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It’s Not Just Milk: Other Foods Are Made Safer Through Pasteurization
How do I like them apples? Clean. I like them squeaky clean.
With all of the reports of avian influenza in raw milk samples from cattle in the United States, I thought I’d share an interesting anecdote from my days as an epidemiologist at a state health department. Why? Because it is much more likely that you’ll get sick with a bacterial or parasitic infection from unpasteurized milk than with avian influenza. That said, milk is not the only food we pasteurize…
It’s the late fall, and the weather is changing in the mid-Atlantic. My long commutes to work from the little town in Pennsylvania where I live take me through some winding roads between apple orchards. I laugh to myself, remembering the numerous times angry men with bigoted worldviews called me an “apple picker.” Being Latino in that part of Pennsylvania meant having a high likelihood of working in the apple orchards.
As I consider my long days and nights during the 2009 H1N1 pandemic, I think maybe it wouldn’t be that bad if I worked in the orchards. “At least I’d lose some weight,” I said to myself.
Then I see the brutal work men and women are doing, just as the sun rises, and I thank my parents for pushing me away from field labor and toward finishing high school. I thank them again when I get to the office, and am mindful of the work I’m doing as an epidemiologist.
Later that morning, the outbreak team had an urgent meeting. The laboratory had reported several samples positive for E. coli O157:H7. Not only did several samples have the same strain, they also shared DNA close enough to be from the same initial sample. In other words, the dozen or so people who were sick enough to go to the doctor and get their samples sent to the lab for testing had been made sick from the same source of bacteria.
Do you Know Where I’m Heading With This?
We were tasked with contacting the cases and asking them questions about their possible exposures (food and drinks) and their outcomes (how sick they were and what treatment they received). Several reported similar foods: cheeses, cold cuts, juices, and apple cider.
