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How Not to Die of Botulism (2013)

134 points by omilu 9y ago

cmurf 9y ago
Botulism spores are also found in honey. It's in small enough amounts it's not a problem for adults, but this is why you don't give babies honey until 1 year old.
presspot 9y ago
The open source food safety idea is genius.
dom0 9y ago
Botulism is incredibly rare in Europe (maybe a handful of cases in each country per year); in which regions is it an issue? The article mentions canned foods which I imagine are not so common in countries with food scarcity.
- DanBC 9y ago
  The article mentions infants who are at greater risk. The article is also talking about home canned foods. Here's the CDC surveillance report on botulism for 2015: https://www.cdc.gov/nationalsurveillance/pdfs/botulism_cste_2015.pdf https://www.cdc.gov/nationalsurveillance/pdfs/botulism_cste_... > A total of 199 confirmed and 14 probable cases of botulism were reported to CDC in 2015. Among confirmed cases, infant botulism accounted for 141 (71%) cases, foodborne botulism for 39 (20%) cases, wound botulism for 15 (8%) cases, and botulism of unknown or other transmission category for 4 (2%) cases (Table 1). Among probable cases, foodborne botulism accounted for 6 (43%) cases and wound botulism for 8 (57%) cases. > The 141 cases of infant botulism were reported from 33 states and the District of Columbia. The median age of patients was 2.7 months with a range of 0 – 10 months; 70 (50%) were girls. Toxin type A accounted for 60 (43%), toxin type B accounted for 79 (56%), and toxin type Bf accounted for 2 (1%). No deaths were reported. > The 39 cases of confirmed foodborne botulism were reported from 7 states (Figure 1). The median age of patients was 59 years with a range of 9 – 92 years; 25 (64%) were women. There were 5 outbreaks (events with two or more cases) accounting for 37 confirmed cases. One outbreak was associated with home-canned potatoes in a potato salad served at a church potluck (27 cases),† one was associated with fermented seal flipper (4 cases), and one was associated with beets roasted in aluminum foil and kept at room temperature for several days then made into a soup (2 cases). In addition, there were two outbreaks of two cases each living in the same household or facility in which the foodborne source was unknown (Tab
- undersuit 9y ago
  There was a really bad incident in Greenland in 2013[1]. They were making kiviak, auk fermented in the carcass of a seal. I heard it was the use of eider birds instead of auk that prevented proper fermentation, but this article included that a plastic bag was used in the preparation of this batch of kiviak presumably with the auk birds in the plastic bag inside of the seal carcass. Perfect low oxygen conditions for C. Botulinum to thrive. [1] https://thefourthcontinent.com/2013/08/07/greenland-terducken-real-seal-bird-meal/ https://thefourthcontinent.com/2013/08/07/greenland-terducke...
  - ceejayoz 9y ago
    > Simply put, about 400 dead birds (usually auk) are stuffed into a body of a dead seal and left under a rock to ferment for many months. Prepared this way, the seal’s fat tenderises and preserves it, which means that you can eat the entire bird raw, save the feathers. The innards turn into a liquid, and a popular way to consume it is by biting the head off and sucking out the juices inside. Holy crap. Dying of paralysis sounds like a mercy.
evanriley 9y ago
I assume this was posted because of the Otto Warmbier situation? [1] [1]: http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-40308028 http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-40308028
- jk2323 9y ago
  Well, I don't want to defend or speak for North Korea. But there was a lot of anger regarding what happened to Warmbier. Obviously NK overreacted for talking a "propaganda poster". He got XX years hard labor. But a westerner is normally kept in a hotel room in NK until an agreement has been reached and then he is released. Warmbier had his medical "incident", as far as I know, over a year ago. So they must have fed him artificially and cared for him since. Also, AFAIK, they send an NMR image of his brain to the US doctors before he was released. I doubt that many North Koreans have access to this level of treatment. So unfortunate this story is, I advise to use caution before reaching quick judgments.
  - trendia 9y ago
    They took care of him after the incident that caused brain damage, but is there any proof the incident itself was botulism?
    - jk2323 9y ago
      No. We don't know what happened. I am not an MD. I am sure there are many options what could happened. But the way he was taken care of and returned (they could have claimed he died) seems to suggest that he was not put into this condition on purpose.
      - lern_too_spel 9y ago
        He was only returned after the Swedish embassy learned about his condition. He had already been in a coma for a year by then and would have stayed in the DPRK for the remainder of his sentence otherwise. If they claimed that a man in his twenties had died of a heart attack as they did with Japanese citizens they abducted, that would have been an even bigger scandal.
dbcurtis 9y ago
