The Cochran–Armitage test was used to assess changes in the proportions of cases by case status (confirmed vs. non-confirmed), sex, race, and ethnicity over the study period. Negative binomial regression models were used to estimate rate ratios (RR) and 95% confidence intervals (CI) for comparing rates across three time periods (1995–2004, 2005–2008, 2009–2012). The proportion of confirmed cases significantly decreased (P < 0·0001), and a crossover from male to female predominance in case-patients occurred (P < 0·0001). Overall, compared to 1995–2004, rates were higher in 2005–2008 (RR 2·92, 95% CI 2·08–4·09) and 2009–2012 (RR 2·66, 95% CI 1·90–3·73). However, rate changes from 2005–2008 to 2009–2012 varied by age group (Pinteraction < 0·0001): 0–14 years (RR 0·55, 95% CI 0·42–0·71), 15–44 years (RR 0·99, 95% CI 0·82–1·19), 45–64 years (RR 1·47, 95% CI 1·21–1·79) and ≥65 years (RR 2·18, 95% CI 1·46–3·25).
The evolving epidemiology of cryptosporidiosis necessitates further identification of risk factors in population subgroups. Adding systematic molecular typing of Cryptosporidium specimens to US national cryptosporidiosis surveillance would help further identify risk factors and markedly expand understanding of cryptosporidiosis epidemiology in the United States.
Evolving epidemiology of reported cryptosporidiosis cases in the United States, 1995–2012
E. Paintera1 c1, J. W. Garganoa2, J. S. Yodera2, s. A. Colliera2 and M. C. Hlavsaa2
a1 Epidemic Intelligence Service Officer, Division of Foodborne, Waterborne, and Environmental Diseases, National Center for Emerging Zoonotic and Infectious Diseases, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Atlanta, GA, USA
a2 Division of Foodborne, Waterborne, and Environmental Diseases, National Center for Emerging Zoonotic and Infectious Diseases, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Atlanta, GA, USA
Epidemiology and Infection, Volume 144, Issue 8, June 2016, pages 1792-1802, DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/S0950268815003131
The current scope of the Salmonella infection problem was assessed in relation to disease incidence and distribution with respect to age, gender and district. Factors that provide a better understanding of the magnitude of the problem were explored and highlighted. Data reported to the Epidemiologic Surveillance Department at the Lebanese Ministry of Public Health between 2001 and 2013 was reviewed. Information obtained was compared to information reported regionally and globally. The estimated true incidence was derived using multipliers from the CDC and Jordan.
A literature review of all published data from Lebanon about Salmonella susceptibility/resistance patterns and its serious clinical complications was conducted.
The estimated incidence was 13·34 cases/100 000 individuals, most cases occurred in the 20–39 years age group with no significant gender variation. Poor and less developed districts of Lebanon had the highest number of cases and the peak incidence was in summer. Reflecting on the projected incidence derived from the use of multipliers indicates a major discrepancy between what is reported and what is estimated. We conclude that data about Salmonella infection in Lebanon and many Middle Eastern and developing countries lack crucial information and are not necessarily representative of the true incidence, prevalence and burden of illness.
Salmonella burden in Lebanon
Malaeba1, A. R. Bizria1a2 c1, N. Ghosna3, A. Berrya4 and U. Musharrafieha1a5
a1 Faculty of Medicine, American University of Beirut, Beirut, Lebanon
a2 Division of Infectious Diseases, Department of Internal Medicine, American University of Beirut Medical Center, Beirut, Lebanon
a3 Epidemiological Surveillance Department, Ministry of Public Health, Beirut, Lebanon
a4 Communicable Diseases Department, Ministry of Public Health, Beirut, Lebanon
a5 Department of Family Medicine, American University of Beirut Medical Center, Beirut, Lebanon
Epidemiology and Infection, Volume 144, Issue 8, June 2016, pages 1761-1769, DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/S0950268815003076
Recto-anal mucosal swab samples from a total of 695 young (aged 4–7 days) calves and 895 adult cattle were collected post-slaughter and screened with real-time polymerase chain reaction (PCR) for the presence of E. coli O157 and O26 [Shiga toxin-producing E. coli (STEC) and non-STEC]. Co-infection with either serogroup of E. coli (O157 or O26) was identified as a risk factor in both calves and adult cattle for being tested real-time PCR-positive for E. coli O157 or O26.
