In the wake of the Milo's Poultry outbreak, what is the history of Salmonella egg outbreaks? Not surprisingly, there have been quite a few outbreaks linked to shell eggs over the years. Eggs are considered a high risk food that need to be handled with care. One of the issues is that Salmonella can get inside eggs, if the hen has Salmonella in her ovaries. So even if the eggs are washed, they can still make you sick if they are undercooked. That's why it's so important to cook eggs to 160°F or well done, and to cook any recipe that contains eges to a safe final internal temperature. In the Milo's Poultry Farm Salmonella outbreak, there are 65 people sick in nine states. The case count by state is: California (2), Colorado (1), Illinois (11), Iowa (2), Michigan (2), Minnesota (3), … [Read more...]
Thinking About Backyard Chickens Because of Egg Prices? Read This First
Are you thinking about keeping backyard chickens because of high egg prices? Read this first, because there are some food safety issues you need to know. The bucolic image of some chickens strutting around your backyard, pecking at the ground and emitting gentle clucks, laying eggs that you can gather warm and fry for your breakfast, is misleading. Taking care of a flock of chickens is a lot of work, and if you aren't careful, an infection can land you or your kids in the hospital with a serious illness, according to the CDC. Every year in recent memory, hundreds of people are sickened and dozens are hospitalized in Salmonella outbreaks after contact with backyard birds. And these numbers are at least 30 times higher than the reported case counts, because the case counts are very … [Read more...]
Three Salmonella Outbreaks in Peaches, Onions, Wood Ear Mushrooms
There are currently three Salmonella outbreaks ongoing in the United States right now. Altogether they have sickened at least 1,131 people and hospitalized 163. The outbreaks are linked to Wawona peaches, Thomson International Onions, and imported Wismettac Asian Foods wood ear mushrooms, also known as dried black fungus. While there are usually three to four multistate Salmonella outbreaks that occur every year in the United States, it's unusual to have three active outbreaks at the same time. The Salmonella Newport outbreak linked to Thomson International red onions has not been updated by the government in a month. As of September 1, 2020, there are 1,012 people sick in 47 states, with 136 hospitalized. The recall of those onions was terminated yesterday by the FDA, which may … [Read more...]
Stop Foodborne Illness, CSPI Call For Poultry Safety Modernization
The food safety agencies Stop Foodborne Illness and the Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI) are calling for poultry safety modernization to reduce Salmonella and Campylobacter infections in poultry. Those agencies believe that the USDA's regulatory framework lags behind advances in science and technology and doesn't reflect the best. practices to prevent illness from poultry. Stop Foodborne Illness CEO Mitzi Baum said in a statement, "To their credit, FSIS, academic experts, and many poultry industry leaders recognize the poultry safety problem and are working on solutions. Consumers rightfully expect, however, that FSIS build today’s best practices into its regulatory system so they can become common practices. Outbreaks linked to poultry products have occurred … [Read more...]
New Salmonella DNA Test Improves Tracking of the Pathogen in Outbreaks
A new Salmonella DNA test will help improve tracking of Salmonella outbreaks, according to research published in The Journal of Molecular Diagnostics. This should help investigators quickly trace and find the origin of the infection. Food poisoning caused by Salmonella bacteria causes 1.35 million infections every year in the United States. At least 26,500 people are hospitalized because they are so sick with this type of infection, and 420 people die. During an outbreak, speed in identifying and tracing the pathogen is critical to reducing serious illness and death. Traditional methods to find and identify Salmonella serotypes are to first grow the bacteria from samples and then test them to assign a subtype. The new Salmonella DNA test doesn't require first growing the … [Read more...]
Scientists Use Machine Learning to Find Source of Salmonella
Scientists at the University of Georgia Center for Food Safety has developed a new approach to identify the animal source of some types of Salmonella outbreaks. The researchers have developed a machine learning approach. The study is published in the January 2019 issue of Emerging Infectious Diseases. Researchers Xiangyu Deng and Shaokang Zhang, along with a team of colleagues, used more than a thousand genomes to predict the animal sources of Salmonella Typhimurium. The project used experts from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the Food & Drug Administration, the Minnesota Department of Health, and the Translational Genomics Research Institute. Almost 3,000 outbreaks of food poisoning were reported in the U.S. from 2009 to 2015. Ninety percent of those … [Read more...]
Two Salmonella Outbreaks Linked to Melon and Cereal: How Does the Government Investigate?
There are currently two Salmonella outbreaks ongoing in this country. The first is a Salmonella Adelaide outbreak that is linked to precut fresh melons. At least 70 people have been sickened in this outbreak; 34 of those people have been hospitalized. And a Salmonella Mbandaka outbreak linked to recalled Kellogg's Honey Smacks cereal has sickened at least 73 people; 24 have been hospitalized. So how does the government investigate these outbreaks? What's the timeline for these cases? How long does it take from when someone gets sick to when public health officials are informed? The time to illness that is, the time from when a person is exposed to Salmonella bacteria until they feel ill is usually about 1 to 3 days. Some people get sick within a few hours; others can take up to a … [Read more...]
Decline in Europe’s Salmonella Cases Stalls, with More Illnesses Linked to Eggs
Europe has been wining the battle against Salmonella infections, but that decade-long decline ended last year. A small increase in Salmonella illnesses linked to eggs and egg products was reported in 2016. The European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control and the European Food Safety Authority issued a joint report yesterday about this issue. The report covers foodborne illnesses from 28 European Union member states and 9 other countries. There were 4,786 foodborne illness outbreaks for the year, which is a slight increase from 2015. And unfortunately, Campylobacter and Listeria monocytogenes outbreaks increased. Salmonella Enteritidis infections in people increased by 3% since 2014. This number parallels the increase in the number of laying hens over the same time period. … [Read more...]
