With its stock price in the toilet, its fourth-quarter earnings dwindling, and more of its customers becoming outbreak victims, Chipotle Mexican Grill decided last week was a good time to announce a new food safety
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Letter From the Editor: Ban Deoxyribonucleic Acid and Dihydrogen Monoxide?
The former USDA Undersecretary for Food Safety, Dr. Richard Raymond, lives just down the road a piece. He’s always good for pointing out something we’ve missed, or setting us straight, or both. He recently called
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Whole-Genome Technology Solving More Outbreak Investigations
A common disclaimer supplied by public health officials while in the midst of a foodborne illness outbreak investigation goes something like this: “We’re doing our best to find the food source of the outbreak, but
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DNA Spray-On Technology Could Revolutionize Food Traceability
It sounds like something straight out of agricultural science fiction: a liquid solution containing unique bits of DNA that gets sprayed on foods in order to easily identify information about where it came from and
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Global Microbe Genome Database Represents ‘Some Exciting Science’
If the world’s food safety scientists act now, they have the opportunity to create a global network of microbial data that will dramatically improve the ability to track and combat disease outbreaks of all sorts,
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3M Salmonella Detection Gains Worldwide Certification
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
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Infographic Shows Horsemeat Stats, Scandal Timeline
Agricultural ministers meeting in Brussels this week agreed that criminal activity stretching across the European continent is behind the horsemeat scandal. In response, they’ve called for still more DNA testing of the continent’s meat
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European Union Will Test Beef in 27 Countries for Horsemeat
After a meeting with health ministers from European Union nations, EU Health Commissioner Tonio Borg gained support for DNA testing of meat products throughout the continent. “The tests will be on DNA in meat products
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Is U.S. Beef Safe From Europe's Expanding Horsemeat Crisis?
Are escalating beef prices tempting suppliers worldwide to substitute horsemeat for beef or do only a few European criminals engage in the practice? Only the kind of DNA testing Ireland used to discover the problem
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Rapid Tests Less Effective in Identifying Foodborne Illness Sources
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,
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FDA Spends $17 Million to Go After Pathogens Faster
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is spending $17 million on technology it hopes will be fast enough to catch fresh produce with pathogen contamination. FDA has awarded a five-year contract to Illumina Inc,
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