There’s a chance that
potentially-contaminated food is still sitting on store shelves, and maybe in
your pantry (Source: Gene.Arboit at Wikimedia Commons)
Hundreds of products with peanuts or peanut-butter have been yanked from
store shelves. That’s because of an outbreak of salmonella poisoning. Kyle
Norris has the latest on the outbreak:
Transcript
Hundreds of products with peanuts or peanut-butter have been yanked from
store shelves. That’s because of an outbreak of salmonella poisoning. Kyle
Norris has the latest on the outbreak:
We know the products include cookies, crackers, snack bars, cakes, candies,
ice cream—even pet foods are affected. And there’s a chance that
potentially-contaminated food is still sitting on store shelves. And maybe in
your pantry.
Matthew Boulton is an associate professor of epidemiology. He’s at the
University of Michigan School of Public Health. He says the testing of the
Georgia facility that made these peanut-butter products shows there are
flaws in the food safety system.
“I think one of the big problems is this divide we have between the folks who do the
regulation and the folks responsible for human health. Sometimes you don’t have good
communication between those two groups and it’s really critical if you’re going to get a
handle on insuring a safe food supply.”
Boulton says this peanut-butter scare could go on for a few weeks. Or a few
months.
A study found that moms who ate peanut butter or nuts every day increased the
risk of asthma in their kids by 50% (Photo courtesy of the EPA)
A new study finds pregnant moms
who eat peanut butter every day might be
affecting their babies’ health. Rebecca
Williams has more:
Transcript
A new study finds pregnant moms
who eat peanut butter every day might be
affecting their babies’ health. Rebecca
Williams has more:
The Dutch government has been following a few thousand kids and their moms
for 8 years. They wanted to see if there was a link between the moms’ diets
and whether the kids would develop asthma.
It turns out that moms who ate peanut butter or nuts every day increased the
risk of asthma in their kids by 50%.
Dr. John Heffner is a former president of the American Thoracic Society. He
says these results are interesting – but that doesn’t mean there’s a definite link
between eating nuts and asthma.
“I think that this is a piece of information that confirms a well balanced diet of
mothers is the most important thing to do. But it doesn’t suggest that mothers
oughta take nuts out of their diet if they’re ingesting nuts now.”
Dr. Heffner says there are a lot of factors that could lead to asthma. He says
this needs more study, but in the meantime, pregnant moms should stick to
their doctor’s advice.
This label on a package of cookies has six foods of the Big Eight. Over 90
percent of food allergies are caused by just eight foods: milk, eggs,
peanuts, tree nuts such as almonds, soy, wheat, fish and shellfish. (Photo
by Lester Graham)
Doctors say problems with allergies are
increasing. Up to 30% of Americans are
allergic to something. Rebecca Williams reports
doctors are trying to figure out why allergies are
on the rise:
Transcript
Doctors say problems with allergies are
increasing. Up to 30% of Americans are
allergic to something. Rebecca Williams reports
doctors are trying to figure out why allergies are
on the rise:
Micaela Keller is ten years old. Her world is full of things that might
make her sick.
“I’m allergic to pollen, ragweed, anything in the daisy family, nuts, all
nuts, dairy, soy, cats and grass.”
Food allergies are usually the worst allergies. Micaela says she knows
right away if she accidentally eats something she’s allergic to.
“When I have soy I will get really itchy and might get red in the face. My
lips might start swelling up or something.”
In the worst cases… allergic reactions can make it hard to breathe.
Sometimes, your airways can shut down, your blood pressure can drop and you
can die.
Experts say cases of food allergies have doubled over the past 10 years.
Kids have seen the highest increases. But no one knows exactly why.
Dr. Marc McMorris treats kids’ allergies. He’s in charge of the Food
Allergy Clinic at the University of Michigan.
He says our immune systems are so complex that there’s probably not a simple
explanation. He says there are probably at least three different things
going on.
First, allergies run in families. If both parents have allergies, there’s a
70 to 80% chance their child will have allergies.
Second, there’s the way we process food in this country. Take peanuts for
example. Dr. McMorris says dry roasting peanuts makes them more likely to
cause reactions.
