Listeria monocytogenes in Milk Products

peer-reviewedMilk and milk products are frequently identified as vectors for transmission of Listeria monocytogenes. Milk can be contaminated at farm level either by indirect external contamination from the farm environment or less frequently by direct contamination of the milk from infection in the animal. Pasteurisation of milk will kill L. monocytogenes, but post-pasteurisation contamination, consumption of unpasteurised milk and manufacture of unpasteurised milk products can lead to milk being the cause of outbreaks of listeriosis. Therefore, there is a concern that L. monocytogenes in milk could lead to a public health risk. To protect against this risk, there is a need for awareness surrounding the issues, hygienic practices to reduce the risk and adequate sampling and analysis to verify that the risk is controlled. This review will highlight the issues surrounding L. monocytogenes in milk and milk products, including possible control measures. It will therefore create awareness about L. monocytogenes, contributing to protection of public health

Ethik First - extracurriculäre Unterstützung für Studierende und junge Ärzt*innen bei moralischen Dilemmata im Klinikalltag

Introduction: Moral value conflicts play an increasingly central role in everyday hospital life. Clinical ethics, however, is only marginally represented in the compulsory curriculum for human medicine and the additional education regulations. The aim of the Ethik First project at the University Medical Center Schleswig-Holstein, Campus Kiel is to close this gap with an extracurricular offer and to support medical students from the fifth clinical semester onward and during their practical year as well as assistant doctors in dealing with moral dilemmas in everyday hospital life. The project has taken the concomitant learning objectives from the national competency-based learning objective catalog for medicine. According to the target group, the address in particular, showed higher taxonomy levels. Project description: The multimodal concept is based on three pillars: In monthly principle-based case conferences, participants practice ethical reflection and moral judgment primarily on the basis of concrete cases introduced by them using the methods of problem-based learning and consideration-based deliberation. If participants do not bring forth a case, they discuss ethical aspects of current political relevance. Moreover, there is an annual public speaker event.Results: Since the project began in 2017, ~20 students and interns have taken part in Ethik First one or more times. In a web-based interim evaluation (N=13), all respondents fully agreed that they considered the format helpful for dealing with ethical questions at the clinic. They rated the relevance for their later profession as high. There is evidence for support in moral dilemma situations.Discussion: The first evaluation results of the voluntary extracurricular offer show the acceptance of the selected format, which goes beyond pure teaching in its conception in that it addresses moral stress as well and strengthens the participants' individual resilience.Conclusion: Ethik First reinforces the role of ethical aspects in the training of (prospective) doctors and focuses on reflecting on cases they have experienced firsthand. We formulate a desideratum for appropriate advanced training concepts both in medical studies and in advanced medical training such that the training and development of comparable projects at medical faculties and at medical associations with student participation can be discussed.Einleitung: Moralische Wertekonflikte spielen im Klinikalltag immer wieder und zunehmend eine zentrale Rolle. Klinische Ethik ist jedoch nur marginal im Pflichtcurriculum für Humanmedizin und den Weiterbildungsordnungen vertreten. Ziel des Projektes Ethik First am Universitätsklinikum Schleswig-Holstein, Campus Kiel ist es daher, diese Lücke mit einem extracurricularen Angebot zu schließen und Medizinstudierende ab dem 5. klinischen Semester sowie im Praktischen Jahr und Assistenzärzt*innen im Umgang mit moralischen Dilemmata im Klinikalltag zu unterstützen. Die damit einhergehenden Lernziele sind dem Nationalen Kompetenzbasierten Lernzielkatalog Medizin entnommen und adressieren der Zielgruppe entsprechend insbesondere höhere Taxonomiestufen. Projektbeschreibung: Das multimodale Konzept beruht auf drei Säulen: Vorrangig werden in monatlich stattfindenden prinzipienorientierten Fallkonferenzen ethische Reflexion und moralisches Urteilen anhand konkreter von den Teilnehmer*innen eingebrachter Fälle nach den Methoden des problembasierten Lernens und der erwägungsorientierten Deliberation eingeübt. Wird durch die Teilnehmer*innen kein Fall eingebracht, werden alternativ ethische Aspekte von aktueller tagespolitischer Relevanz gemeinsam diskutiert. Ergänzend findet jährlich eine öffentliche Veranstaltung eines*einer Referenten*in statt.Ergebnisse: Seit Beginn des Angebots im Jahr 2017 nahmen circa 20 Studierende und Assistenzärzt*innen ein- oder mehrmals an Ethik First teil. In einer webbasierten Zwischenevaluation (N=13) stimmten alle Befragten voll zu, dass sie das Format für hilfreich halten, um ethische Fragestellungen aus der Klinik zu bearbeiten. Die Relevanz für den späteren Beruf wurde hoch eingeschätzt. Es ergeben sich Anhalte für eine Unterstützung bei moralischen Dilemmasituationen.Diskussion: Erste Evaluationsergebnisse des freiwilligen extracurricularen Angebotes zeigen die Akzeptanz des gewählten Formates, das in seiner Konzeption über reine Lehre hinaus geht, indem auch moralischer Stress adressiert wird und die individuelle Resilienz der Teilnehmer*innen gestärkt werden soll.Schlussfolgerung: Ethik First stärkt die Rolle ethischer Aspekte in der Ausbildung von (angehenden) Ärzt*innen und stellt die Reflexion selbst erlebter Fälle in den Mittelpunkt. Wir formulieren ein Desiderat an entsprechenden Fort- und Weiterbildungskonzepten sowohl im Medizinstudium als auch in der ärztlichen Weiterbildung, sodass Aus- und Aufbau vergleichbarer Angebote an medizinischen Fakultäten und auch an den Ärztekammern mit studentischer Beteiligung diskutiert werden sollten