As confirmed by culture isolation and molecular analysis, the overall prevalence of STEC (STEC O157 and STEC O26 combined) was significantly higher in calves [6·0% (42/695), 95% confidence interval (CI) 4·4–8·1] than in adult cattle [1·8% (16/895), 95% CI 1·1–3·0] (P < 0·001).
This study is the first of its kind in New Zealand to assess the relative importance of cattle as a reservoir of STEC O157 and O26 at a national level. Epidemiological data collected will be used in the development of a risk management strategy for STEC in New Zealand.
Nationwide prevalence and risk factors for faecal carriage of Escherichia coli O157 and O26 in very young calves and adult cattle at slaughter in New Zealand
Jarosa1 c1, A. L. Cooksona2, A. Reynoldsa1, D. J. Prattleya1, D. M. Campbella3, S. Hathawaya3 and N. P. Frencha1
a1 mEpiLab, Hopkirk Research Institute, Massey University, Palmerston North, New Zealand
a2 AgResearch Ltd, Hopkirk Research Institute, Palmerston North, New Zealand
a3 Ministry for Primary Industries, Wellington, New Zealand
c1 Author for correspondence: Dr P. Jaros, mEpiLab, Hopkirk Research Institute, IVABS, Massey University, Private Bag 11 222, Palmerston North 4442, New Zealand.
Epidemiology and Infection, Volume 144, Issue 8, June 2016, Pages 1736-1747, DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/S0950268815003209
This organism can multiply at refrigeration temperatures, form biofilms on different materials and under various conditions, resist a range of environmental stresses, and contaminate food products by cross-contamination. L. monocytogenes is recognized as the causative agent of listeriosis, a serious disease that affects mainly individuals from high-risk groups, such as pregnant women, newborns, the elderly, and immunocompromised individuals.
Listeriosis can be considered a disease that has emerged along with changing eating habits and large-scale industrial food processing. This disease causes losses of billions of dollars every year with recalls of contaminated foods and patient medical treatment expenses. In addition to the immune status of the host and the infecting dose, the virulence potential of each strain is crucial for the development of disease symptoms. While many isolates are naturally virulent, other isolates are avirulent and unable to cause disease; this may vary according to the presence of molecular determinants associated with virulence.
In the last decade, the characterization of genetic profiles through the use of molecular methods has helped track and demonstrate the genetic diversity among L. monocytogenes isolates obtained from various sources. The purposes of this review were to summarize the main methods used for isolation, identification, and typing of L. monocytogenes and also describe its most relevant virulence characteristics.
The continuous challenge of characterizing the foodborne pathogen Listeria monocytogenes
Foodborne Pathogens and Disease. April 2016, ahead of print. doi:10.1089/fpd.2015.2115.
Camargo Anderson Carlos, Woodward Joshua John, and Nero Luís Augusto
Changes in the tests that diagnose foodborne illness are helping identify infections faster but could soon pose challenges to finding outbreaks and monitoring progress toward preventing foodborne disease, according to a report published today in CDC’s Morbidity and Mortality Week Report.
Culture-independent diagnostic tests (CIDTs) help doctors diagnose infections quickly because they provide results in hours instead of the days needed for traditional culture methods, which require growing bacteria to determine the cause of illness. But without a bacterial culture, public health officials cannot get the detailed information about the bacteria needed to help find outbreaks, check for antibiotic resistance, and track foodborne disease trends.
In 2015, the percentage of foodborne infections diagnosed only by CIDT was about double compared with the percentage in 2012-2014.
“Foodborne infections continue to be an important public health problem in the United States,” said Robert Tauxe, M.D., M.P.H, director of CDC’s Division of Foodborne, Waterborne and Environmental Diseases. “We are working with partners to make sure we still get important information about harmful bacteria despite the increasing use of diagnostic tests that don’t require a culture.”
The increased use of CIDT could affect public health officials’ ability to monitor trends and detect outbreaks. In the short term, clinical laboratories should work with their public health laboratories to make sure a culture is done whenever a CIDT indicates that someone with diarrheal illness has a bacterial infection. For a long-term solution, CDC is working with partners to develop advanced testing methods that, without culture, will give health care providers information to diagnose illness and also give the detailed information that public health officials need to detect and investigate outbreaks.
