, you would not eat an uncooked vegetable, at least, if you're a visitor and not already immune, you don't. It's sad but people get used to anything. No one in power spoke up about egg safety, and I don't see anyone in power doing much about raw vegetables. There's a war on, dontcha know? :-(

As I mentioned in a previous post, you can also get a Hep A vaccine.

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