How not to die of botulism: Understand home food preservation and follow the recipe. The rules are simple: 1. C. Botulinin is everywhere. It is in the food you are preserving. Deal with it. 2. Heat kills C. Botulinin. Propper pressure canning times and temperatures of properly diced foods will kill it. 3. Acidity inhibits C. Botulinun metabolism. Boiling water bath canning of high acid foods like dill pickles is sufficient to keep any remaining microbes from producing toxins. (Botulism toxin is a metabolism byproduct. ) 4. 10 minutes at boiling temperatures before serving will break down botulism toxin. 5. When in doubt, throw it out. Was that hard? The most subtle mistake to make is if the canning recipe says dice into 1/4 inch cubes, don't use a different size. It changes the convection currents in the jar and it may not reach required temperature/times in the core. Also be careful with home made salsa as the acidity can vary wildly depending on numerous factors.
- fencepost 9y ago
  Based on the (2013) article, Heat kills it, but not just boiling water heat - you need the 250 degree pressure cooking heat. Not really mentioned is that it's lack of oxygen that really enables things to go downhill, which is why you should never make your own infused oils - "homemade garlic infused olive oil, what could go wrong?" DEATH Also, I can't think of the last thing I ate that was kept at a rolling boil for 10 minutes, and I probably don't want to. Botox is not the only thing that would eliminate.
  - pmoriarty 9y ago
    Another reason that contributes to garlic-infused olive oil's danger is that the garlic tends to kill off other microorganisms that could compete with botulism, but it doesn't kill botulism itself.
    - matt_wulfeck 9y ago
      See this is why people die. I had no idea of this danger and was just thinking the other day of making a garlic-infuses oil.
influx 9y ago
This article is not relevant to hacker news and is incredibly insensitive. "Kanter and his colleagues say they've found no evidence that Warmbier, who has demonstrated no awareness of his surroundings, suffered from the effects of botulism — a finding that appears to contradict the explanation offered by his North Korean captors. Authorities there have said Warmbier fell into a coma after contracting botulism and taking a sleeping pill. Instead, the doctors told reporters that the more likely cause of Warmbier's condition is cardiopulmonary arrest. Their tests also did not reveal any signs of physical trauma to Warmbier, such as "acute or healing fractures." http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2017/06/15/533054112/otto-warmbier-suffered-extensive-loss-of-brain-tissue-no-sign-of-botulism http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2017/06/15/533054112/...
- dpark 9y ago
  In what way is it insensitive or irrelevant? This article is from 2013. It's an interesting article about botulism. Is no one allowed to discuss botulism now because someone may have contracted a case in North Korea?
  - cnnsucks 9y ago
    >> because someone may have contracted a case in North Korea? Yes. Exactly. The establishment and its media have concluded that N. Korea has no culpability in the destruction of this kids life. It's just a preexisting condition and the brain damage had nothing to do with incarceration in a labor camp and lack of medical treatment, so get your mind right.
    - dpark 9y ago
      I didn't say North Korea had no culpability.
      - cnnsucks 9y ago
        You didn't have to. We all know the game. Back to NPR with you for another dose of beltway groupthink.
pmoriarty 9y ago
I wonder why there aren't any cheap, simple tests for botulism that people could use to test their home-cooked food. You'd think something like that would be available by now.
- protonfish 9y ago
  My guess is that it is so toxic that the quantities needed to kill you are nearly undetectable.
mrob 9y ago
Even if there was no risk of botulism, attempting to make alcohol from potatoes and wild microbes sounds like a bad idea in any case. Yeast can't ferment starch directly, so you'd need some other microbe to ferment it to sugars first. Eg. to make sake, rice is fermented by koji (Aspergillus oryzae) to sugars, and then yeast further ferments it to alcohol. You almost certainly have wild yeasts floating about nearby, but it's less likely that there's something that will convert the starch to sugars effectively. You could easily end up with chunks of rotting potato and no extra alcohol from them.
- slackingoff2017 9y ago
  I think traditional moonshine recipes called for boiling potatoes first to convert starch to sugars. Also baking yeast is quite effective at fermentation and survives to fairly high alcohol levels. For fun some years ago I made some moonshine using cornmeal and brown sugar. Built my own still too, fun stuff. Just gotta make sure everything is lead free and discard heads and tails. I used a valved reflux still and kept temps within a couple degrees of ideal. Ran the result through carbon filters at the end. Couldn't tell the difference between my stuff and everclear
- wazoox 9y ago