Limited progress in reducing foodborne illness
The report included the most recent data from CDC’s Foodborne Diseases Active Surveillance Network, or FoodNet. It summarizes preliminary 2015 data on nine germs spread commonly through food. Overall, progress in reducing rates of foodborne illnesses has been limited since 2012, according to the report. The most frequent causes of infection in 2015 were Salmonella and Campylobacter, which is consistent with previous years.
Other key findings from the FoodNet report include:
The incidence of Salmonella Typhimurium infection, often linked to poultry and beef, decreased 15 percent from 2012-2014 levels.
This decline may be due in part to tighter regulatory standards and vaccination of chicken flocks against Salmonella.
The incidence of some infections increased:
Reported Cryptosporidium infections increased 57 percent since 2012-2014, likely due to increased testing for this pathogen.
Reported non-O157 Shiga toxin-producing Escherichia coli (STEC) infections increased 40 percent since 2012-2014. Quicker and easier testing likely accounted for some or all of this increase.
FoodNet has been monitoring illness trends since 1996. FoodNet provides a foundation for food safety policy and prevention efforts because surveillance data can tell us where prevention efforts are needed to reduce foodborne illnesses.
CDC is working with federal, state, and local partners, and the food industry to improve food safety. New regulations and continuing industry efforts are focusing on challenging areas. USDA has made improvements in its poultry inspection and testing models and has tightened standards for both Salmonella and Campylobacter in poultry.
“In 2013, we launched a series of targeted efforts to address Salmonella in meat and poultry products, known as the Salmonella Action Plan, and recent data show that since then the incidence of Salmonella Typhimurium infection has dropped by 15 percent,” said USDA Deputy Undersecretary for Food Safety, Al Almanza. “However our work is not done. The newly published performance standards for poultry parts will lead to further Salmonella reductions and fewer foodborne illnesses.”
In 2015, FDA published new rules to improve the safety of the food supply including produce, processed foods, and imported foods.
Dr. Kathleen Gensheimer, MD, MPH, director of the FDA’s Coordinated Outbreak Response and Evaluation team and Chief Medical Officer, Foods and Veterinary Medicine Program, said, “We want to respond quickly to foodborne illness, but our true goal is to move forward with preventive measures that will be implemented from farm to table. In addition to collaboration with other government agencies at the local, state and federal level, the rules we are implementing under the FDA Food Safety Modernization Act will help the food industry minimize the risk of contamination to our food supply.”
For more information on avoiding illnesses from food, please visit www.foodsafety.gov.
About FoodNet
FoodNet collects information to track rates and determine trends in laboratory-confirmed illnesses caused by nine germs transmitted commonly by food: Campylobacter, Cryptosporidium, Cyclospora, Listeria, Salmonella, Shiga toxin-producing O157 and non-O157, Shigella, Vibrio, and Yersinia. Annual data are compared with data from the previous three years (2012-2014). Since 2010, FoodNet has been tracking the increasing use of CIDTs used by clinical laboratories for diagnosis of bacterial enteric infection.
FoodNet is a collaboration among CDC, 10 state health departments, the USDA’s Food Safety and Inspection Service, and the FDA. FoodNet covers 48 million people, encompassing about 15 percent of the United States population. The sites are the states of Connecticut, Georgia, Maryland, Minnesota, New Mexico, Oregon, and Tennessee, and selected counties in California, Colorado, and New York.
I started the Food Safety Network (FSnet) in Jan. 1993.
Lots of people have stolen or borrowed the idea since, but they don’t have a good origin story.
Posers.
They’re just copycats.
I was a lost genetics graduate student/journalist who happened along to Mansel who let me do what I wanted to do to get a PhD.
And I am forever grateful to him for that.
Back then, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control Morbidity and Mortality Weekly would take about six months to arrive by mail.
I started doing things electronically, because I had e-mail at the University of Waterloo previously.
It would be another three years until Al Gore invented the Internet.
Now, it’s been 20 years since the inauguration of FoodNet.
That the CDC annual data has become so common and is no longer worthy of mention in what remains of the media is an outstanding scientific and policy accomplishment.
The heros of wars – as we gear up for ANZAC Day here in Australia – are usually the grunts and the public folks who toil in obscurity.
