Pathogen: Clostridium botulinum - bacteria

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Symptoms

• Nausea
• Diarrhea
• Fatigue
• Blurred vision
• Dry mouth
• Difficulty speaking and swallowing
• Descending paralysis of the arms, legs, trunk, and breathing muscles (starts in arms and moves down)

Start of symptoms / how long they last

Symptoms usually

• start within 12 to 36 hours after eating or drinking food containing the bacteria
• last from 2 hours to 14 days

How you can get sick

• Clostridium botulinum is a bacteria that can form toxins
• By eating or drinking food or beverages contaminated with Clostridium botulinum toxin
• Through home-canned food that is
  • processed improperly
  • low-acid

Potential health impacts

• llness is rare in Canada, but it can be severe.
• Most people can recover if diagnosed and treated promptly. Treatment includes early doses of antitoxin and intensive respiratory care.
• Recovery can take several weeks to months. In some cases, it can take years and you may never fully recover.
• Severe botulism can lead to
  • a need for intensive medical and nursing care
  • paralysis and respiratory failure, which can require a person to have ventilator assistance to breathe
• If not diagnosed and treated, death from respiratory failure can happen within 3 to 10 days.

Food commonly associated

• Home-canned low-acid food that has been processed improperly, such as asparagus, beets, corn, garlic, green beans, mushrooms, peppers, chicken and chicken livers, ham, liver pâté, sausage
• Smoked, salted and fermented fish
• Fermented marine mammal meat, for example whale, walrus, seal
• Baked potatoes stored in aluminium foil
• Honey: Although honey may naturally contain Clostridium botulinum, the bacteria can't grow or produce toxins in the honey, but it could grow and produce toxins in a baby's body, and this can cause infant botulism
• Low-acid juice, such as carrot juice
• Improperly-cured meat products

How to protect yourself

• Follow instructions and up-to-date canning recipes and use up-to-date equipment when canning low-acid food at home.
• Don't use aluminium foil to wrap potatoes or other vegetables for baking unless the vegetables will be cooked and eaten right away or unwrapped and refrigerated right away once they're cooked.
• Don't feed honey (even pasteurised honey) to children under one year old.
• Keep all low-acid juices, such as carrot juice and other products labelled "keep refrigerated," refrigerated.
• Never eat food from dented, bulging or leaking home or commercially-canned food.

Food Safety Tip

Help your parents put the groceries away as soon as you get home. Bacteria that can make you sick can multiply quickly if food is kept at room temperature for more than two hours.

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