  A readily available way to make sugar from starch is saliva. Chew your potato for a while, spit it into the jar, repeat. That's the traditional way to produce maize beer in Amazonia and elsewhere :)
- spott 9y ago
  >Yeast can't ferment starch directly This isn't really true. Saccharomyces cerevisiae can't generally ferment starch directly, but various forms of Brettanomyces can. Wild yeast and bacteria that can ferment starch are pretty common -- a turbid mash (which leaves a bunch of starches in the wort) is still used before putting the wort into a cool ship to be inoculated with wild yeast and then fermented in barrels. Granted, a true wild sour usually takes a few months to a few years to ferment out all the starches and develop the flavors that are so interesting, but "Yeast can't ferment starch directly" is an oversimplification.
jgrodziski 9y ago
Yes, how not to die of botulism: understand home food preservation. That's to say: bad bacteria proliferates without oxygen, without salt and without acid, that's why garlics in oil is a death recipe, it's not only the absence of oxygen but also the high ph and absence of salt. Understand the bacterias ecosystem is also a good way to understand home food preservation, in a salty and no oxygen environment (like salted water) you incentive lactobacillus that will consume sugars to produce lactic acid (and thus lower the ph), hence not a good environment for Clostridium Botulinum and fungi...so yes you can use heat to kill Clostridium Botulinum but you can also use other bacterias and the environment, the problem with heat is that you often kill "all" the bacterias leaving a highway for "pathogen" ones if the heating was not done properly. Lacto-fermentation is a fascinating world: https://www.thespruce.com/g00/how-lacto-fermentation-works-1327598 https://www.thespruce.com/g00/how-lacto-fermentation-works-1... And as a french guy, here we know a lot about cheese and lacto-fermentation :-) as all cheese, after coagulation, start from the transformation of lactose (a sugar) to lactic acid thanks to the bacterias (and lot of french cheese use...salted water). UPDATE: the official recommandations to remove the toxin produced by Clostridium Botulinum: boil during 10 minutes, to kill the spore: heat above 120°C during at least 30 minutes, to prevent its proliferation in the first place: water with NaCl at a 15% concentration, OR 2% of acetic acid (vinegar) OR oxygen (but in that case the fungi will gently occupy the place).
- amelius 9y ago
  > bad bacteria proliferates without oxygen, without salt and without acid Why is that so? Why can't some of the bad types of bacteria proliferate in other environments?
  - ajmurmann 9y ago
    They can, however they are much more likely to be crowded out. The botulism spores are also more heat resistant than pretty much anything else. So the fastest way to die of botulism is canning food wrong.You kill all the bacteria. The botulism spores survive and prosper without any competition. Compare that to failed fermentation for example where you will have a large quantity of a mix of bacteria that is likely to look and smell and taste obviously wrong while not being packed with neuro toxins.
vilhelm_s 9y ago
What I wonder is why the bacterium produces such a strong toxin in the first place. Is there any evolutionary advantage to making animals sick, or is just a coincidence?
- undersuit 9y ago
  Distracting and compromising the immune system of a large animal while taking advantage of the free resources in the environment would probably have a very strong evolutionary advantage. Or it could be more like the benefit yeast gets from producing alcohol, which it resists better than most other microbes.
  - im3w1l 9y ago
    There are bacteria that are poisonous, and there are bacteria that aren't. Clearly, both strategies are viable. So I think any explanation has to explain not just that poison is an advantage, but explain when it is and when it isn't.
- DanBC 9y ago
  Not sure how good this is, but: https://microbewiki.kenyon.edu/index.php/Clostridium_botulinum_Neurotoxins https://microbewiki.kenyon.edu/index.php/Clostridium_botulin... > but when they are activated and resume growth, the bacteria release several different types of potent neurotoxins that can cause the paralyzing disease botulism. The production of the neurotoxins acts as a defense mechanism for the bacteria for protection from intense heat, increased acidity, and possible fragmentation and damages.
- xhedley 9y ago
  "the gene that encodes for the toxin protein is actually carried by a virus or phage that infects the bacteria" [0] It seems the advantage for the virus in making the bacteria produce enough toxin to kill a duck fifty times over is that the maggots which eat the dead duck (and carry the bacteria and virus) each pick up enough toxin to kill another duck. See diagram on carcass-maggot botulism in the reference. (Or not if you haven't eaten breakfast yet). [0] https://www.nwhc.usgs.gov/publications/field_manual/chapter_38.pdf https://www.nwhc.usgs.gov/publications/field_manual/chapter_...
jgrodziski 9y ago
