How Not to Die of Botulism (2013)
theatlantic.comThis article doesn't talk about "wound botulism". This is most often found with injecting heroin users who inject into muscle not a vein.
For example, in the UK between 1980 and 2013 there were only 36 cases of food borne botulism, but 147 cases of wound botulism between 2000 and 2013.
http://www.nhs.uk/Conditions/Botulism/Pages/Introduction.asp...
"Brazenly, he sampled a few drops of this extract himself"[1]
These days if a researcher dared confess that he tried some research compound on himself he'd be charged with loss of objectivity, or be considered crazy or just plain weird. But not too long ago self-experimentation by researchers was quite a common and accepted practice. It could even be considered the ethical thing to do: before letting the compound be tried by others you should of course try it yourself.
There's a book on the history of self-experimentation in medicine, called "Who Goes First?"[2]
[1] - "he" being Justinus Kerner, "the first scientist to publish an accurate and comprehensive description of the disease"
[2] - https://www.amazon.com/Who-Goes-First-Self-Experimentation-M...
Another example is Werner Forssmann, the inventor of cardiac catheterization
""" In 1929, while working in Eberswalde, he performed the first human cardiac catheterisation. He ignored his department chief and persuaded the operating-room nurse in charge of the sterile supplies, Gerda Ditzen, to assist him. She agreed, but only on the promise that he would do it on her rather than on himself. However, Forssmann tricked her by restraining her to the operating table and pretending to locally anaesthetise and cut her arm whilst actually doing it on himself.[3] He anesthetized his own lower arm in the cubital region and inserted a uretic catheter into his antecubital vein, threading it partly along before releasing Ditzen (who at this point realised the catheter was not in her arm) and telling her to call the X-ray department. They walked some distance to the X-ray department on the floor below where under the guidance of a fluoroscope he advanced the catheter the full 60 cm into his right ventricular cavity. This was then recorded on X-Ray film showing the catheter lying in his right atrium. """ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Werner_Forssmann#Life
Wow, didn't know that "nitrate free" really isn't nitrate free.
I use to make kimchi a lot. I wonder of the lactic acid produced by the bacteria on cabbage inhibits botulism growth?
Both the acid and the salt inhibit botulinum growth.
I was curious about pruno, and found this poem on the way:
The article doesn't mention a "big" commercial botulism case. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1971_Bon_Vivant_botulism_case
I put "big" in quotes because only one person died. But it caused quite the scare, people were afraid of eating canned soup. The company went bankrupt.
Not nearly as deadly as E. coli. E.g. in 1993, 732 people were infected and four died from undercooked hamburger at Jack In The Box.[1] And it continues. A quick google found an article that claims[2]
approximately 100,000 illnesses,
3,000 hospitalizations,
and 90 deaths annually in the United States
Dave Arnold's "Cooking Issues"[0] podcast is an excellent source of high quality information about all sorts of related food and kitchen equipment hacking.
He had a very interesting segment about the open source HACCP plan discussed in this article a couple of weeks ago. I highly recommend his stuff!
Hmmm just made some sauerkraut; I used the potato masher to mash it down, after mashing some potatoes. This article didn't help me not die of botulism if I do.
There's a critical difference between home fermenting and home canning.
In home fermenting, you have living lactic acid bacteria of various kinds, and they out-compete the bad bacteria. You may help them along with some salt and acid. In home canning, you kill most of the living bacteria in the sample and seal it. If you get the acidity wrong, clostridium and other spores then come to life and poison your food product. They can do this easily, because there's nothing to compete with them and because the environment is anaerobic. Safe canning requires other specific acidity and salinity, or pressure canning at a high enough temperature to kill bacterial spores.
If you follow some basic rules about salinity and only ferment raw vegetables, the practice is very safe. Half-ass canning, on the other hand, or mess with cooked foods and meats, and you're walking a dangerous line.
All true which make the linked survey results at
http://nchfp.uga.edu/educators/natl_survey_summary.html
pretty ridiculous. I can stuff, but I follow the Ball book / USDA rules. Oddly enough everything turns out great and no one gets sick.
Honestly some of the USDA statistics are so ridiculous that I'd suspect they're getting trolled.
So if I test the compound (sauerkraut) with PH test strips, and find it acidic then I'll be safe?
Most of the food is acid anyway, so it's not enough to get and acid mixture, it has to be acid enough to kill the spores. And the acidity varies with time, so I'm not sure how much acidity the initial mixture must have, IAMAFSE.
From Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clostridium_botulinum
> [...] type-B strains were isolated from slightly acidic soils (average pH 6.25).
> C. botulinum is a lipase-positive microorganism that grows between pH of 4.8 and 7.0 [...]
And I just had home cured/smoked wild boar ham for Thanksgiving. Still standing though.
As opposed to all those no longer posting because they're dead.
And I don't wear my seatbelt. Hasn't killed me yet!
Yeah, the article really doesn't live up to its clickbait title.
I'm not clicking the link since it's The Atlantic but and may they mentioned this in the article botulinum toxin is the most lethal thing in earth. It's staggering to know even plutonium or some nerve gas are not as powerful per gram as that little bacterium.
The Atlantic is on your no-go list? I'm actually interested to know why.
Spammy, click-bait titles they've been banned from reddit many times I'm not sure about HN.
Physorg is also on my list (I don't really have a list).
They didn't save anyone from botulism?