News & Perspective

(CIDRAP News) – Health officials investigating a cluster of Escherichia coli O104:H4 infections at a German school found a large number of asymptomatic infections in students and staff, a development that could pose new threats, the European Centre for Disease Control and Prevention (ECDC) said yesterday.

(CIDRAP News) – The European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control has deleted the name of a German seed importer from a risk assessment report on the recent cluster of Escherichia coli cases in France, out of concern about potential unnecessary harm to the company, CIDRAP News learned today.

(CIDRAP News) – A spate of new reports on Germany's huge outbreak of enterohemorrhagic Escherichia coli (EHEC) is emphasizing the idea that the strain is unusually virulent, but the latest findings leave major questions about the outbreak unanswered.

(CIDRAP News) – German authorities investigating a possible sprout link to a large Escherichia coli outbreak said today that lab samples are negative so far, dashing hopes for a quick end to the investigation and adding more confusion to the search for the source.

(CIDRAP News) – German officials today announced that they have tentatively linked bean sprouts grown in the northern part of the country to a massive Escherichia coli outbreak, a development that US experts say could help explain some of the outbreak's puzzling elements.

(CIDRAP News) – Questions abounded today concerning the large and growing outbreak of Escherichia coli infections concentrated in northern Germany, including where it came from, why it is striking mostly women, and why the number of reported hemolytic uremic syndrome (HUS) cases, at 276, is so unusually high.

(CIDRAP News) – The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) today released newer, more precise estimates of the foodborne illness burden, suggesting 1 in 6 Americans get sick each year, a rate lower than previously thought.

(CIDRAP News) – Ending months of delay, a large bipartisan majority in the US Senate today passed a bill that aims to make the nation's food supply safer by giving the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) more authority over food producers and requiring large producers and processors to develop detailed food safety plans.