Here is a small summary of the different kind of fermentation to better understand the article. The three main type of fermentation are: - Alcoholic fermentation (beer, wine,etc.): without oxygen, yeast produce ethanol from sugar, like when you leave some fruits rotten without too much oxygens...but fruits rotten because fungi proliferates quicker due to the presence of oxygen - lacto-fermentation (cheese, yoghurt, etc.): without oxygen and in a warm environment, lacto-bacillus produce lactic acid from sugar - acetic fermentation (vinegar) : WITH oxygen (seldom one), acetobacter bacterias produce acetic acid from ethanol Louis Pasteur said "Fermentation is Life without oxygen", so whenever there is oxygen, you'll see the usual rot produced by fungi (yes, very crude simplification). So the main aspect of fermentation is to ensure an anaerobic environment, often with water or when you remove oxygen from a recipient by aspiring it. The other types of fermentation are more seldom: propionic fermentation (from lactic acid to propionic acid like in the gruyere cheese), butyric fermentation (like in rancid butter), malolactic fermentation (from malic acid to lactic acid, because the malic acid, found in grappes and apples gives a very acidic taste and is used to lower that acidic taste in some wines).
dghughes 9y ago
I'm surprised the article didn't explain outright that the botulinum toxin is the most toxic substance on earth. More than cyanide, sarin, VX, plutonium or anything else man made or natural. Another interesting side note is Napoleon Bonaparte offered a prize to anyone who could preserve food. Armies used to have to eat what they found locally since carrying large amount of food was too tedious. In the late 1700s Nicolas Appert managed to discover heat "pasteurization" (well before Louis Pasteur method in the 1860s). The only problem was Appert used heat that was too high and for too long resulting in mushy food Pasteur's method had better results. Interestingly Pasteur was inspired by a relative of Napoleon 1st only this time it was a nephew Napoleon III.
- NamTaf 9y ago
  It touched on it: Botulinum toxin, a protein produced by the bacterium Clostridium botulinum, could be “the most poisonous poison” there is, as writer Carl Lamanna called it in an article for Science, in 1959. First weaponized by Imperial Japan in the 1930s, and later, Nazi Germany, the United States, the Soviet Union, Syria, Iran, Iraq, and North Korea, a single gram of toxin could theoretically kill more than a million people if dispersed into the air and inhaled.
  - dghughes 9y ago
    Ah, I missed that. I recall reading that part but missed the parts in quotes.
qrbLPHiKpiux 9y ago
People inject this into their face. Housewives.
- ceejayoz 9y ago
  So? It's safe and effective in that application. My wife used to get it administered in the brow, temples and neck for migraines. You're not going to wind up paralyzed. See also: formaldehyde, which is both toxic and required by our bodies to create some critical amino acids.
notadoc 9y ago
Fascinating, I bet the vast majority of the population has no idea regarding the dangers of canning. Wouldn't this risk apply to all food preservation?
Havoc 9y ago
>Brazenly, he sampled a few drops of this extract himself Damn that's hardcore. Observes that it kills animals so he tries a little himself. wow.
partycoder 9y ago
Salmonella and botulism are in part the reasons of why canned food usually come with a layer of Bisphenol A (aka BPA). Botulism is rather infrequent but 2 ways I can think of getting it: 1) giving honey to infants, 2) eating food from dented cans.
- markdown 9y ago
  What does denting do to cans? Increase the pressure?
  - jfoutz 9y ago
    Looks like it compromises the seals. Cracks too small to see let air in.
ge96 9y ago
This should be in a hitch-hiker's-guide-like guide offline woven into our clothes for the distopian future.
gonvaled 9y ago
Please correct me, as this is only my personal understanding of how botulism works. What kills me? Only the toxin. Neither the bacteria nor the spores are directly lethal. How does the toxin get into my body? A) I eat it, from food contaminated with toxin. B) I breath it, from toxin in the air. C) I eat or breath bacteria / spores, and they produce the toxin inside my body. How does that happen? A) Badly preserved food. Normal, fresh food, does not contain toxin, but can contain spores / bacteria. Over long periods of time (how long?), in the right conditions (low oxygen / low salt / low acid) bacteria will proliferate (even starting from the very resistant spores), and eventually produce toxin. This can not be seen / smelled, and is the source of most toxin poisoning. B) Only in warfare, and not even sure if that's been developed. Maybe even forbidden by international conventions "regulating" warfare? C) Only if I am a baby. Adult's digestive tract will kill both bacteria and spores, preventing toxin production. How much toxin is lethal? According to the article, a microgram can kill an adult. What is the rate of toxin production by the bacteria? How long do I need to leave toxin-free food exposed to bacteria in order to become dangerously poisoned? At home we usually leave cooked food standing for the next day (sometimes, against my will, outside the fridge) and then we heat it at low temperatures and eat it. Is this safe? Probably yes botulism-wise, but has other problems.

