News & Perspective

(CIDRAP News) – The United States' food supply makes an attractive target for terrorists, and people in the food industry need to talk more frankly about the risks, bioterrorism expert Michael T. Osterholm, PhD, MPH, said in a Minneapolis speech yesterday.

(CIDRAP News) – A mathematical model developed by two researchers suggests that six letters used in last fall's anthrax attacks spread anthrax spores to more than 5,000 other pieces of mail and led to the deaths of two women who had no known exposure to the pathogen.

(CIDRAP News) – The US House and Senate this week approved legislation providing for a wide range of bioterrorism preparedness measures, from funds for hospital preparedness to tracking of dangerous pathogens and increased inspections of imported food.

(CIDRAP News) – Data on recent salmonellosis outbreaks indicate that drug-resistant strains of Salmonella enterica serotype Newport are becoming increasingly common in dairy cattle and are causing a growing share of infections in humans, according to a foodborne disease expert with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

(CIDRAP News) – Although clear evidence links a recent widespread outbreak of Salmonella infection in the United States and Canada with eating cantaloupe, just how the cantaloupe became contaminated remains unclear, according to federal and state health officials.

(CIDRAP News) – The federal government is pouring billions of dollars into public health, but the effort to improve the nation's preparedness for bioterrorism faces a severe shortage of people trained in public health disciplines, according to Donald A. Henderson, MD, a top federal adviser on public health preparedness.

(CIDRAP News) – Some people find frogs disgusting, but now a study of an illness outbreak in Mississippi suggests that frogs may be literally nauseating. The case-control study implicates contact with amphibians as a potential risk factor for infection with Salmonella enterica serotype Javiana.