Then… there’s the third thing and it’s really causing a lot of debate.
It’s called the hygiene hypothesis. The idea is: we might be too clean for
our own good.
“The immune system is put there for survival, to fight
bacteria, viruses and parasites and that type of thing and in the last 50 to 80
years we’ve had antibiotics, vaccines and a much cleaner world, and if the
immune system doesn’t have to worry about those issues as much it’s going to
find something else to do.”
So… instead of constantly fighting off bacteria… the immune system
thinks something as harmless as a peanut butter sandwich… is going to hurt
the body. So the immune system treats the peanut butter like an invader.
Dr. McMorris says there’s evidence that the more germs you’re exposed to
early in life, the less likely you are to have allergies. He says it
doesn’t make sense to go back to a dirtier lifestyle. But he says we should
be careful about some things… like not over-using antibiotics and harsh
antibacterial soaps.
He also says being exposed to some kinds of bacteria might help. He says
there’s evidence that having pets in the house might make you less likely to
develop allergies.
“The data for pets would say if you have three or more cats or dogs within a
household that you have a lower risk for allergies.”
That’s because you’re exposed to a certain bacteria animals carry. It might
help your system fight off allergies.
But Dr. McMorris says it’s not a good idea to rush out and get a litter of
kittens if you already have allergies in the family. That could make the
problem a lot worse.
Remember Micaela, the girl with all the allergies? Her mom thinks having
pets in the house does help.
(Joy to dogs: “Say hi. High five!” dogs bark)
Joy Keller says her kids have grown up with dogs. They’ve been tested and
it turns out they’re not allergic. So their doctor said they should keep
the dogs. Keller says they just have to vacuum more often.
“We’ve been told right from the beginning, keep where they sleep clean but
don’t be obsessive about cleaning, they have to live in this world and so
the world is not a sterile place.”
The world is not a sterile place. But maybe… we’re trying to make it a
little too sterile.
To those who may recoil in terror from this picture, relief from peanut allergies may just be a vaccine away. (Photo by Mike Froese)
A new vaccine that reduces food allergies in dogs could
some day help people who suffer dangerous reactions to food like
peanuts, milk and wheat. The vaccine is also more evidence in
support of the so-called “hygiene hypothesis.” The Great Lakes
Radio Consortium’s Tracy Samilton reports:
Transcript
A new vaccine that reduces food allergies in dogs could some day help people who suffer
dangerous reactions to food like peanuts, milk and wheat. The vaccine is also more
evidence in support of the so-called “hygiene hypothesis.” The Great Lakes Radio
Consortium’s Tracy Samilton reports:
Allergies to foods like peanuts have become much more common over the past 20 years.
Some researchers believe it’s because, as a hygiene-conscious society, we’re no
longer exposing our bodies to infections that stimulate the immune system and protect
us from allergies. Pediatrician Dale Umetsu of Stanford University mixed a component
of Listeria bacterium and peanuts into a vaccine. He then gave it to dogs
with allergies so severe that one peanut made them sick.
“After the treatment, the dogs could tolerate up, on average, to 30 to 40 peanuts,
so this was quite an increase and the effect lasted several months, at least,
after the treatment.”
Umetsu says it could be five years or more before a vaccine is available for human trials.
A vaccine could help millions of people with food allergies.
For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Tracy Samilton.
The Multicolored Asian Lady Beetle was introduced in 1916 to control aphids. It has since established populations around the country. (Photo courtesy of the USDA)
Many people in North America have already met the multicolored Asian lady beetle. It looks like an ordinary ladybug, but it has some bad habits. It stinks, it bites and it invades homes when the winter approaches and stays there until spring. And not only is it a pest in our houses, it has decided that it likes wine too. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Victoria Fenner has the story:
Transcript
Many people in North America have already met the multicolored Asian lady beetle. It
looks like an ordinary ladybug, but it has some bad habits. It stinks, it bites and it
invades homes when the winter approaches and stays there until spring. And not only is
it a pest in our houses, it has decided that it likes wine too. The Great Lakes Radio
Consortium’s Victoria Fenner has the story:
Ann Sperling goes out to the vineyards every day to check for bugs. She’s the vintner
with Malivoire Winery. Malivoire is a small organic winery in the Niagara Peninsula in
Southern Ontario, just north of the New York State border. There’s one kind of bug in
particular that Ann is hoping she doesn’t see – the multicolored Asian lady beetle.