134 points by omilu 9y ago

Botulism spores are also found in honey. It's in small enough amounts it's not a problem for adults, but this is why you don't give babies honey until 1 year old.

presspot 9y ago

The open source food safety idea is genius.

dom0 9y ago

Botulism is incredibly rare in Europe (maybe a handful of cases in each country per year); in which regions is it an issue? The article mentions canned foods which I imagine are not so common in countries with food scarcity.

DanBC 9y ago
The article mentions infants who are at greater risk. The article is also talking about home canned foods. Here's the CDC surveillance report on botulism for 2015: https://www.cdc.gov/nationalsurveillance/pdfs/botulism_cste_2015.pdf https://www.cdc.gov/nationalsurveillance/pdfs/botulism_cste_... > A total of 199 confirmed and 14 probable cases of botulism were reported to CDC in 2015. Among confirmed cases, infant botulism accounted for 141 (71%) cases, foodborne botulism for 39 (20%) cases, wound botulism for 15 (8%) cases, and botulism of unknown or other transmission category for 4 (2%) cases (Table 1). Among probable cases, foodborne botulism accounted for 6 (43%) cases and wound botulism for 8 (57%) cases. > The 141 cases of infant botulism were reported from 33 states and the District of Columbia. The median age of patients was 2.7 months with a range of 0 – 10 months; 70 (50%) were girls. Toxin type A accounted for 60 (43%), toxin type B accounted for 79 (56%), and toxin type Bf accounted for 2 (1%). No deaths were reported. > The 39 cases of confirmed foodborne botulism were reported from 7 states (Figure 1). The median age of patients was 59 years with a range of 9 – 92 years; 25 (64%) were women. There were 5 outbreaks (events with two or more cases) accounting for 37 confirmed cases. One outbreak was associated with home-canned potatoes in a potato salad served at a church potluck (27 cases),† one was associated with fermented seal flipper (4 cases), and one was associated with beets roasted in aluminum foil and kept at room temperature for several days then made into a soup (2 cases). In addition, there were two outbreaks of two cases each living in the same household or facility in which the foodborne source was unknown (Tab
undersuit 9y ago
There was a really bad incident in Greenland in 2013[1]. They were making kiviak, auk fermented in the carcass of a seal. I heard it was the use of eider birds instead of auk that prevented proper fermentation, but this article included that a plastic bag was used in the preparation of this batch of kiviak presumably with the auk birds in the plastic bag inside of the seal carcass. Perfect low oxygen conditions for C. Botulinum to thrive. [1] https://thefourthcontinent.com/2013/08/07/greenland-terducken-real-seal-bird-meal/ https://thefourthcontinent.com/2013/08/07/greenland-terducke...
- ceejayoz 9y ago
  > Simply put, about 400 dead birds (usually auk) are stuffed into a body of a dead seal and left under a rock to ferment for many months. Prepared this way, the seal’s fat tenderises and preserves it, which means that you can eat the entire bird raw, save the feathers. The innards turn into a liquid, and a popular way to consume it is by biting the head off and sucking out the juices inside. Holy crap. Dying of paralysis sounds like a mercy.

evanriley 9y ago

I assume this was posted because of the Otto Warmbier situation? [1] [1]: http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-40308028 http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-40308028

jk2323 9y ago
Well, I don't want to defend or speak for North Korea. But there was a lot of anger regarding what happened to Warmbier. Obviously NK overreacted for talking a "propaganda poster". He got XX years hard labor. But a westerner is normally kept in a hotel room in NK until an agreement has been reached and then he is released. Warmbier had his medical "incident", as far as I know, over a year ago. So they must have fed him artificially and cared for him since. Also, AFAIK, they send an NMR image of his brain to the US doctors before he was released. I doubt that many North Koreans have access to this level of treatment. So unfortunate this story is, I advise to use caution before reaching quick judgments.
- trendia 9y ago
  They took care of him after the incident that caused brain damage, but is there any proof the incident itself was botulism?
  - jk2323 9y ago
    No. We don't know what happened. I am not an MD. I am sure there are many options what could happened. But the way he was taken care of and returned (they could have claimed he died) seems to suggest that he was not put into this condition on purpose.
    - lern_too_spel 9y ago
      He was only returned after the Swedish embassy learned about his condition. He had already been in a coma for a year by then and would have stayed in the DPRK for the remainder of his sentence otherwise. If they claimed that a man in his twenties had died of a heart attack as they did with Japanese citizens they abducted, that would have been an even bigger scandal.

