Tag: salmonella

If you give a mouse E. coli

Be on the lookout for diseased NYC mice. They’re somewhere out there.

Who among us hasn’t cried watching An American Tail? (It’s OK, the Internet can’t see you nodding.) Fievel Mousekewitz, a young mouse from Russia, emigrates to America to escape Cossack cats and ends up separated from his family in New York City. Of course it’s sad — because Fievel is an illegal immigrant carrying superbugs.

A study of mice throughout New York City reveals that Fievel’s great-great-great-great-great … (mouse generations are ridiculous) … great-grandchildren are carrying disease-causing bacteria, including a few antibiotic-resistant germs.

Three percent of the mice carried Salmonella bacteria, 14 percent carried disease-causing Shigella, 12 percent carried the food poisoning germ Clostridium perfringens, 4 percent carried enteropathogenic Escherichia coli and 4 percent carried Clostridium difficile, a notorious cause of often-fatal chronic diarrhea.

“Often-fatal chronic diarrhea.” Clearly, crying our lungs out at their songs wasn’t enough for these Trojan mice.

If you see signs of mice in your domicile, it is critical to take steps to either catch or kill them and clean up all possible surfaces with bleach to disinfect contagion due to urine and feces. And we have to act fast before these vermin go west.

Tastes like … pooooiiiii-soooooon

If you’re just another run of the mill bacteria looking to get by in life, then the phrase “you are what you eat” definitely applies to you.

Two-thirds of all store-bought whole broiler chickens contain salmonella and/or campylobacter, according to a study by Consumer Reports. The magazine tested 383 chickens it purchased in 100 supermarkets, gourmet- and natural-food stores, and other mass retailers in 22 states and found an alarmingly high level of contamination.

More than 80 percent of Tyson and Foster Farms chickens contained either one or both salmonella and capylobacter, making them the name-brand chickens with the most contaminates. On the other hand, Perdue had the cleanest chickens with 56 percent of their birds found to be free from food-borne organisms. Consumer Reports found the safest purchase to be air-chilled, organic broilers with 40 percent containing one or both salmonella or campylobacter.

I’m sure that this is incredibly serious news, especially to a poultry consumer like myself, but the direness of the issue is just not something that I can grab. I mean, it’s no good at all that chickens are clearly poisoning themselves in order to slay mankind. That’s incredibly bad and disheartening. But I can’t stop laughing at the name “campylobacter.”

BWAHAHAHA! Campylobacter!

You Missed It: The vomitting means it’s working edition

At the climax of another week, but really, what is there to look forward to? Football season is over, there’s another week until Valentine’s Day. Right now it’s just cold and boring. I know, we can celebrate Ronald Reagan’s birthday! Another week saved. If you were busy eeking by a team you should have blown out in the Super Bowl, odds are you missed it.

Food kits should come with antibiotics
The panic of the salmonella infected peanut butter may be over at this point for most, but not for the federal government. Food kits from FEMA were discovered this week to contain peanut butter that could be contaminated, which means people in need could end up sickening themselves. But don’t worry, aid still has not made it to New Orleans, so there is plenty of time for the kits to be recalled.

Where you lat?
This week, Google released a new friend-tracking program called Google Latitude. The program allows smartphone and PC users to let their friends know where they are and track where their friends are. Because, you know, it’s so much easier than to actually talk to someone now and then. No word yet as to when people will be able to track both the latitude and longitude of their friends, family members and exes.

Where is Peter Sellers buried? I feel like dancing
It’s every comic’s nightmare–waking up one day and realizing no one thinks you’re funny anymore. To the list of Chevy Chase, Whoopi Goldberg and Billy Crystal, add the name Steve Martin. Sure, technically he was on there a long time ago, but unlike the others, Martin is still making movies. Today, he unleashes his latest abomination, The Pink Panther 2, which is opening to terrible reviews, even for a February release. Next up, Martin plans to team up with fellow ham Eddie Murphy to remake Silver Streak.

Keep breathing easy

A while back, we let you know that it’s OK to eat your Peanut Butter Patties, as they’re safe despite this most recent outbreak of salmonella.

We’d just like to let you know that you can continue breathing easy. Not only are Girl Scout cookies safe, but so are all products of Hershey’s. As a man that likes his Reese’s products, that makes me happy.

And I’m a man that enjoys his Reese’s products.

Finally, we can breathe easy

Life is short. It’s also scary. We don’t know what our next will end up being. Heck, we don’t even know if we’ll still have a job tomorrow. Life is not just short, it’s expensive. Unfortunately, another salmonella outbreak in peanut butter-based products has made one of the most delicious yet cost-conscious foods to ever grace our palettes that much more expensive. But don’t worry …

… Girl Scout cookies are still safe. This apparently news-worthy article has been brought to you by the delicious Samoas and Peanut Butter Patties.

You Missed It: Insatiable appetite edition

Welcome to Friday. Though the summer may be coming on strong, oppressively strong in some areas, the news is not slowing a bit this week. If you live anywhere near the Mississippi River, odds are you missed it.

Maybe Obama will choose you
Though the race between Sen. Barack Obama and Sen. Hillary Clinton ended only a week ago, the news media wanted more. Since the results were announced, Obama has been hounded by reporters left and right asking who he will choose to run on the ticket with him. Earlier this week, Obama asked the media to cool it with the veep talk, saying during a press conference, “Look at the ball! Look at the ball! You want the ball? Yeah? Go get it! Go get that ball!”

The Incarcerated Hulk
Terry Bollea, better known as Mrs. Hulk Hogan, is half of what is shaping up to be the most exciting celebrity divorce of the year. Bollea wants Hogan jailed for not paying his share of payments on a condo in Las Vegas the couple had bought when they were not on the verge of ending things. The Hulk’s camped fired back that she is dating a teenager. There’s no punchline, not even a funny rant about wrestling or American Gladiators. It’s all true.

They’re still good for throwing at comedians
The Centers for Disease Control said this week that a total of 228 cases of illness have been reported in the U.S. as a result of salmonella-carrying tomatoes. In response to this, restaurants across the country have been pulling tomatoes from their dishes in the interest of public safety. See, Mom? I don’t have to eat my vegetables.

‘Wuts up, cndy pnts?’
Jim Gibbons, the Governor of Nevada, apologized Wednesday for sending around 860 text messages to a woman not his soon to be ex-wife on a state-owned cell phone. But Gibbons stopped short of calling the text messages “love letters.” Gibbons told the media, “I’m an old man, I don’t know how to write flowery love letters on this contraption. Besides, time is short, I keep my texts quick and dirty.”