Re: [97attendees] Food poisoning

[David Allan I <[e-mail]>]

HI Shane, et al

Actually poor food handling can cause food poisoning independent of the type of food (I have family members working in food safety for Agriculture Canada, who in no uncertain terms advise me regularly :-).

That being said, I also would be loathe to think that anecdotal evidence of problems could disqualify potential destinations. For example street food is relatively high risk, and you need to exercise good judgement. Would I avoid destinations where it was available…  No!

Cheers
Dave

From: 97attendees [mailto:[e-mail]] On Behalf Of Shane Kerr
Sent: Sunday, November 20, 2016 5:42 PM
To: Aaron Falk <[e-mail]>; [e-mail]
Subject: Re: [97attendees] Food poisoning

Aaron,

I would caution against the IETF embarking down the road of trying to do ad-hoc public health screening. We have no expertise in this area, and our sample size is small, the time frame of an IETF meeting is smaller than the potential lifetime of food poisoning, and there are so many confounding factors that we are unlikely to get any valid results.

My father worked in public health for 30 years or so - he was a food inspector for the US Army. I remember once he told me that about half of cases of food poisoning were actually from food poisoning, and the other half were non-food-related. Contrariwise a lot of food poisoning goes unreported because it is mild or contains symptoms similar to other ailments. Humans are even harder to diagnose than computer networks, it turns out. ;)

Certainly the IETF can and possibly should consider reviewing records and recommendations about all health in potential destinations - not just food safety but also other potential health problems. (I don't follow the meeting selection process so it is possible this is already on a checklist.)

As a final note, you can avoid all problems with seafood, poorly cooked meat and the like by eating vegetarian. ;)

Cheers,

--
Shane

------------------ Original ------------------
From:  "Aaron Falk"<[e-mail]<mailto:[e-mail]>>;
Date:  Thu, Dec 1, 2016 03:25 AM
To:  "[e-mail]<mailto:[e-mail]>"<[e-mail]<mailto:[e-mail]>>;
Subject:  [97attendees] Food poisoning

I've learned of five people, in 4 different groups, who got food poisoning in Seoul. Seems like something to keep track of when considering future meetings in the area. Perhaps folks would self-report on this thread in case there are additional cases...