I retrieved my grandfather’s medals from WW1 and II when we gathered our final belongings from Kansas last month, not because I thought he was a great person – he wasn’t – but he served, and so much of public health is about serving.
Out of all my professoring moments, the ones that stick with me are positively influencing students – who knew Chapman would stand out, I thought he was Stork in Animal House when I met him – and the folks who serve: public health, military, whatever.
I don’t want to deal with your bureaucracy, but I can respect what you do.
It’s all about service.
To evaluate progress toward prevention of enteric and foodborne illnesses in the United States, the Foodborne Diseases Active Surveillance Network (FoodNet) monitors the incidence of laboratory-confirmed infections caused by nine pathogens transmitted commonly through food in 10 U.S. sites.* This report summarizes preliminary 2015 data and describes trends since 2012.
In 2015, FoodNet reported 20,107 confirmed cases (defined as culture-confirmed bacterial infections and laboratory-confirmed parasitic infections), 4,531 hospitalizations, and 77 deaths. FoodNet also received reports of 3,112 positive culture-independent diagnostic tests (CIDTs) without culture-confirmation, a number that has markedly increased since 2012 (1). Diagnostic testing practices for enteric pathogens are rapidly moving away from culture-based methods. The continued shift from culture-based methods to CIDTs that do not produce the isolates needed to distinguish between strains and subtypes affects the interpretation of public health surveillance data and ability to monitor progress toward prevention efforts. Expanded case definitions and strategies for obtaining bacterial isolates are crucial during this transition period.
FoodNet is a collaboration among CDC, 10 state health departments, the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Food Safety and Inspection Service (USDA-FSIS), and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA).
FoodNet conducts active, population-based surveillance for laboratory-confirmed infections caused by Campylobacter, Cryptosporidium, Cyclospora, Listeria, Salmonella, Shiga toxin–producing Escherichia coli (STEC), Shigella, Vibrio, and Yersinia in 10 sites covering approximately 15% of the U.S. population (an estimated 49 million persons in 2014). Confirmed infections are defined as culture-confirmed bacterial infections and laboratory-confirmed parasitic infections (e.g., identified by enzyme immunoassay). Positive CIDT results are defined as the detection of antigen or nucleic acid sequences of the pathogen, or for STEC, Shiga toxin or the genes that encode a Shiga toxin, in a stool specimen or enrichment broth using a CIDT.† Positive CIDT results that were confirmed by culture are included only among the confirmed infections. For this analysis, the term “positive CIDT report” refers to positive CIDT results that were not confirmed by culture (either because the specimen was not cultured at the clinical or public health laboratory or because a culture did not yield the pathogen). Hospitalizations occurring within 7 days of specimen collection are recorded. The patient’s vital status at hospital discharge, or 7 days after specimen collection if the patient was not hospitalized, is also captured. Hospitalizations and deaths that occur within 7 days of specimen collection are attributed to the infection.
Incidence of confirmed infections is reported for all FoodNet pathogens and calculated by dividing the number of confirmed infections in 2015 by U.S. Census estimates of the surveillance area population for 2014. A second incidence measurement, calculated by adding positive CIDT reports to confirmed infections, is also reported for Campylobacter, Salmonella, Shigella, and STEC.§ A negative binomial model with 95% confidence intervals (CIs) was used to estimate changes in incidence of infections in 2015 compared with 2012–2014. To describe changes in testing practices, percentage difference in number of positive CIDT reports was calculated for 2015 compared with 2012–2014, by pathogen.
Surveillance for physician-diagnosed postdiarrheal hemolytic uremic syndrome (HUS), a complication of STEC infection, is conducted through a network of nephrologists and infection preventionists and by hospital discharge data review. This report includes HUS data for persons aged <18 years for 2014, the most recent year for which data are available, and compares 2014 incidence with 2011–2013 incidence.
Cases of Infection, Incidence, and Trends
In 2015, FoodNet identified 20,107 confirmed cases of infection, 4,531 hospitalizations, and 77 deaths (Table 1). The number and incidence of confirmed infections per 100,000 population were reported for Salmonella (n = 7,728 [incidence = 15.89]), Campylobacter (6,309 [12.97]), Shigella (2,688 [5.53]), Cryptosporidium (1,612 [3.31]), STEC non-O157 (796 [1.64]), STEC O157 (463 [0.95]), Vibrio (192 [0.39]), Yersinia (139 [0.29]), Listeria (116 [0.24]), and Cyclospora (64 [0.13]). Among confirmed infections, the vast majority were diagnosed only by culture; the exception is STEC, for which most were identified by a CIDT (Table 2).
