foodborne illnesses

See the following -

CDC Threat Report: Yes, Agricultural Antibiotics Play A Role In Drug Resistance

Maryn McKenna | Wired | September 17, 2013

The grave assessment on the advance of drug resistance, released Monday by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, contained some important observations about the relationship between antibiotic use in agriculture and resistant infections in humans. [...] Read More »

CDC Unable To Conduct Lab, Detection Work On Salmonella Outbreak

Tom Sullivan | Government Health IT | October 9, 2013

For all those Americans crossing fingers that no communicable disease, influenza or foodborne illness outbreaks would happen during the government shutdown, exactly that has occurred. Read More »

CDC: Foodborne Illness In The U.S. Not Getting Better

Maryn McKenna | Wired | April 17, 2014

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention today released their annual survey of foodborne illnesses in the United States, and the news is, well, not great. In the words of the press announcement they sent out to announce the data release: “limited progress.” Read More »

CDC: Shutdown Strains Foodborne Illness Tracking

Allison Aubrey | NPR | October 3, 2013

As we Tuesday, the government shutdown is pushing the nation's food safety system to its limits. For instance, there is normally a team of eight people overseeing the critical foodborne illness tracking database . This team identifies clusters of sickness linked to potentially dangerous strains of pathogens such as E. coli or salmonella... Read More »

Disease Detectives Are Solving Fewer Foodborne Illness Cases

Eliza Barclay | The Salt | April 7, 2014

Recall, if you will, some of the biggest foodborne illness outbreaks of the past decade. There was the nasty of listeria from cantaloupe in 2011 that killed 33 people. And the ugly Salmonella Heidelberg from Foster Farms chicken [...] But according to a released Monday by the Center for Science in the Public Interest, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has been reporting and solving fewer and fewer outbreaks over the past decade. Read More »

Drug-Resistant Bacteria On Chicken: It’s Everywhere And The Government Can’t Help

Maryn McKenna | Wired | December 19, 2013

Two important, linked publications are out today, both carrying the same message: The way we raise poultry in this country is creating an under-appreciated health hazard, and the government structures we depend upon to detect that hazard and protect us from it are failing us. Read More »

FDA Antimicrobial Resistance Guidelines Fail to Address Root Causes

Last December, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) published two controversial documents on its website: Guidance 213 and the Veterinary Feed Directive (VFD). The guidelines stirred a firestorm of protests from public health offiicials who argue that the guidelines are too weak to prevent the continuing growth of antibiotic resistant germs...the crisis, as outlined by Dr. Joseph Mercola, is that we are now "facing the perfect storm to take us back to the pre-antibiotic age, when some of the most important advances in modern medicine – intensive care, organ transplants, care for premature babies, surgeries and even treatment for many common bacterial infections – will no longer be possible." Read More »

Grant Supports Development Of Software To Judge Quality Of Electronic Public Health Data

Press Release | Indiana University | September 10, 2015

With the growing need for early identification of emerging threats including those of bioterrorism, pandemic flu, Ebola and foodborne illnesses, public health departments nationwide are increasingly relying upon data captured from electronic sources. A $381,000, 2-year grant from the National Library of Medicine at the National Institutes of Health supports development by the Regenstrief Institute and the Indiana University Richard M. Fairbanks School of Public Health of open source software tools to measure and monitor the quality of electronic data being transmitted to public health departments across the nation from health care systems, medical laboratories, physician offices and other sources.

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Salmonella And The Shutdown: CDC Furloughs Harm Public Health

Michael Hiltzik | Los Angeles Times | October 10, 2013

Food expert Marion Nestle asks whether government-shutdown-mandated furloughs at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention hampered its response to the salmonella outbreak at Foster Farms. Read More »

Shutdown Salmonella Outbreak Continues. CDC Food Safety Chief: ‘We Have A Blind Spot.’

Maryn McKenna | Wired | October 10, 2013

We’re 11 days now into the federal shutdown and four days since the announcement of a major foodborne outbreak in chicken that is challenging the shutdown-limited abilities of the food-safety and disease-detective personnel at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Food and Drug Administration and Department of Agriculture. Here’s an update. Read More »

There’s A Major Foodborne Illness Outbreak And The Government’s Shut Down

Maryn McKenna | Wired | October 7, 2013

Late-breaking news, and I’ll update as I find out more: While the government is shut down, with food-safety personnel and disease detectives sent home and forbidden to work, a major foodborne-illness outbreak has begun. Read More »