Foodborne Disease

(CIDRAP News) – Officials from California and the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) recently released a final report on a 2006 Escherichia coli O157:H7 outbreak associated with iceberg lettuce from Taco John's restaurants in Iowa and Minnesota, revealing that wastewater from nearby dairy operations might have contaminated irrigation water.

(CIDRAP News) – A California meatpacking company has issued the largest meat recall in US history—143.4 million pounds—after revelations that the firm mistreated cattle and violated the federal ban on putting disabled or "downer" cattle into the human food supply.

(CIDRAP News) – The US Department of Agriculture is proposing a big increase in spending to protect the US food and agriculture system from terrorist threats and other disasters in fiscal year 2009, while seeking somewhat less money for avian influenza.

(CIDRAP News) – The US Department of Agriculture (USDA) recently signaled that a Canadian company is in a good position to secure the conditional license it needs to market an Escherichia coli O157:H7 vaccine for cattle that could reduce contamination levels in food.

(CIDRAP News) – The US Department of Agriculture (USDA) says it is preparing to begin publishing the names of poultry and meat plants that have trouble controlling Salmonella, as the agency extends a set of policy changes designed to reduce the prevalence of the pathogen in meat.

(CIDRAP News) – The Bush administration today unveiled a $3.1 trillion budget for the 2009 fiscal year that cuts a number of public health initiatives but includes an increase for the Food and Drug Adminstration's (FDA's) food safety efforts.

(CIDRAP News) – Recent studies suggest that an ethanol production byproduct that is widely fed to cattle may make cattle more likely to shed deadly Escherichia coli O157, possibly contributing to the surge in beef contamination cases in 2007.

(CIDRAP News) – A British woman who died of a brain disease suggestive of variant Creutzfeld-Jacob disease (vCJD) had a genetic marker not seen in any previous vCJD patients, raising the possibility that her illness represented a new form of the disease that could signal a new wave of infections, according to a recent research report.

(CIDRAP News) – The US Department of Agriculture (USDA) yesterday issued a public health alert about ground beef products that may be contaminated with a multidrug-resistant form of Salmonella that has sickened 38 people in four western states.

(CIDRAP News) – Under a food safety agreement announced today by US officials, the Chinese government pledges to register exporters of food to the United States, inspect shipments before they leave China, and set up a system to trace food products through the production system.