Among 6,827 (88%) serotyped Salmonella isolates, the top serotypes were Enteritidis, 1,358 (20%); Newport, 816 (12%); and Typhimurium, 739 (11%). Among 175 (91%) speciated Vibrio isolates, 113 (65%) were V. parahaemolyticus, 27 (15%) were V. alginolyticus, and 12 (7%) were V. vulnificus. Among 606 (76%) serogrouped STEC non-O157 isolates, the top serogroups were O26 (32%), O103 (27%), and O111 (18%).
Compared with incidence in 2012–2014, the 2015 incidence of confirmed infections was significantly higher for STEC non-O157 (40% increase; CI = 21%–62%), and Cryptosporidium (57% increase; CI = 20%–106%). No significant changes were observed in 2015 for other pathogens compared with the previous 3-year averages. Among the top three most commonly identified Salmonella serotypes, the incidence in 2015 compared with 2012–2014 was significantly lower for Typhimurium (15% decrease; CI = 4%–25%) and unchanged for Enteritidis and Newport.
FoodNet identified 55 cases of postdiarrheal HUS in children (0.50 cases per 100,000) in 2014; 30 (55%) occurred among children aged <5 years (1.01 cases per 100,000). Compared with 2011–2013, the incidence was significantly lower for all children (27% decrease; CI = 1%–46%) but no change for children aged <5 years was observed.
FoodNet also received 3,112 positive CIDT reports. The number of positive CIDT reports, by pathogen, were Campylobacter (2,021), Shigella (454), Salmonella (361), and STEC (254). These numbers represent an increase in positive CIDT reports in 2015 of 92% for Campylobacter, 284% for Shigella, 247% for Salmonella, and 120% for STEC, when compared with the 2012–2014 averages; the overall increase in CIDT reports for these four pathogens was 122%. Adding positive CIDT reports to confirmed cases resulted in the following incidence rates per 100,000 population: 17.12 for Campylobacter, 16.63 for Salmonella, 6.46 for Shigella, and 3.12 for STEC (Figure). Compared with 2012–2014, the 2015 incidence of confirmed infections plus positive CIDT reports was significantly higher for STEC but not for any other pathogen.
Discussion
Use of CIDTs is finding cases that were not being previously diagnosed. Among confirmed cases, the incidence of Cryptosporidium and STEC non-O157 infections in 2015 was significantly higher than the average for the previous 3 years. The increase in incidence of STEC non-O157 infections is attributable, in part or in full, to increases in diagnostic testing (2). The proportion of laboratories testing for STEC non-O157 increased to 74% in 2015, compared with 55% in 2012 (FoodNet, unpublished data). The increase in Cryptosporidium follows the pattern observed in national data since 2005 and is likely also driven by increases in diagnostic testing (3,4).
The incidence of Salmonella serotype Typhimurium infections continues to decline, and it has dropped to the third most commonly reported serotype. The use of a live attenuated Typhimurium vaccine in poultry (5), in addition to more stringent performance standards for Salmonella contamination of poultry carcasses (6) might have contributed to this decline. The significant decrease in HUS incidence in 2014 compared with the preceding 3 years (2011–2013) mirrors significant decreases in STEC O157 incidence observed during the same period (7). Efforts are still needed to decrease contamination of produce, beef, and other foods to achieve the Healthy People 2020 goal for STEC O157 of 0.6 cases per 100,000 population.¶
The percentage of infections diagnosed only by CIDTs markedly increased in 2015. Diagnostic testing practices for enteric pathogens are rapidly moving away from culture-based methods, and the impact of this change varies by pathogen. Although CIDTs are still most commonly being used for Campylobacter and STEC, the highest percentage increase in use compared with the previous 3-year average was observed for Shigella and Salmonella, most likely due to laboratories using the newly available DNA-based syndrome panels (FoodNet, unpublished data)
In FoodNet, current methods to assess trends in the incidence of illness caused by bacterial pathogens are based only on culture-confirmed infections. The ability to assess and interpret change is impeded as the number of positive CIDT reports continues to rise because of important limitations in the understanding of CIDTs and possible changes in clinician and laboratory practices surrounding them. For example, analyses need to consider the likelihood of false-positive CIDTs and of CIDTs that are more sensitive than routine culture methods; such characteristics vary among CIDTs. The availability of CIDTs might also increase testing for some pathogens. Surveillance systems need to adapt to these changes by expanding case definitions to include positive CIDT reports. Isolates are still needed for antimicrobial susceptibility testing, serotyping, subtyping, and whole genome sequencing (1); these data are critical for monitoring trends, detecting clusters of illness, and investigating outbreaks. For Salmonella, with serotypes diverse in reservoirs and sources, the inability to distinguish serotypes will prevent tracking of important changes in incidence by serotype, and markedly limit detection and investigation of outbreaks. For STEC, because identification of serogroups requires culture, it is not known which STEC-positive CIDT reports represent O157 versus non-O157.