dbcurtis 9y ago

How not to die of botulism: Understand home food preservation and follow the recipe. The rules are simple: 1. C. Botulinin is everywhere. It is in the food you are preserving. Deal with it. 2. Heat kills C. Botulinin. Propper pressure canning times and temperatures of properly diced foods will kill it. 3. Acidity inhibits C. Botulinun metabolism. Boiling water bath canning of high acid foods like dill pickles is sufficient to keep any remaining microbes from producing toxins. (Botulism toxin is a metabolism byproduct. ) 4. 10 minutes at boiling temperatures before serving will break down botulism toxin. 5. When in doubt, throw it out. Was that hard? The most subtle mistake to make is if the canning recipe says dice into 1/4 inch cubes, don't use a different size. It changes the convection currents in the jar and it may not reach required temperature/times in the core. Also be careful with home made salsa as the acidity can vary wildly depending on numerous factors.

fencepost 9y ago
Based on the (2013) article, Heat kills it, but not just boiling water heat - you need the 250 degree pressure cooking heat. Not really mentioned is that it's lack of oxygen that really enables things to go downhill, which is why you should never make your own infused oils - "homemade garlic infused olive oil, what could go wrong?" DEATH Also, I can't think of the last thing I ate that was kept at a rolling boil for 10 minutes, and I probably don't want to. Botox is not the only thing that would eliminate.
- pmoriarty 9y ago
  Another reason that contributes to garlic-infused olive oil's danger is that the garlic tends to kill off other microorganisms that could compete with botulism, but it doesn't kill botulism itself.
  - matt_wulfeck 9y ago
    See this is why people die. I had no idea of this danger and was just thinking the other day of making a garlic-infuses oil.

influx 9y ago

This article is not relevant to hacker news and is incredibly insensitive. "Kanter and his colleagues say they've found no evidence that Warmbier, who has demonstrated no awareness of his surroundings, suffered from the effects of botulism — a finding that appears to contradict the explanation offered by his North Korean captors. Authorities there have said Warmbier fell into a coma after contracting botulism and taking a sleeping pill. Instead, the doctors told reporters that the more likely cause of Warmbier's condition is cardiopulmonary arrest. Their tests also did not reveal any signs of physical trauma to Warmbier, such as "acute or healing fractures." http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2017/06/15/533054112/otto-warmbier-suffered-extensive-loss-of-brain-tissue-no-sign-of-botulism http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2017/06/15/533054112/...

dpark 9y ago
In what way is it insensitive or irrelevant? This article is from 2013. It's an interesting article about botulism. Is no one allowed to discuss botulism now because someone may have contracted a case in North Korea?
- cnnsucks 9y ago
  >> because someone may have contracted a case in North Korea? Yes. Exactly. The establishment and its media have concluded that N. Korea has no culpability in the destruction of this kids life. It's just a preexisting condition and the brain damage had nothing to do with incarceration in a labor camp and lack of medical treatment, so get your mind right.
  - dpark 9y ago
    I didn't say North Korea had no culpability.
    - cnnsucks 9y ago
      You didn't have to. We all know the game. Back to NPR with you for another dose of beltway groupthink.

pmoriarty 9y ago

I wonder why there aren't any cheap, simple tests for botulism that people could use to test their home-cooked food. You'd think something like that would be available by now.

protonfish 9y ago
My guess is that it is so toxic that the quantities needed to kill you are nearly undetectable.

mrob 9y ago

Even if there was no risk of botulism, attempting to make alcohol from potatoes and wild microbes sounds like a bad idea in any case. Yeast can't ferment starch directly, so you'd need some other microbe to ferment it to sugars first. Eg. to make sake, rice is fermented by koji (Aspergillus oryzae) to sugars, and then yeast further ferments it to alcohol. You almost certainly have wild yeasts floating about nearby, but it's less likely that there's something that will convert the starch to sugars effectively. You could easily end up with chunks of rotting potato and no extra alcohol from them.

slackingoff2017 9y ago
I think traditional moonshine recipes called for boiling potatoes first to convert starch to sugars. Also baking yeast is quite effective at fermentation and survives to fairly high alcohol levels. For fun some years ago I made some moonshine using cornmeal and brown sugar. Built my own still too, fun stuff. Just gotta make sure everything is lead free and discard heads and tails. I used a valved reflux still and kept temps within a couple degrees of ideal. Ran the result through carbon filters at the end. Couldn't tell the difference between my stuff and everclear
wazoox 9y ago
A readily available way to make sugar from starch is saliva. Chew your potato for a while, spit it into the jar, repeat. That's the traditional way to produce maize beer in Amazonia and elsewhere :)
spott 9y ago
>Yeast can't ferment starch directly This isn't really true. Saccharomyces cerevisiae can't generally ferment starch directly, but various forms of Brettanomyces can. Wild yeast and bacteria that can ferment starch are pretty common -- a turbid mash (which leaves a bunch of starches in the wort) is still used before putting the wort into a cool ship to be inoculated with wild yeast and then fermented in barrels. Granted, a true wild sour usually takes a few months to a few years to ferment out all the starches and develop the flavors that are so interesting, but "Yeast can't ferment starch directly" is an oversimplification.

