CDC & Food Safety

New reports, publications, and web material

March 2013

Global Networks Make Food Safer

Foodborne diseases are preventable yet common causes of illness, disability, and death worldwide. CDC’s collaboration with WHO called Global Foodborne Infections Network (GFN) and CDC’s PulseNet International are worldwide organizations that help countries to strengthen their ability to detect and control diseases.

Training + country perspectives = better collaborations to prevent foodborne disease

In 2000, after a World Health Organization (WHO) survey showed that many countries lacked basic laboratory and public health resources to detect foodborne diseases, WHO, CDC and partners developed the Global Foodborne Infections Network.

This network integrates food, public health, and veterinary expertise to provide training in how to detect infections caused by contaminated food. Today, 1,600 members from national laboratories and other institutes in 180 countries make up this network.

China's success story & consumers' role in global food safety

Click here to continue reading this CDC.gov feature and learn about China's food safety success story that started in the laboratory and connects to the field, and about the role that consumers play in global food safety.

Select CDC food safety publications

March 2013

Culture Independent Diagnostics

--This article notes the unfavorable cascade of events to be set in motion if clinical laboratories stop culturing specimens and switch entirely to culture independent diagnostic tests that do not allow for serotyping and molecular subtyping.

Atkinson R, Maguire H, Gerner-Smidt P. A Challenge and an Opportunity to Improve Patient Management and Public Health Surveillance for Foodborne Infections through Culture-Independent Diagnostics. J Clin Microbiol. 2013.

Microbial Contamination

--This article provides perspectives from recent efforts to address concerns about microbial contamination of food plants and resulting foodborne illness.

Fletcher J, Leach JE, Eversole K, Tauxe R. Human pathogens on plants: designing a multidisciplinary strategy for research. Phytopathology. 2013 Apr;103(4):306-15.

Outbreaks

--A new article reviews all reports of outbreaks during 1973–2008 in which salsa or guacamole was reported as a vehicle and finds that these increased in the United States from 1984 to 2008, especially in later years, and especially in restaurants.

Kendall M, Mody R, Mahon B, Doyle M, Herman K, Tauxe R. Emergence of Salsa and Guacamole as Frequent Vehicles of Foodborne Disease Outbreaks in the United States, 1973–2008. Foodborne Pathogens and Disease [epub ahead of print].

Salmonella

--This article describes an increase in resistance to ceftriaxone and nonsusceptibility to ciprofloxacin and an overall decline in multidrug resistance among nontyphoidal Salmonella in the United States from 1996 through 2009.

Medalla F, Hoekstra RM, Whichard JM, Barzilay EJ, Chiller TM, Joyce K, et al. Increase in Resistance to Ceftriaxone and Nonsusceptibility to Ciprofloxacin and Decrease in Multidrug Resistance Among Salmonella Strains, United States, 1996-2009. Foodborne pathogens and disease. 2013 Mar 6.

Shigella

--A recently published MMWR article describing the investigation of an outbreak of shigellosis associated with a private bridge club documents the first known transmission of Shigella sonnei with decreased susceptibility to azithromycin in the U.S.

Reporter R, Pulido M, Bowen A, Karlsson MS. Notes from the field: outbreak of infections caused by Shigella sonnei with decreased susceptibility to azithromycin—Los Angeles, California, 2012. MMWR. 2013;62(9):171.

New Web Resources

Medscape commentaries

The Division contributes regular Medscape commentaries on food safety, which deliver CDC's authoritative guidance directly to physicians, nurses, pharmacists, and other healthcare professionals.

--Botulism: Countering Common Clinical Misperceptions: Dr. Agam Rao discusses how to recognize and treat botulism and addresses common clinical misperceptions about the illness.