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
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Groups Want Increased Funding to Support CDC’s PulseNet Database
As Congress works to prepare its appropriations bills for fiscal year 2016, nine health and consumer groups are requesting that extra funding be allocated for the national database used to track foodborne illness outbreaks.
The
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CDC: Shigella Infections Becoming Resistant to Recommended Antibiotic
Research conducted by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) suggests a greater proportion of Shigella infections in the United States are now resistant to a very important antibiotic. Shigella causes an estimated
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Outbreak Detection Since Jack in the Box: A Public Health Evolution
In 1993, 623 people in the western U.S. fell ill with a little-known bacteria called E. coli O157:H7. Ultimately, four children would die from their infections; many others suffered long-term medical complications. The bug was
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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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Foodborne Illness Investigations: What Does the Public Have a Right to Know?
It seems safe to assume that most consumers want to know if the restaurant they’re about to eat at or the food they’re about to buy was recently the source of a foodborne illness outbreak.
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Case Count from Cantaloupe Outbreak Officially Rises to 147
With the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention linking the Listeria illness, but not yet the death, of a 75-year-old Montana man to last year’s Listeria outbreak tied to Colorado cantaloupes, a CDC official
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Man’s Death May Be Linked to Last Year’s Listeria Outbreak
Last fall’s outbreak of Listeria traced to cantaloupes from Jensen Farms in Colorado grew into one of the deadliest in U.S. history, causing at least 146 illnesses and 32 deaths. But as with any
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Taking the Pulse of CDC’s PulseNet
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
State and Federal Programs Helped Catch Contaminated Dog Food
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) was able to connect contaminated dog food to a Salmonella outbreak spread across nine states on Thursday thanks to a combination of routine state-level testing and
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