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  • 2017-07-03 (xsd:date)
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  • Investigation Proves Starbucks Beverages Contain Feces? (en)
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  • On 28 June 2017, the BBC teased an upcoming episode of their program Watchdog, an investigative series into consumer-related issues, with some scary-sounding revelations about coffee shops: The news, unlike the bacteria that inspired it, went viral nearly immediately. Some people took this BBC report as evidence of a widespread feces problem in Starbucks coffee. Others somehow interpreted this finding as an indictment of Starbucks's alleged liberal politics. Bizarrely, some purveyors of vitriol tried to connect the report both to Muslims and to Starbucks's pledge to hire refugees. Importantly, however, what Watchdog found was not actually feces or fecal matter, but an extremely broad class of bacteria in 30 percent of the ten samples they took from a single Starbucks in the UK. If you are looking to promote a television show with a viral story, a tried and true method is to perform the test Watchdog used -- a fecal coliform assay -- on everyday objects. This same approach convinced the internet that beards were poop-infested sanitation risks back in 2015. In response to that fecal hysteria, the Washington Post’s Rachel Feltman had this calming response: These words were just as relevant to beards then as they are to Starbucks ice cubes now. Indeed, the bacteria identified by a fecal coliform assay is not specific to feces, as a 2006 editorial published by the American Society for Microbiology (ASM) pointed out in a piece arguing against using the test as a sole indicator of fecal matter: In fact, the only bacteria included in the test that is exclusively found in feces is E. Coli., which the BBC’s Watchdog did not mention identifying (the ASM argues any fecal coliform test should be confirmed with a specific E. Coli test if one wants to demonstrate the presence of feces). The expert the BBC quoted to heighten the fear of Starbucks ice was Tony Lewis, the Head of Policy for the Chartered Institute of Environmental Health, which is described as a campaigning organisation [that aims] to promote improvements in environmental and public health policy. While the brief excerpts of him included in the BBC segment sound alarming, his full comments are a bit more reassuring: Far from being definitive proof of poop in your Starbucks iced coffee, this investigation is more of a how-to on how to make a vague finding sensational in the lead up to a television episode. (en)
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