jgrodziski 9y ago

Yes, how not to die of botulism: understand home food preservation. That's to say: bad bacteria proliferates without oxygen, without salt and without acid, that's why garlics in oil is a death recipe, it's not only the absence of oxygen but also the high ph and absence of salt. Understand the bacterias ecosystem is also a good way to understand home food preservation, in a salty and no oxygen environment (like salted water) you incentive lactobacillus that will consume sugars to produce lactic acid (and thus lower the ph), hence not a good environment for Clostridium Botulinum and fungi...so yes you can use heat to kill Clostridium Botulinum but you can also use other bacterias and the environment, the problem with heat is that you often kill "all" the bacterias leaving a highway for "pathogen" ones if the heating was not done properly. Lacto-fermentation is a fascinating world: https://www.thespruce.com/g00/how-lacto-fermentation-works-1327598 https://www.thespruce.com/g00/how-lacto-fermentation-works-1... And as a french guy, here we know a lot about cheese and lacto-fermentation :-) as all cheese, after coagulation, start from the transformation of lactose (a sugar) to lactic acid thanks to the bacterias (and lot of french cheese use...salted water). UPDATE: the official recommandations to remove the toxin produced by Clostridium Botulinum: boil during 10 minutes, to kill the spore: heat above 120°C during at least 30 minutes, to prevent its proliferation in the first place: water with NaCl at a 15% concentration, OR 2% of acetic acid (vinegar) OR oxygen (but in that case the fungi will gently occupy the place).

amelius 9y ago
> bad bacteria proliferates without oxygen, without salt and without acid Why is that so? Why can't some of the bad types of bacteria proliferate in other environments?
- ajmurmann 9y ago
  They can, however they are much more likely to be crowded out. The botulism spores are also more heat resistant than pretty much anything else. So the fastest way to die of botulism is canning food wrong.You kill all the bacteria. The botulism spores survive and prosper without any competition. Compare that to failed fermentation for example where you will have a large quantity of a mix of bacteria that is likely to look and smell and taste obviously wrong while not being packed with neuro toxins.

vilhelm_s 9y ago

What I wonder is why the bacterium produces such a strong toxin in the first place. Is there any evolutionary advantage to making animals sick, or is just a coincidence?

undersuit 9y ago
Distracting and compromising the immune system of a large animal while taking advantage of the free resources in the environment would probably have a very strong evolutionary advantage. Or it could be more like the benefit yeast gets from producing alcohol, which it resists better than most other microbes.
- im3w1l 9y ago
  There are bacteria that are poisonous, and there are bacteria that aren't. Clearly, both strategies are viable. So I think any explanation has to explain not just that poison is an advantage, but explain when it is and when it isn't.
DanBC 9y ago
Not sure how good this is, but: https://microbewiki.kenyon.edu/index.php/Clostridium_botulinum_Neurotoxins https://microbewiki.kenyon.edu/index.php/Clostridium_botulin... > but when they are activated and resume growth, the bacteria release several different types of potent neurotoxins that can cause the paralyzing disease botulism. The production of the neurotoxins acts as a defense mechanism for the bacteria for protection from intense heat, increased acidity, and possible fragmentation and damages.
xhedley 9y ago
"the gene that encodes for the toxin protein is actually carried by a virus or phage that infects the bacteria" [0] It seems the advantage for the virus in making the bacteria produce enough toxin to kill a duck fifty times over is that the maggots which eat the dead duck (and carry the bacteria and virus) each pick up enough toxin to kill another duck. See diagram on carcass-maggot botulism in the reference. (Or not if you haven't eaten breakfast yet). [0] https://www.nwhc.usgs.gov/publications/field_manual/chapter_38.pdf https://www.nwhc.usgs.gov/publications/field_manual/chapter_...

