
How Not to Die of Botulism (2013) - timroman
http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2013/12/how-not-to-die-of-botulism/281649/?single_page=true
======
DanBC
This 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...](http://www.nhs.uk/Conditions/Botulism/Pages/Introduction.aspx)

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pmoriarty
_" 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...](https://www.amazon.com/Who-Goes-First-Self-
Experimentation-Medicine/dp/0520212819/)

~~~
dmm
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](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Werner_Forssmann#Life)

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madengr
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?

~~~
colechristensen
Both the acid and the salt inhibit botulinum growth.

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amdolan
I was curious about pruno, and found this poem on the way:

[http://www.pen.org/poetry/recipe-prison-
pruno](http://www.pen.org/poetry/recipe-prison-pruno)

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PhantomGremlin
The article doesn't mention a "big" commercial botulism case.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1971_Bon_Vivant_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
    

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1993_Jack_in_the_Box_E._coli_o...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1993_Jack_in_the_Box_E._coli_outbreak)
[2] [http://www.about-ecoli.com/](http://www.about-ecoli.com/)

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erikcw
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!

[0]
[http://www.cookingissues.com/index.html%3Fp=4532.html](http://www.cookingissues.com/index.html%3Fp=4532.html)

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0xdeadbeefbabe
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.

~~~
mjb
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.

~~~
0xdeadbeefbabe
So if I test the compound (sauerkraut) with PH test strips, and find it acidic
then I'll be safe?

~~~
gus_massa
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](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_ [...]

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dghughes
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.

~~~
strictnein
The Atlantic is on your no-go list? I'm actually interested to know why.

~~~
dghughes
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).

