#e-coli

Today marks 25 years since Wishaw was hit by the world's worst outbreak of E.Coli.

The first deaths from E-coli outbreak in Lanarkshire happened on November 27th 1996. Scores of people, young and old, fell ill after eating products from John Barr butchers in Wishaw - still the world's worst outbreak.

The butcher confessed he had barely even heard of the bug before the tragedy.The report said there was inadequate training of staff at Barr's shop in Caledonian Road, implicated in the outbreak.

It identified five key failures:

Failure to use temperature probes for cooking raw meat 

Failure to draw up cleaning schedules to reduce the risk of contamination at the premises

Failure to separate completely within the premises processes relating to raw meat and cooked meat

Failure to provide separate knives and equipment for each of the separate processes 

Failure to provide clear management structures and "adequate supervision" to enforce safety measures

The deaths of the 21 people in the food poisoning outbreak twenty five years ago clearly devastated many families who mourned the loss of, in some cases, both grand-parents. 

In August 1998  butcher John Barr was in disgrace after a sheriff ruled that his ''deliberate deception'' of environmental health officers may have caused every death from E-coli in the world's worst-ever outbreak.  In a strongly-worded condemnation of Mr Barr's work practices at his shop in Wishaw, the sheriff principal, Mr Graham Cox, leading the inquiry, said the deaths of six people could have been prevented. The report concluded that if Mr Barr had responded "fully and honestly" with Environmental Health officers, by admitting he supplied meat to Scotmid supermarkets, six deaths could have been avoided.

He eventually received a derisory £5000 fine.

If you're planning on firing up the grill this Memorial Day weekend, you may want to double check your meat products before you get a very un-festive surprise.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture's Food Safety and Inspection Service has issued a recall for more than 62,000 pounds of raw beef due to E. coli concerns.

Here are some things to keep in mind when checking your labels:

The meat was packaged at the Aurora Packing Company, Inc in North Aurora, Illinois on April 19, but was shipped nationwide for distribution.

According to the USDA's announcement, the products being recalled have the establishment number "EST. 788" inside the USDA mark of inspection. The recall includes more than 40 products, most of which are cuts of steak, like ribeyes, as well as ribs and brisket cuts.

A Full List  Is Here On This Link

The USDA also points out that people sometimes like to freeze cuts of meat for future use, so if you've socked away some beef in your backup freezer recently, you may want to check that as well.

The possible E. coli contamination was discovered after a random sampling, and the USDA says there have been no reported cases of illness related to this recall.