Wash your hands. That’s our simple summary to celebrate Earth Day.

Poor hand hygiene is likely the single largest contributing factor to diarrhea in North America. If we want to talk about waste, let's start with diarrhea's dire damper on productivity and resource losses starting with water and toilet paper. One missed handwash can ignite a chain of illness throughout the workplace, schools, guests, patients and family.

We do know that norovirus is by far the dominant pathogen causing foodborne outbreaks, like those endured by cruise ships, schools and nursing homes. Its primary path of destruction is confirmed by the CDC to be fecal-hand-oral. We are feasting on invisible germs, in this case, virus, picked up from others via casual contact with an ill person. This contact may be via food prepared by an ill worker. The source is often a person who shows no symptoms or from a surface which shows no symptoms - it's clean to the FDA accepted standard of "clean to sight and touch". Norovirus can live for days or even weeks and remains invisible and free of odor for the whole time. (See Dr. Christine Moe's work at Emory University.)

Here are our Earth Day recommendations focused on our daily lives away from home:  read more »

John Ciarametaro experienced his own ‘Perry Mason moment’ recently. It happened when Legal Seafood’s manager of Lab and Inspectional Services served as a juror during a mock trial of typical food safety litigation.

“I attended the annual National Environmental Health Association conference in Atlantic City (NJ),” he explained, “which fulfills the continuing education units necessary to maintain my REHS/RS certification.” The conference is attended by virtually all branches of public health professionals, and includes the usual array of lectures, workshops, seminar, and technical presentations.”  read more »

A duel between MarlerClark lawyers was a feature at NEHA's 2007 annual education conference (National Environmental Health Association).

The session title was "Handwashing On Trial". CasuaLee's restaurant suffered an outbreak linking back to poor hand hygiene. Plaintiff David Ludwig was represented by Drew Falkenstein and the defense was led by Denis Stearns, defending the owner of CasuaLee's, Lee Budd. The judge, Mark Toscano, was assisted by bailiff Captain Charles Otto and a very special jury of experts.  read more »

Today's quality handsoaps are like the "cold water" laundry products. They are very effective at low wash temperatures, thus protecting our epidermal fabric, the skin.  read more »

Surface cleaning and sanitizing are high frequency tasks in professional kitchens and service areas. The costs of these tasks are normally high in training, employee time and chemical consumption. When soils are heavy it is a two step process. When soils are light, electrochemically activated water dispensed from a spray bottle is a Best Practice option. It is a broad spectrum viricide, safe for food contact surfaces and no gloves are required when using.  read more »

Vaccination of the foodservice workforce eliminates only 1% of foodborne illness but an estimated 15% of legal cases. The payback of the vaccination program is not only in avoiding litigation when an outbreak occurs but also in the costs of the gamma globulin shots for the exposed customer base.  read more »

Fecal-hand-oral is the most frequent pathway for the #1 cause of foodborne illness - norovirus. We also know that the nail area is frequently missed when handwashing. The use of a nailbrush dramatically enhances contaminant removal during handwashing.  read more »

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Handwashing with soap and warm water is always the preferred choice but handwashing is often restricted by the food worker's access to running water. This is particularly true where Ready-To-Eat foods are served at drive-up windows, on street corners, at sporting events, in airport hallways and at outdoor seating venues. The use of these sanitizers can also enhance hand hygiene at server stations.

Without a specification for the Ready-To-Serve Hand®, operators must depend on simulations and common sense. The use of a tracer such as GlitterBug® and a black light provide a visualization of handwashing effectiveness and serve as a demonstration of knowledge.  read more »

Background:

Operators and regulators agree that current foodservice handwashing rates are low, perhaps half of what they should be. Agreement on a Safe Level is far more elusive.  read more »