— OPINION —
Sixteen years ago today, on March 14, 2009, President Barack Obama addressed the nation with a clear and urgent message: Food safety is not just an individual responsibility — it is a fundamental duty of the government.
“We are a nation built on the strength of individual
Continue Reading The legacy of leadership in food safety: A call to keep moving forward
A government program has found that foodborne illnesses have increased to pre-pandemic levels.
In a preliminary report, the Foodborne Diseases Active Surveillance Network (FoodNet) says that enteric infections from food have returned to or exceed levels logged from 2016-2018.
FoodNet is made up of public health staff from the U.S.
Continue Reading Researchers find most foodborne illness rates have increased to pre-pandemic levelsThe winners for the dubious distinction of causing the most food borne illnesses for 2016 is out.
According to preliminary data recently published in CDC’s Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, Campylobacter and Salmonella caused the most reported bacterial foodborne illnesses in 2016. The finding is from the
Continue Reading New testing methods account for some increases in illness stats
From about 2011 though the summer of 2015 business was slower for The Food Safety Law Firm, which meant on
Continue Reading Publisher’s Platform: Please, put me out of business
A study just published in Emerging Infectious Diseases compared characteristics of outbreak and sporadic, or non-outbreak, foodborne illnesses caused by four different pathogens and found evidence that most were similar regarding patients’ illness severity, gender and age. 
The team of scientists from the Interagency Food Safety Analytics Collaboration (IFSAC) looked
Continue Reading Study finds outbreak and sporadic foodborne illnesses share traits
The next generation of rapid lab tests is helping doctors diagnose and treat foodborne illnesses faster than ever, but health officials are concerned increasing use of the tests is decreasing their ability to detect and investigate outbreaks. Known as CIDTs, the “culture-independent diagnostic tests” provide big picture results in hours,
Continue Reading Rapid lab tests likely hampering some public health efforts
Twenty years ago, the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in Atlanta established the Foodborne Diseases Active Surveillance Network (FoodNet) to track incidence of foodborne illness. For the September 2015 issues of Emerging Infectious Diseases, members of the FoodNet workgroup wrote about the history and achievements of the
Continue Reading CDC Offers a Look Back at 20 Years of FoodNet
Days ago, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) released its most recent yearly summary of foodborne illness outbreaks in the United States. The summary covered the year 2013, and it found that 818 foodborne outbreaks were reported in the country during that year — a number consistent
Continue Reading The Prevalence of Foodborne Illness
States are reporting and solving fewer foodborne illness outbreaks compared to 10 years ago, according to a new report by the nonprofit consumer group Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI). CSPI’s report analyzed 10 years of data on state outbreaks reported to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control
Continue Reading Report: Fewer Foodborne Illness Outbreaks Being Reported or Solved Today
As in previous years, the latest federal data on trends in foodborne illness rates are a mixed bag. “The overall outlook is that there is some good news and I think we can learn from that, but that the news is not all good and there’s still a lot of
Continue Reading FoodNet Data for 2014: E. Coli O157 Down, Mixed Results for Other Pathogens
