Opinion
The government’s Agricultural Marketing Service’s (AMS) Commodity Procurement Staff purchases a variety of food products for use in the National School Lunch Program (NSLP) and other food assistance programs. One of these commodity items is frozen ground beef. All ground beef that is generated for the NSLP is further processed and cooked at other USDA… Continue Reading
A Salmonella detection technique developed by Minnesota-based conglomerate 3M has been determined to be as effective or more effective than standard methods of detecting Salmonella in seafood and vegetable products, and in environmental samples taken from food processing sites, the Paris-based AFNOR CERTIFICATION expert committee has found. This follows AFNOR CERTIFICATION’s validation in December of… Continue Reading
In a new study, a team of California-based scientists shows that by targeting and analyzing a specific gene in Campylobacter, labs can screen dozens of isolates of the bacteria to find the handful most likely to be the source of an outbreak. Unlike other enteric bacteria, such as E. coli O157:H7, Campylobacter is so diverse… Continue Reading
The Microbiological Data Program, which used to conduct 80 percent of all federal produce testing for pathogens like Salmonella and Listeria, officially shut down on December 31, a U.S. Department of Agriculture official confirmed. The $4.5 million program had been in shutdown mode since mid-November. State agriculture departments, which tested samples of leafy greens, melons,… Continue Reading
New tests that detect common foodborne pathogens more rapidly are less likely to trace contamination to the source, since they provide less specific information than older, slower tests, say public health officials. As a consequence, sources of foodborne illnesses outbreaks will not be identified as quickly, state epidemiologists told the Scientific American in a report… Continue Reading
Veterinarians may now test for a certain Salmonella strain affecting cattle populations in the United States thanks to a test developed by researchers at Cornell University’s College of Veterinary Medicine, the Ithaca Journal reports. The new test tracks antibodies in cattle to help identify asymptomatic carriers of Salmonella Dublin, a strain that causes disease in… Continue Reading
Opinion
For some time now, the worldwide food supply has been under attack by a bacterium we know well as a generally non-trouble-making resident of the human colon (Escherichia coli), which has lately been possessed of a terrible “new” weapon in the form of Shiga toxin. We call this beast “Shiga toxin-producing E. coli” (STEC). We… Continue Reading
On June 4, food regulators began screening beef for six more strains of E. coli beyond the already-monitored E. coli O157:H7. Since that time, 110 samples of beef trim have been tested for non-O157 E. coli; 3 were found to be carrying these bacteria. USDA’s Food Safety and Inspection Service published these initial findings in… Continue Reading
Opinion
Sign Change.org Petition to Save the Program. President Obama, you probably do not remember my three daughters: Morgan, Olivia and Sydney, hanging out with Sasha and Malia and Miley Cyrus and the Jonas Brothers backstage before one of the inaugural parties, but $50,000 out of my pocket does. As you might remember, I went all… Continue Reading
Despite a tough new food safety law and more than a half million spent annually on inspections and lab work, Georgia is not achieving the food safety improvement at the state’s 740 food processing plants that its lawmakers seek. Perhaps, some say, Agriculture Commissioner Gary Black did not get the memo about how serious the… Continue Reading
This week at the annual meeting of the Association of Public Health Laboratories in Seattle, officials from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention – which operates PulseNet – explained the crucial role this pathogen database plays in outbreak detection and the challenges that must be met in order for it to remain effective. … Continue Reading