ALERT CUCUMBERS

[pachapapa]

Looking forward to the Chemistry as well.[;-)]

[IMG]http://www.the101series.com/images/basedon.gif[/IMG]

[5-element]

[quote user="Clarkkent"]

 But what sort of thinking is going on in a French official's brain? Blaming the source of the seed for the outbreak is extremely mischievous, to say the least.  It should not be necessary to have to demonstrate a lack of connection between seed and a bacterium.[/quote]

And yet, the officials said it again several times in front of TV cameras, with vigour and aplomb, is it obviously to mislead gullible and ignorant people like me? 

 It's hard enough to spot the truth in what politicians say, but we also have to take pseudo-scientists' statements with huge pinches of salt??? (Yes, I do remember Tchernobyl)... What is the point in having "news" altogether? When you watch or hear French news, and then you zap and watch or hear UK news, it's like plugging in to two different planets...[:'(] 

[Clarkkent]

[quote user="idun"][quote user="Clarkkent"]

 As everyone knows, the Great Flood created the Grand Canyon and drowned all the dinosaurs.

[/quote]

 

Is that a Sarah Palin'ism [:-))], how that woman frightens me.

[/quote]

What frightens me is that in the (currently) most powerful nation on earth any politician who is not able to make some public admission of religious faith is unlikely to be elected. The USA sometimes appears to be as much of a theocracy as Iran. God is everywhere - even on the banknotes!

 

[andyh4]

CK: I understand the comments that are being made about the seeds themselves not being a source of contamination, but what stops faecal matter being on the ouotside of the seeds?  I mean, it is not as if T&M could wash them before packetting them.

[Clarkkent]

[quote user="5-element"] 

And yet, the officials said it again several times in front of TV cameras, with vigour and aplomb, is it obviously to mislead gullible and ignorant people like me? 

 It's hard enough to spot the truth in what politicians say, but we also have to take pseudo-scientists' statements with huge pinches of salt??? (Yes, I do remember Tchernobyl)... What is the point in having "news" altogether? When you watch or hear French news, and then you zap and watch or hear UK news, it's like plugging in to two different planets...[:'(] 

[/quote]

I suppose it is all a question of where you take your information from. With MMR people believed the Daily Express and Dail Mail rather than their GP! You don't think that the officials were saying it in order to deflect responsibility from actions in La Belle France to a company in Perfidious Albion?

[Clarkkent]

[quote user="andyh4"]CK: I understand the comments that are being made about the seeds themselves not being a source of contamination, but what stops faecal matter being on the ouotside of the seeds?  I mean, it is not as if T&M could wash them before packetting them.[/quote]

I think that the microscopic amounts of faecal matter that could adhere to seeds would be insufficient to maintain a colony of E.coli for very long. The organisms would die before the seeds were planted. 

How do you know that T&M would not wash the seeds or (just as likely) irradiate them to kill unwanted biological contamination? My money is on contamination during the growing or harvesting processes.

[5-element]

[quote user="Clarkkent"] You don't think that the officials were saying it in order to deflect responsibility from actions in La Belle France to a company in Perfidious Albion? [/quote]

Yes of course they are. But then, so are "the other side", likely to want to deflect responsibility too.  Since I know so little biology, I have no opinion but I listen to all the sides (I would make an exception to the DM though - if I ever read it, it's more for entertainment value.[:P]

I have no financial or emotional investment in wanting the "culprits" to be find this side, or the other side of the channel.

 

I do remember though, a possibility that the T & M seeds came "from Italy". And I also remember watching some horrifying documentaries about all the toxic waste, as well as rubbish pollution, all around Naples, and about the fact that many vegetables were grown around those parts. I then made a mental note of "being careful with eating fruit or veg from Italy just in case".

This doesn't mean that the accusing finger should be pointed at "Italy" as a whole, just like in the German E.coli outbreak, it was "Spain" who was to blame initially!

The truth is, nobody wants to have to be responsible, so there is a very hot potato that is being passed around.

[5-element]

[quote user="Clarkkent"]

I think that the microscopic amounts of faecal matter that could adhere to seeds would be insufficient to maintain a colony of E.coli for very long. The organisms would die before the seeds were planted. 

[/quote]

A point of information, as perhaps not everyone has experience in sprouting seeds: the seeds are not "planted". They are washed and put on a special tray which drains the water, and they have to be washed and drained once or twice a day until they can be harvested. No soil ever gets to them (normally). I have been guilty in the past, whilst sprouting, of not washing them enough times, and then they can rot (yes, bacteria cause rotting, true)

[pachapapa]

[quote user="5-element"][quote user="Clarkkent"]

I think that the microscopic amounts of faecal matter that could adhere to seeds would be insufficient to maintain a colony of E.coli for very long. The organisms would die before the seeds were planted. 

[/quote]

A point of information, as perhaps not everyone has experience in sprouting seeds: the seeds are not "planted". They are washed and put on a special tray which drains the water, and they have to be washed and drained once or twice a day until they can be harvested. No soil ever gets to them (normally). I have been guilty in the past, whilst sprouting, of not washing them enough times, and then they can rot (yes, bacteria cause rotting, true)

[/quote]

Very true! This week I have had to throw away several "echalions" as they had started sprouting in my vegetable rack.

They had seen no earth or water at all since being harvested in the autumn of 2010.

