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Inmates Beware: Hooch Carries Risk of Botulism

By Pritzker | Ruohonen

After reviewing the circumstances around  food poisoning in five California prison inmates who drank illicit, homemade pruno, a group of health experts wants convicts across the country to be warned that jailhouse hooch carries the risk of botulism.

Writing this month in a journal about emerging infectious diseases published by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the officials said pruno is popular in prisons and that it is "somewhat surprising that botulism caused by pruno consumption has not been previously reported.''

The group of researchers, led by Dr. Duc Vugia, chief of the Infectious Diseases Branch of the California Department of Public Health, focused on foodborne botulism that occurred among inmates at two California prisons in 2004 and 2005.

In the 2004 case, four inmates were hospitalized, two of whom were put on respirators to combat paralysis -- one of the symptoms of the disease. An investigation found that the four prisoners all drank from the same two-gallon batch of pruno, also known as prison wine or jailhouse juice.

One of the hospitalized inmates had secretly brewed the concoction over five or six days using unpeeled potatoes smuggled from the kitchen, apples from lunches, one old peach, jelly and ketchup. The four who became sick from the drink later described it to a prison nurse as being "magenta in color" and "smelling like baby-poop.''

The researchers said the same type of Clostridium botulinum found in the sick inmates also was found in a drinking cup that contained traces of the pruno.

The second case involved just one inmate in Monterey County, a 30-year-old male who was admitted to a local hospital in a condition too weak to breathe on his own. The patient admitted to making and drinking pruno in prison and potatoes had been part of his mash.

Researchers said the potatoes in both batches of hooch could have been the source of botulinum toxin. They wrote in their report that Clostridium botulinum is commonly found in the soil and its spores have been found on raw potatoes.

The report said the lack of reporting of similar cases may be due to the fact that potatoes are not generally used in the making of pruno in prison.

"Nonetheless, with more than 2 million inmates in prisons and jails in the United States, this illicit homemade alcoholic drink may put more inmates at risk for botulism,'' the report concluded. 

Full post as published by Food Poisoning Law Blog on January 06, 2009 (boomark / email).