The findings in this report are subject to at least five limitations. First, increasing use of CIDTs by clinical laboratories might affect the number of culture-confirmed infections reported; use of CIDTs might result in an increase (as seen for STEC non-O157 infections) or decrease (as fewer cases might be diagnosed by traditional methods) in reported incidence. Second, the sensitivity and specificity of CIDTs vary by test type, brand, and other factors; some CIDT reports could be false positives (1). Third, health care–seeking behaviors, access to health services, and other characteristics of the population in the surveillance area might affect the generalizability of the findings. Fourth, the proportion of illnesses transmitted by non-food routes differs by pathogen; data provided in this report are not limited to infections from food.** Finally, changes in incidence between periods can reflect year-to-year variation during those periods rather than sustained trends, and the number of infections and patterns observed might change as final data become available.
The use of CIDTs in clinical laboratories has many advantages. Illnesses can be diagnosed much faster than when culture is required. Also, some CIDTs are becoming available to detect infections caused by pathogens not routinely sought by standard laboratory methods. One of these is enterotoxigenic E. coli, an important cause of travelers’ diarrhea (8).
More work is needed to extend the benefits of CIDT to the public health sector. During this initial period when clinical laboratories are transitioning to the use of CIDTs, reflex culturing†† of specimens with positive CIDT reports should be considered for bacterial pathogens to obtain isolates needed for public health practice. For the future, expedited research and development are needed to create methods to detect the genetic sequences of pathogens directly and rapidly from stool specimens, which has the potential to benefit both clinical and public health practice, because subtype, resistance profile, and other features can be obtained from the genetic sequence.
Infection with Pathogens Transmitted Commonly Through Food and the Effect of Increasing Use of Culture-Independent Diagnostic Tests on Surveillance — Foodborne Diseases Active Surveillance Network, 10 U.S. Sites, 2012–2015
Weekly / April 15, 2016 / 65(14);368–371
Jennifer Y. Huang, MPH; Olga L. Henao, PhD; Patricia M. Griffin, MD; Duc J. Vugia, MD; Alicia B. Cronquist, MPH; Sharon Hurd, MPH; Melissa Tobin-D’Angelo, MD; Patricia Ryan, MD; Kirk Smith, DVM; Sarah Lathrop, PhD; Shelley Zansky, PhD; Paul R. Cieslak, MD; John Dunn, DVM; Kristin G. Holt, DVM; Beverly J. Wolpert, PhD1; Mary E. Patrick, MPH
From 2005 to 2013, nearly 18,000 shipments were refused entry into the United States for containing unsafe levels of “filth,” veterinary drug residues and Salmonella, which is responsible for thousand hospitalizations per year and hundreds of deaths. “Filth” is a catchall term used to describe anything that shouldn’t be in food—like rat feces, parasites, illegal antibiotics and glass shards.
The USDA summarized their findings by saying, “The safety of imported seafood clearly continues to be of significant concern, based on the number of shipments refused by FDA.”
Currently, the majority of all food refusals are seafood products; while the FDA is responsible for ensuring the safety of any food imported from foreign countries, they only have the manpower to inspect less than 1 percent of the 1.2 billion pounds of shrimp entering into the country each year.
