Botulism - Avoid Tchin-Tchin Wine Bar in Bordeaux

"But others appeared okay so I served them to clients."

Yikes. I hope everybody recovers!

Who knows, it might now be safer to go there, since they likely cleaned house, rather than any number of other places.

Botulism is not a matter of cleanliness but of food preservation practices, very serious for these folks--hope all make a full recovery!

Holy cow! I can't believe they self-canned fish and served it to customers. I wonder if they had a proper pressure canning set up?

Well Pam, obviously something went very wrong. I'd be surprised if they will be allowed to stay in business.

I guess it's about the same, proportionally, as the US, where there are apparently an average of 110 cases a year, according to the CDC.

An average of 110 cases of botulism is reported annually in the US. About twenty-five percent of these cases are foodborne botulism.

https://www.emergency.cdc.gov/agent/botulism/clinicians/epidemiology.asp#:~:text=An%20average%20of%20110%20cases,these%20cases%20are%20foodborne%20botulism.

People who have eaten at the Tchin-Tchin wine bar will be able to console themselves by rereading from their hospital room how this place presents itself (in English version) on its own website.

“Our food selections are designed to provide a unique tasting experience, including new dishes that some guests may not have had the opportunity to try before”

Followed by a photo mentioning: “fresh ingredients”

A little further in the text:

"All our dishes are homemade and prepared in our kitchens from carefully selected ingredients, such as... freshly caught fish..."

Lucky they didn't kill someone; I would think it might be hard to diagnose before the person has stopped breathing.

One person has died, press reported yesterday evening after an a statement from the regional health authority.

It's absolutely awful. Press reporting this morning shows that a Monday inspection of the wine bar "showed several failures in mastering techniques of pasteurization and sterilization of canned items made by the restaurant. As well, the authority pointed to a lack of mastery, of training, of knowledge in the matter. It also stated it found a "total ignorance of the guide of the practices of good hygiene."

Further, eight of the nine patients are younger than 40. According to a doctor, "the toxin remains in the body for a very long time, certain patients will probably require intubation for months."

Above information from an article in Sud-Ouest newspaper.

The deceased is a 32-year-old woman, according to press reporting this morning. She died in a hospital in the Paris région. Anyone who ate at the wine bar between Sept 4 and 10 is being asked to go see a doctor.

I have curious.

Is (was) the wine bar an attractor of only tourists?

The more important question - in England we have something called "Scores on the Doors" which rates an establishment on hygiene and food safety based on inspections, and the score sticker is put up (voluntarily) by the front door. Ratings are 1 to 5, (5 best). I personally refuse to eat at anything below a 4, and almost always a 5.

Does France have anything similar?

Hi Nigel -

Two things - all the press reporting mentions only the preponderance of tourists among the victims - but then further reporting on the victim who died indicates that she was a 32-year-old woman who went "to her home" in Ile-de-France . . . that suggests she is French, but I suppose could also be an immigrant or expat like me.

The General Direction for Health's official notice to health professionals specifically remarked on this wine bar that is a "very popular destination for an Anglo-Saxon clientele." I know that is weird, but that's literally what they put out there.

https://sante.gouv.fr/professionnels/article/dgs-urgent
(first document, dated September 12, entitled "DGS-Urgent 2023-15 - Intoxication Grave Alimentaire" and download the PDF)

As for notations on the doors as to an establishment's performance on health/safety inspections - I know what you're talking about, I've seen similar notation systems in California. I'm pretty sure nothing like that exists here.

This is really becoming one of the top news stories here (after a couple of days).

There are state services, the DGCCRF and the DDPP, which (normally) carry out inspections in all establishments but there is no food hygiene score system.

it does make one wonder about the efficacity of these inspections !

Inspections of restaurants usually look at hygiene i.e. is food kept cold before being cooked and then kept hot until served. Are there vermin. Is there appropriate dish washing and cleanliness. Botulism is a result of poor canning techniques and I would be surprised if that were on a health inspection checklist.

This is an incredibly lethal toxin. When I was a kid there was a whole family in our town that died as a result of grandma's canned green beans served at a family get together. The toxins cause nerve damage and frequently attack respiration.