It was introduced to North American in 1916 to control help aphids on plants. In 1988 in
Louisiana, the ladybug population suddenly started to grow. Scientists still don’t know
what happened to make them reproduce so fast at that time. But in only six years, it
spread as far as the northern states and southern Canada.
The spread of the bug has been very bad for the grape and wine industry. Sperling is
nervous about these ladybugs because she was caught by surprise a few years back. She
didn’t know anything about the problems they would cause to her wine at the time.
“Typically there is a certain number of insects including wasps and things like that that
are harvested with the fruit and it doesn’t cause any problems in the processing. And in
2001 there were these Asian lady beetles and they infected, or affected, the flavor of the
wine, so that there were many wines from that vintage throughout the Niagara peninsula
that had the characteristic flavor and were not saleable.”
The big problem is that Asian ladybugs are the skunks of the insect world. Just like
skunks, they give off a bad smell to discourage predators. And they release a sticky
brown substance from the joints in their body when they’re stressed and they make a real
mess.
At harvest time, there’s a lot of commotion in the vineyards. That’s when the bugs get
really upset, and they leak all over the grapes. They also hang on to the grape clusters
and are pressed into the wine along with the fruit. Sperling says they had to dump half of
their 2001 vintage because it had a bitter taste and a bouquet of raw peanuts.
Because of this, the multicolored Asian Ladybug has become a big problem for wineries
in the Great Lakes region and in the Midwest. It’s such a pressing problem for the wine
industry that the Ontario Grape Growers Association has set up a special task force to
figure out what to do. Gerry Walker is heading up the task force. He says the ladybug
isn’t a problem this time of year, but the populations are being monitored to head off
potential problems during the harvest season.
“First of all, the bug usually is outside the vineyard for most of the season. It’s usually
located in soybean fields or forested areas. It has a wide host range in terms of what
aphid species it will feed on. It primarily feeds on aphids during the growing season,
populations build up and at the end of the growing season when cool temperatures occur
it cues the bug to look for hibernating wintering sites and also to fill up on sugars in order
to hibernate. And so they move to the vineyards as the grapes begin to ripen.”
Asian ladybugs are found across most of the southern part of North America –
everywhere that there is an aphid population.
And there is a connection between soybean fields and vineyards. Here’s why – aphids
like to eat soybeans, and the multicolored Asian ladybeetle likes to eat aphids. When the
soybeans are harvested, the beetles look for new food and move to the vineyards.
Mark Sears is an environmental biologist at the University of Guelph. He’s beginning a
study to find out the movement patterns of the ladybug. He says we can’t get rid of them.
All we can do is control them.
“This beetle’s been here long enough that there’s no way we’re going to eliminate it. We
just want to suppress its numbers so that it isn’t a problem, in this case, in the vineyards.
If we do a good job of suppressing aphids – we’re not going to eliminate them either, but
if we keep them at lower numbers then there’s less food available for beetle populations,
there will be fewer of them to move to vineyards. And therefore we should be able to
contain the problem, not the insect itself.”
Ann Sperling is one of many winemakers who’s happy to see that this major study of the
ladybug is being done. But the invasion of 2001 was also a valuable learning experience.
Sperling says they’re ready if it happens again. Malivoire Winery has bought a shaker
table to dislodge the bugs from the bunches of grapes. They’ll also hire more people to
sort the grapes by hand.
Some people in the wine industry don’t like to talk about the multicolored Asian ladybug.
They’re afraid of tainting the reputation of their wines. Ann Sperling agreed to talk about
it because she thinks there wouldn’t have been as much damage to their 2001 vintage if
they had been better prepared. They haven’t had any big problems since then.
If another large invasion happens now, Malvoire Winery is ready. Ann Sperling hopes
other wineries will learn from their experience.
For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Victoria Fenner.
There’s a chance that potentially-contaminated food is still sitting on store shelves, and maybe in your pantry (Source: Gene.Arboit at Wikimedia Commons)
