David Kravets of the Associated Press reports that the U.S. Department of Agriculture insists it’s safe to resume the imports of Candian cattle, despite a ruling by a Montana federal judge who sided with U.S. ranchers warning about dire economic and health consequences from a mad cow outbreak in the United States.
A panel from the San Francisco-based 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals travels to Seattle on Wednesday to hear the Bush administration’s challenge to the judge’s ruling.
Mad cow disease is the common name for bovine spongiform encephalopathy, or BSE. People who eat meat tainted with BSE can contract a degenerative, fatal brain disorder called variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease. More than 150 people have died from it following a 1986 outbreak in the United Kingdom.Continue Reading Amid mad cow concerns, court considers Canada cattle imports
12 ways to protect your family from listeria
If you’re trying to stay safe from listeria, you can avoid unpasteurized dairy products, and you can cook meat to 160 degrees.
But keeping raw fruits and vegetables in your diet and free of the dangerous bacteria responsible for hospitalizing three Central New York women in the last two weeks requires some know-how.
Most of us don’t associate pathogens such as listeria monocytogenes with produce, but the threat is real, says Kathy Dischner, a registered dietitian and nutrition and food safety program leader from Cornell University Cooperative Extension.Continue Reading 12 ways to protect your family from listeria
Tuna ruled out as source of listeria
The three Central New York women who were hospitalized with listeriosis in the previous two weeks didn’t get it from eating recalled tuna.
Onondaga County Health Commissioner Dr. Cynthia Morrow said the investigation into what contaminated food product is to blame for the listeria outbreak has thus far been a dead end. Morrow said she
Vigil As Eight Falls To Food Poisoning This Year
Azlan Othman of the Borneo Bulletin reports that Brunei has recorded eight food poisoning outbreaks this year. A family, six schools and another victim fell victim to food poisoning, officials from the Health Services Department revealed.
Meanwhile 127 cases of food poisoning were recorded to date this year, up from 67 cases last year. The lowest cases recorded were in 2000 with only 50 cases.
Officials from the Health Services Department to food suppliers highlighted the cases in a briefing to food suppliers on Monday.Continue Reading Vigil As Eight Falls To Food Poisoning This Year
New bill would allow beef to carry ‘no mad cow’ label
Supermarket shoppers can buy grass-fed beef, organic beef, Black Angus and so on — but if a bill sponsored by a local lawmaker passes, consumers will also get to look for the “no mad cow” label.
Introduced by state Sen. Michael Machado, a Linden Democrat, the bill would allow beef producers to test their own
Juvenile Reactive Arthritis
Arthritis, in children or adults, is called “reactive” when it is due to a delayed reaction to an infection. The arthritis usually occurs two to four weeks after the infection and lasts from eight to 16 weeks. It may recur or last longer in some people. Current research supports combining antibiotics with other treatments for
Antibiotic Resistance
An excerpt from Secret Agents: The Menace of Emerging Infections by Madeline Drexler, published by the Joseph Henry Press (2002). Reprinted by permission. To read the full text online, go to http://www.nap.edu/.
Some experts estimate more than half of the antibiotics produced in this country are fed to farm animals, mostly to boost their growth rate. In this excerpt from her book Secret Agents, Madeline Drexler chronicles how that practice has led to strains of drug-resistant bacteria, forcing doctors to prescribe higher and higher doses of medicine to combat these more resilient pathogens. “Farms are some of the most insidious sources of antibiotic resistance,” Drexler writes. “Whether carnivore or vegetarian, you cannot avoid the aftermath of antibiotics applied lower in the food chain.” A former medical columnist for The Boston Globe, Drexler was a Knight Science Journalism Fellow at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology from 1996 to 1997.Continue Reading Antibiotic Resistance
Many food poisoning cases reported in Algerian event halls
Data published by the Algerian ministry of trade regarding food poisoning shows that 46% of cases registered by the Algerian general administration for quality control were caused by eating in events halls, while 26% of them were caused after eating in public restaurants and 11% in university restaurants. The July 11 edition of Al-Khabar newspaper
Lukewarm meals, raw eggs harbor food-borne illnesses
The Washington Post reported today that the best defense against salmonellosis and other food-borne diseases is safe food handling. For 20 years, the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Food Safety and Inspection Service has been trying to get that message to consumers. But changes in the food industry and Americans’ eating habits make the job challenging. An estimated 76 million cases of food poisoning occur each year in the United States; some 5,000 are fatal, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
To avoid infection at home: Wash hands and utensils after preparing raw meat. Put hot-off-the-grill burgers onto a clean plate — not the one that held uncooked meat. Cook food thoroughly and serve hot food hot. Don’t thaw meat at room temperature. Scrub produce before slicing it.Continue Reading Lukewarm meals, raw eggs harbor food-borne illnesses
Food-borne illness on the rise
Citizen-Times.com reports that the state Laboratory of Public Health has detected nearly five times as many cases of the food-borne illness Salmonella enteritidis so far this year compared to the first six months in 2004.
The lab has detected more cases of the bacterial infection this year to date than in the past three years put together for the same time period, indicating a troubling rise in S. enteritidis cases statewide.
Surrounding states are experiencing similar increases in Salmonella enteritidis. North Carolina’s divisions of Public Health and Environmental Health are working with other agencies here and in those states, as well as with the U.S. Centers for Disease Control, to halt the rapid increase of S. enteritidis.Continue Reading Food-borne illness on the rise