News & Perspective

(CIDRAP News) – The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has halted the importation of Mexican cantaloupes because of evidence that unsanitary conditions in melon fields and processing facilities have caused four salmonellosis outbreaks in the past 3 years.

(CIDRAP News) – The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) should make a few changes in its congressionally required research program on the anthrax vaccine, including studying use of the vaccine in children and the elderly, the Institute of Medicine (IOM) said in a recent report.

(CIDRAP News) – The US Department of Agriculture (USDA) has finished writing rules that open the door to the irradiation of fruits and vegetables imported into the United States.

(CIDRAP News) – The world's last naturally acquired case of smallpox occurred almost exactly 25 years ago, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) notes in today's issue of Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report.

The smallpox case occurred in the Merca District of Somalia on Oct 26, 1977, the CDC says. Less than 3 years later, in May 1980, the World Health Organization declared the world free of naturally occurring smallpox.

(CIDRAP News) – A large-scale bioterrorist attack on US agriculture would probably not lead to famine or malnutrition, but it could damage the economy, public health, and public confidence in the food system, according to a report recently released by the National Academies' National Research Council.

(CIDRAP News) – Irradiated ground beef has been showing up in more and more American supermarkets this year, with at least a dozen chains representing thousands of stores now stocking it, according to reports from the Minnesota Beef Council and other industry sources.

(CIDRAP News) – The federal government's Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) amended its June 2002 recommendations on smallpox vaccinations for healthcare workers this week in an effort to ensure that the healthcare system will have enough immunized people to deal with a smallpox outbreak.

(CIDRAP News) – In the 1960s, the rate of vaccinia virus transmission from people newly vaccinated against smallpox to nonimmunized people was low, but the rate could be higher today because of medical differences between populations then and now, according to a new analysis by smallpox experts.

(CIDRAP News) – Federal health officials announced today that three environmental samples taken from a Pennsylvania poultry processing plant contained a Listeria strain matching that of patients in the current listeriosis outbreak in the Northeast. The announcement came 3 days after the company expanded its recall of turkey and chicken products from the original 295,000 pounds to a record-setting 27.4 million pounds.

(CIDRAP News) – The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) announced this week that companies can petition the agency for permission to use terms like "electronic pasteurization" in place of "irradiation" on the labeling for irradiated foods.