A batch of Pruno wine resulted in eight severe botulism poisoning cases in prison-inmates in Utah, according to a press release.
Pruno wine is often referred to as prison wine because of its origin in prison and jails. Recently, eight people in Utah were hospitalized for severe botulism poisoning after consuming some of this potato-based wine.
"Evidently the incorporation of an old baked potato in the pruno recipe allowed botulism to develop," said Megan Fix, MD, of the Division of Emergency Medicine at the University of Utah in Salt Lake City. "The patient who cooked the wine had cooked this recipe approximately 20 times previously without a potato, but his decision to experiment sickened him and seven other inmates. The patients' initial reluctance to confess their consumption of pruno could have been deadly since botulism requires fast intervention."
All the patients were from an unnamed Utah prison and were admitted into the emergency department after complaining about trouble swallowing, double vision, difficulty speaking and weakness. This happened almost 54 hours after consuming the beverage.
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) is one of the few places that stores botulism anti-toxin to be used in case of bioterrorism attack. Therefore, it took 9 hours for the hospital to make arrangements to get the medication. All patients were given anti-toxins within 12 hours of being admitted. Three of the patients were severely affected and had respiratory failure. They were intubated before the medication was given to them.
"The CDC is the only source for botulism anti-toxin," said Dr. Fix. "However, there are a number of steps involved in obtaining it. The CDC recommends that emergency physicians treat patients first, if botulism is suspected, rather than waiting for a positive test. Therefore it's important to contact the CDC to obtain the anti-toxin based on clinical suspicion as we can't treat the disease without having the anti-toxin in hand!"
Botulism poisoning causes flaccid paralysis of muscles and can sometimes be fatal. Foodborne botulism poisoning is extremely rare, with a typical incidence of about 20 cases per year in the United States. The other two types of botulism are wound, and infant botulism. Wound botulism is due to Clostridium bacteria infecting a wound and releasing the neurotoxin. In infant botulism, the baby consumes spores of the bacteria which then grow in the baby's intestine and release the neurotoxin.