Cherry Irradiation Studies. 1984 annual report

Fresh cherries, cherry fruit fly larvae, and codling moth larvae were irradiated using the PNL cobalt-60 facility to determine the efficacy of irradiation treatment for insect disinfestation and potential shelf life extension. Irradiation is an effective disinfestation treatment with no significant degradation of fruit at doses well above those required for quarantine treatment. Sufficient codling moth control was achieved at projected doses of less than 25 krad; cherry fruit fly control, at projected doses of less than 15 krad. Dose levels up to 60 krad did not adversely affect cherry quality factors tested. Irradiation above 60 krad reduced the firmness of cherries but had no significant impact on other quality factors tested. Irradiation of cherries below 80 krad did not result in any significant differences in sensory evaluations (appearance, flavor, and firmness) in tests conducted at OSU. Irradiation up to 200 krad at a temperature of about 25/sup 0/C (77/sup 0/F) did not measurably extend shelf life. Irradiation at 500 krad at 25/sup 0/C (77/sup 0/F) increased mold and rotting of cherries tested. There is no apparent advantage of irradiation over low-temperature fumigation

Local- and regional-scale racial and ethnic disparities in air pollution determined by long-term mobile monitoring.

Disparity in air pollution exposure arises from variation at multiple spatial scales: along urban-to-rural gradients, between individual cities within a metropolitan region, within individual neighborhoods, and between city blocks. Here, we improve on existing capabilities to systematically compare urban variation at several scales, from hyperlocal (<100 m) to regional (>10 km), and to assess consequences for outdoor air pollution experienced by residents of different races and ethnicities, by creating a set of uniquely extensive and high-resolution observations of spatially variable pollutants: NO, NO2, black carbon (BC), and ultrafine particles (UFP). We conducted full-coverage monitoring of a wide sample of urban and suburban neighborhoods (93 km2 and 450,000 residents) in four counties of the San Francisco Bay Area using Google Street View cars equipped with the Aclima mobile platform. Comparing scales of variation across the sampled population, greater differences arise from localized pollution gradients for BC and NO (pollutants dominated by primary sources) and from regional gradients for UFP and NO2 (pollutants dominated by secondary contributions). Median concentrations of UFP, NO, and NO2 are, for Hispanic and Black populations, 8 to 30% higher than the population average; for White populations, average exposures to these pollutants are 9 to 14% lower than the population average. Systematic racial/ethnic disparities are influenced by regional concentration gradients due to sharp contrasts in demographic composition among cities and urban districts, while within-group extremes arise from local peaks. Our results illustrate how detailed and extensive fine-scale pollution observations can add new insights about differences and disparities in air pollution exposures at the population scale