The American Shrimp Processors Association (ASPA), a group representing the US Gulf and Southeast Atlantic Coast shrimp fishing industry, has expressed great concern over the findings. Dr. David Veal, the President of ASPA, was quoted as saying, “This issue goes beyond the FDA; I don’t think it’s unreasonable to expect food suppliers to take some responsibility for the health and safety of their products.” While there are a few more FDA inspectors now than a couple years ago, the ratio of shipments to inspectors is still impossibly high. Veal continued, “We hope shrimp exporters will take a more proactive role in assuring that suppliers adhere to laws designed to protect the people who buy their products.”
Scientists report in ACS’ journal Analytical Chemistry a simple, paper-based test that could help detect pathogens hitchhiking on food before they reach store shelves, restaurants and, most importantly, our stomachs.
So Je-Kyun Park and colleagues set out to find a more practical way to detect foodborne pathogens.
The researchers developed a paper-based test that can handle the multi-step reactions necessary for this kind of analysis by controlling the pore size of the paper.
When dipped into solutions containing the E. coli strain O157:H7, Salmonella typhimurium or both, lines appeared on the dipstick indicating a positive result within 15 minutes.
Because the method requires dipping the device into a solution once and produces an easy-to-read result, it could be performed by workers without special training, the researchers say.
We analysed 1,497 STEC cases reported in Michigan from 2001 to 2012. A significant increase in the number of non-O157 STEC cases was observed over time, and similar incidence rates were observed for O157 and non-O157 STEC cases in certain time periods.
The odds of hospitalization was two times higher in O157 STEC cases relative to non-O157 STEC cases when adjusted for age and gender, suggesting that O157 STEC causes more severe clinical outcomes in all age groups.
The use of population-based surveillance to better define trends and associations with disease severity are critical to enhance our understanding of STEC infections and improve upon current prevention and control efforts.
Increasing incidence of non-O157 Shiga toxin-producing Escherichia coli (STEC) in Michigan and association with clinical illness
Epidemiology and Infection / Volume 144 / Issue 07 / May 2016, pp 1394-1405
Chris Elliott, the founder of the Institute for Global Food Security, a laboratory in Northern Ireland that tests food from all over the world in order to uncover fraud, told NPR’s Rachel Martin, “Many, many forms of food fraud manifest themselves in different parts of the world virtually every day of the week. … It’s absolutely cheating. But it goes beyond cheating — this is criminal activity, very well organized criminal activity, with people making a huge amount of money out of fraud in food systems.”
“The world trade in groceries is about $11 trillion. And the level of fraud is somewhere between 5 and 10 percent of that.”
“Quite often, the person who is caught is the retailer. And they aren’t always the fraudsters — often they have been cheated themselves. But what happens is whenever they are caught, the reputation that goes with that is quite enormous. And many, many companies that have been involved or implicated in food fraud have seen their profits drop dramatically.”
“It’s extremely difficult for consumers to decide what’s genuine and what’s fake — because I’ll tell you the fakes are very, very good. We as consumers are reliant on the government, and on the food industry to protect us from fraud.
“My advice to people is always buy your food from bonafide sources. If you buy your stuff from the back of vans and so forth, you can expect what you’ll get. And the second thing is if you buy something that’s too good to be true price-wise, it probably is.”
The Cochran–Armitage test was used to assess changes in the proportions of cases by case status (confirmed vs. non-confirmed), sex, race, and ethnicity over the study period. Negative binomial regression models were used to estimate rate ratios (RR) and 95% confidence intervals (CI) for comparing rates across three time periods (1995–2004, 2005–2008, 2009–2012). The proportion of confirmed cases significantly decreased (P < 0·0001), and a crossover from male to female predominance in case-patients occurred (P < 0·0001). Overall, compared to 1995–2004, rates were higher in 2005–2008 (RR 2·92, 95% CI 2·08–4·09) and 2009–2012 (RR 2·66, 95% CI 1·90–3·73). However, rate changes from 2005–2008 to 2009–2012 varied by age group (Pinteraction < 0·0001): 0–14 years (RR 0·55, 95% CI 0·42–0·71), 15–44 years (RR 0·99, 95% CI 0·82–1·19), 45–64 years (RR 1·47, 95% CI 1·21–1·79) and ≥65 years (RR 2·18, 95% CI 1·46–3·25).