jgrodziski 9y ago

Here is a small summary of the different kind of fermentation to better understand the article. The three main type of fermentation are: - Alcoholic fermentation (beer, wine,etc.): without oxygen, yeast produce ethanol from sugar, like when you leave some fruits rotten without too much oxygens...but fruits rotten because fungi proliferates quicker due to the presence of oxygen - lacto-fermentation (cheese, yoghurt, etc.): without oxygen and in a warm environment, lacto-bacillus produce lactic acid from sugar - acetic fermentation (vinegar) : WITH oxygen (seldom one), acetobacter bacterias produce acetic acid from ethanol Louis Pasteur said "Fermentation is Life without oxygen", so whenever there is oxygen, you'll see the usual rot produced by fungi (yes, very crude simplification). So the main aspect of fermentation is to ensure an anaerobic environment, often with water or when you remove oxygen from a recipient by aspiring it. The other types of fermentation are more seldom: propionic fermentation (from lactic acid to propionic acid like in the gruyere cheese), butyric fermentation (like in rancid butter), malolactic fermentation (from malic acid to lactic acid, because the malic acid, found in grappes and apples gives a very acidic taste and is used to lower that acidic taste in some wines).

dghughes 9y ago

I'm surprised the article didn't explain outright that the botulinum toxin is the most toxic substance on earth. More than cyanide, sarin, VX, plutonium or anything else man made or natural. Another interesting side note is Napoleon Bonaparte offered a prize to anyone who could preserve food. Armies used to have to eat what they found locally since carrying large amount of food was too tedious. In the late 1700s Nicolas Appert managed to discover heat "pasteurization" (well before Louis Pasteur method in the 1860s). The only problem was Appert used heat that was too high and for too long resulting in mushy food Pasteur's method had better results. Interestingly Pasteur was inspired by a relative of Napoleon 1st only this time it was a nephew Napoleon III.

NamTaf 9y ago
It touched on it: Botulinum toxin, a protein produced by the bacterium Clostridium botulinum, could be “the most poisonous poison” there is, as writer Carl Lamanna called it in an article for Science, in 1959. First weaponized by Imperial Japan in the 1930s, and later, Nazi Germany, the United States, the Soviet Union, Syria, Iran, Iraq, and North Korea, a single gram of toxin could theoretically kill more than a million people if dispersed into the air and inhaled.
- dghughes 9y ago
  Ah, I missed that. I recall reading that part but missed the parts in quotes.

qrbLPHiKpiux 9y ago

People inject this into their face. Housewives.

ceejayoz 9y ago
So? It's safe and effective in that application. My wife used to get it administered in the brow, temples and neck for migraines. You're not going to wind up paralyzed. See also: formaldehyde, which is both toxic and required by our bodies to create some critical amino acids.

notadoc 9y ago

Fascinating, I bet the vast majority of the population has no idea regarding the dangers of canning. Wouldn't this risk apply to all food preservation?

Havoc 9y ago

>Brazenly, he sampled a few drops of this extract himself Damn that's hardcore. Observes that it kills animals so he tries a little himself. wow.

partycoder 9y ago

Salmonella and botulism are in part the reasons of why canned food usually come with a layer of Bisphenol A (aka BPA). Botulism is rather infrequent but 2 ways I can think of getting it: 1) giving honey to infants, 2) eating food from dented cans.

markdown 9y ago
What does denting do to cans? Increase the pressure?
- jfoutz 9y ago
  Looks like it compromises the seals. Cracks too small to see let air in.

ge96 9y ago

This should be in a hitch-hiker's-guide-like guide offline woven into our clothes for the distopian future.

gonvaled 9y ago

Please correct me, as this is only my personal understanding of how botulism works. What kills me? Only the toxin. Neither the bacteria nor the spores are directly lethal. How does the toxin get into my body? A) I eat it, from food contaminated with toxin. B) I breath it, from toxin in the air. C) I eat or breath bacteria / spores, and they produce the toxin inside my body. How does that happen? A) Badly preserved food. Normal, fresh food, does not contain toxin, but can contain spores / bacteria. Over long periods of time (how long?), in the right conditions (low oxygen / low salt / low acid) bacteria will proliferate (even starting from the very resistant spores), and eventually produce toxin. This can not be seen / smelled, and is the source of most toxin poisoning. B) Only in warfare, and not even sure if that's been developed. Maybe even forbidden by international conventions "regulating" warfare? C) Only if I am a baby. Adult's digestive tract will kill both bacteria and spores, preventing toxin production. How much toxin is lethal? According to the article, a microgram can kill an adult. What is the rate of toxin production by the bacteria? How long do I need to leave toxin-free food exposed to bacteria in order to become dangerously poisoned? At home we usually leave cooked food standing for the next day (sometimes, against my will, outside the fridge) and then we heat it at low temperatures and eat it. Is this safe? Probably yes botulism-wise, but has other problems.