[cooperlola]

The company we used back in the UK to empty our cess pit used to charge us about £120 a go because, they said, the council charged £70 for the discharge into their sewage treatment plant and then they needed to cover their staff and transport costs on top.  However, a friend of mine used to live next door to a big farm and I saw the company's lorries going back and forth into this farm's yard on a regular basis.  It seemed pretty obvious to me what was going on and where some of the farmyard manure was coming from!  There will be "guilty" companies and food producers worldwide, you can bet your life.  Poor hygeine practices won't be confined to one country, it'll just be a question of where this particular buck stops.

[mint]

I started being really careful about cleaning all salad stuff after I saw a report somewhere about migrant workers in Kent (the kitchen garden of England) being paid a pittance and there being no sanitary facilities in the fields in which they were working.

Would careful washing kill off e coli or do you have to cook everything?

When I was young and we lived in the tropics, we used to wash vegetables and fruit in a solution of potassium permanganate.  I used to love the purple colour of the water....LOL, ridiculous child!

[cooperlola]

[quote user="sweet 17"]

I started being really careful about cleaning all salad stuff after I saw a report somewhere about migrant workers in Kent (the kitchen garden of England) being paid a pittance and there being no sanitary facilities in the fields in which they were working.

[/quote]

Yes, my cesspit tale is from Kent too.  Makes you think. 

Certainly, the living conditions of most of the pickers were pretty basic.  A couple of 'vans in the corner of the field they worked in at best.  We used to be pretty friendly with a Zimbabwean lad who drank regularly in our local pub and who worked on one of the farms as a picker for a couple of months every year.  He used to say that the pub was the only place he could go where he could wash with hot water.

[5-element]

Just as I wondered earlier:  Italy's turn!!! in "Le Parisien":

selon Le Parisien de lundi, une nouvelle piste apparaît. Citant une source proche du dossier, le quotidien émet l'hypothèse que ces graines suspectes seraient finalement originaires d'Italie. "Les factures montrent bien que les graines ont été achetées aux Anglais, mais le magasin aurait passé sa commande en Italie", précise la source. "A l'époque de la crise allemande, l'Italie aussi avait été citée", ajoute-t-elle. Au magasin Jardiland, d'où proviennent les graines suspectes, on semble aller dans le sens de cette théorie, puisque selon son directeur, la marque "Thompson et Morgan a acheté les graines en cause en Italie". Son affirmation se base sur une "fiche de traçabilité" qui lui permet de remonter à l'origine des produits qu'il commande.

Mais il fait part de ses "doutes que cette contamination soit venue de ces graines: le mode de culture peut tout changer, selon l'eau utilisée, il se peut qu'il y ait eu un problème d'arrosage". Cette nouvelle piste italienne ne disculpe donc en rien la piste britannique ou française. Il reste à trouver cette source de contamination, qui pourrait donc être intervenue entre l'Italie, l'Angleterre et la France.

[andyh4]

[quote user="Clarkkent"]

How do you know that T&M would not wash the seeds [/quote]

 

Well my botany 101 says seeds and water equals germination trigger.  Not something a seed company would want to do before packaging the goods - even if you could stop the processes with vacuum packing.

[5-element]

This interview (scroll down on the article - notice, no more mention of T & M!, turn on the speakers, and listen to the "dossier du jour" it lasts nearly 5 minutes). It can shed some light  if you are a biology ignoramus but have fluent French; surely a vet is someone one can trust? [:)]

http://www.france-info.com/chroniques-dossier-du-jour-2011-06-27-e-coli-a-bordeaux-l-etat-de-sante-des-7-malades-stationnaire-546620-81-185.html

[Théière]

[quote user="sweet 17"]

I started being really careful about cleaning all salad stuff after I saw a report somewhere about migrant workers in Kent (the kitchen garden of England) being paid a pittance and there being no sanitary facilities in the fields in which they were working.

[/quote]

Only fair to add some balance to the debate:

Niece worked on an underground mushroom farm in Chatellerault, no facilities there either so the crop was fertilised by the workers [+o(] Also paid a pittance.

Mushrooms were nice and white as they were bleached in a solution so no worries about e coli then.

[mint]

ugh, Teapot..."nice and white" as in champignons de Paris?[:'(]

[Clair]

Also in the US

Sprouts might be linked to small salmonella outbreak, FDA says

[pachapapa]

Thought for a moment Brussels.

http://www.latimes.com/health/boostershots/la-heb-sprouts-salmonella-fda-20110627,0,858913.story

[5-element]

...and it goes on... the hot potato has now landed in Egypt (and from a number of recent articles, it does seem that the seeds can be, indeed, the source of contamination) Some other information suggests that the reservoir for this rare E.coli 0104 might be Asia or Africa.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/30/world/middleeast/30ecoli.html

[NormanH]

Well the lab which identified the strain in Germany was Chinese, and had previously seen it in South Korea.

[Théière]

[quote user="NormanH"]Well the lab which identified the strain in Germany was Chinese, and had previously seen it in South Korea.
[/quote]

A Chinese lab in Germany had previously seen what in South Korea? [8-)]

[5-element]

Global economy, my dear Watson.

[NormanH]

The strain of E-coli

'it' refers to "the strain in Germany"

And the lab was Chinese, (not in Germany) and identified the strain as one previously seen in South Korea

[5-element]

http://www.lefigaro.fr/sciences/2011/06/30/01008-20110630ARTFIG00728-ecoli-les-scenarios-de-contamination-se-precisent.php

Looks like my questioning about contamination in  seeds were not so naive or ignorant after all.