I thought there was an anti-toxin so that once someone was diagnosed and hospitalized they could be fairly quickly saved. But perhaps not. The damage initially caused may not be reversible. Of course the woman who died could already have been without oxygen long enough to have suffered permanent brain damage. Often when they claim someone died in hospital, they really were DOA or briefly revived. It may have been too late for her.

So not what one expects after a night at the wine bar. Truly scary and awful.

Oh Janet...the green bean story is awful. I did a lot of canning in my "hippie/granola girl" phase but never would can fish, meat or low acid veggies.

Treatment
Botulism is caused by a toxin that attacks the body’s nerves and causes difficulty breathing, muscle paralysis, and even death.
Doctors treat botulism with a drug called an antitoxin, which prevents the toxin from causing any more harm. Antitoxin does not heal the damage the toxin has already done. Depending on how severe your symptoms are, you may need to stay in the hospital for weeks or even months before you are well enough to go home.
If your disease is severe, you may have breathing problems. You may even have respiratory (breathing) failure if the toxin paralyzes the muscles involved in breathing. If that happens, your doctor may put you on a breathing machine (ventilator) until you can breathe on your own. The paralysis caused by the toxin usually improves slowly. The medical and nursing care you receive in the hospital is to help you recover.
https://www.cdc.gov/botulism/testing-treatment.html

Hopefully all those affected have gotten timely treatment

Since the inspection of the restaurant found they were lacking in good hygiene practices, I would think that would be a clue that anything they were canning there could very well be suspect.

(You'd hardly think, oh, this guy's kitchen, prep, and stock area is filthy, but I’m sure he is paying good attention and following all hygiene rules when he cans his sardines!)

Right now of course all the furor and disbelief is at the “restaurateur.” But I wonder if the local, regional, and national health authorities (or whichever combination is in charge of restaurant inspections) isn't going to be in for a tough time from the public soon on this. People have got to be wondering how someone could get away with operating like this.

If anyone is interested in the progression of botulism poisoning , this short ,but highly informative book combines a major historical event with a scientific assessment . https://www.amazon.co.uk/Ice-Blink-Tragic-Franklins-Expedition/dp/0471404209

This is so horrible.
I recall getting a sandwich in Italy once and worrying about the eggplant in oil--it was one of the best sandwiches I have ever had, so it worked out.
Learning how to can myself made me cautious, but when you are in a restaurant, you hope to not have to know these things!

If you've ever worked in a restaurant, or worked with restaurant inspectors (I've done both) you'll know that just about every restaurant has something they're doing wrong, sometimes intentionally to cut corners, and sometimes unintentionally because the workers just give up.

Botulism in canned products? Only way Inspectors would find that is opening every can and looking. Not enough inspectors in the world for doing that. Like cops, they can come in after the fact, but cant prevent every bad thing from happening.

"I can't believe they self-canned fish and served it to customers" - Pam, there is nothing unsafe or wrong with canning, if carried out correctly. I'm guessing the restaurants 'canning' technique actually uses the glass jar method and not enough attention was given to important detail.

Extreme heat is required to kill off any spores which may cause botulism (I do a bit of canning myself, well-educated on the subject by my Polish and Ukrainian friends). Inspectors won't help any, unless they open every jar in the premises.

Judicial authorities in Bordeaux have opened a preliminary investigation with several possible charges against the wine bar: involuntary homicide, involuntary injury, putting foods that are dangerous to health on the market, and selling corrupt or toxic foodstuffs.

the investigation has been assigned jointly to the judicial police of the Gironde (the French departement that includes Bordeaux), the Central Office of the Fight Against Damages to the Environment and Public Health (OCLAESP) and the Departmental Office of the Protection of Populations (DDPP).

Possible penalties include:
Five years’ imprisonment and 75k euro fine for involuntary homicide;
Three years’ imprisonment and 45k euro fine for involuntary injuries;
Five years’ imprisonment and 600k euro fine for putting foodstuffs on the market that are prejudiciable to health;
Two years’ imprisonment and 300k euro fine for selling toxic or corrupted foodstuffs.

Information pulled from articles in Le Parisien and Le Figaro.