Public health agencies and laboratories have a crucial role to play in the BP oil spill crisis as testers of seafood. Chemical testing ensures that seafood from the Gulf of Mexico is not contaminated by oil and is therefore safe to eat. NOAA’s seafood-testing method is the current gold standard—and sole approved testing method—for reopening waters. The test is able to detect PAH, an oil compound, in both fish and shellfish.
All 50 US states participate in a food-testing network called the Food Emergency Response Network (FERN). NOAA’s test is available to all FERN labs and, as the testing workload expands, FDA will increasingly encourage FERN labs to utilize NOAA’s test. In addition to detecting PAH, labs can assist with baseline testing by comparing pre- and post-spill PAH levels. In performing these chemical analyses, public health labs will be instrumental to the re-opening of fisheries.
Showing posts with label testing for foodborne diseases. Show all posts
Showing posts with label testing for foodborne diseases. Show all posts
Monday, June 21, 2010
Thursday, April 8, 2010
National Public Health Week -- APHL Honors Public Health Laboratories
By Mary Shaffran, Senior Director, Public Health Programs, APHL
Along with our partners, the public health laboratories are working to keep communities healthy. Laboratorians work behind the scenes. Public health laboratories serve as the nation’s early warning system for diseases and other health hazards. When health risks emerge or re-emerge, public health laboratories analyze the threat, provide the answers needed to mount an effective response and act to protect the public in collaboration with other decision makers. They protect our health by monitoring continuously for diseases and other health hazards.
- Public health laboratories in every state are the backbone of our nation’s infectious disease surveillance networks. They are analyzing infectious diseases such as influenza to determine if they are changing and reporting this information to public health officials so they can determine effective prevention measures. [More on the Infectious Disease Program]
- More than 11,000 babies are screened daily for potentially life-threatening genetic and congenital disorders.
- In order to detect foodborne outbreaks and ultimately keep Americans safe from foodborne disease, public health laboratorians test human specimens and food samples for bacteria such as Salmonella and E. Coli.
Join APHL and our many partners in celebrating National Public Health Week. For more information, visit http://www.nphw.org/.
Along with our partners, the public health laboratories are working to keep communities healthy. Laboratorians work behind the scenes. Public health laboratories serve as the nation’s early warning system for diseases and other health hazards. When health risks emerge or re-emerge, public health laboratories analyze the threat, provide the answers needed to mount an effective response and act to protect the public in collaboration with other decision makers. They protect our health by monitoring continuously for diseases and other health hazards.
Just a few of the things that laboratories are doing every day to make sure that you and your neighbors are healthy:
- Public health laboratories in every state are the backbone of our nation’s infectious disease surveillance networks. They are analyzing infectious diseases such as influenza to determine if they are changing and reporting this information to public health officials so they can determine effective prevention measures. [More on the Infectious Disease Program]
- More than 11,000 babies are screened daily for potentially life-threatening genetic and congenital disorders.
- Matt and Noelle Bamonte discovered that their seemingly healthy baby boy had PKU, a serious disorder that can cause brain damage if not treated from a very early age. Noelle is certain that without laboratory screening, her little boy would have been vastly different. Now, aside from a strict diet, he lives a normal life! [More of their story]
- In order to detect foodborne outbreaks and ultimately keep Americans safe from foodborne disease, public health laboratorians test human specimens and food samples for bacteria such as Salmonella and E. Coli.
- In 2006, the New Mexico public health laboratory pinpointed the exact source of the E. Coli that made its way into spinach and made hundreds of people sick. [More on the E.Coli outbreak]
- California scientists are collecting specimens from 2,000 people to test for the presence toxins used in used in industry, agriculture and the home. They’ll use this information to explore such things as the connection between exposure and diseases, and to examine changes in exposure over time and the connection to changing health policies and industry regulations working to reduce exposure. [More on the work in California]
- In 2008, severe flooding in Mason City, Iowa caused the closure of the water treatment facility. Residents were advised to boil their water until the system was restored and the water was tested to ensure it was safe to drink. The Hygienic Lab rose to the task and tested the water quickly bringing the treatment operation back online. [More on the floods in Iowa]
We would like to thank our unsung heroes in lab coats for protecting the public’s health – every day.
Tuesday, April 6, 2010
Salmonella Outbreak Leads to Heightened Surveillance
As laboratory and epidemiology surveillance systems expand and improve, more foodborne outbreaks are being detected. Additionally, the vehicles responsible have become more diverse. Whereas the classic “church supper” and other point source outbreaks once made headlines, now fresh produce, peanut butter, veggie snacks and even reptiles have been implicated in localized and complex multi-state outbreaks.
New culprits, including ingredients that were overlooked years ago, are now being detected as the source of food contamination. In the past few weeks, public health officials have heightened surveillance for Salmonella in the wake of the recalls of hydrolyzed vegetable protein or HVP. HVP is a flavoring additive that has been widely used in the food industry. It is sometimes referred to on packaging as “natural flavors.” This additive is found in thousands of products ranging from snack foods, ready-to-eat products (hot dogs, for example) soups, sauces and other processed foods. This recall may be the largest to date. (List of recalled foods.) Although no human illness has been associated with the recalls to date, the implicated strain of Salmonella was found at a food flavoring processing plant in Nevada.
APHL continues to support member laboratories on foodborne surveillance networks such as PulseNet. This laboratory-based surveillance system detects clusters of foodborne illnesses by using DNA fingerprinting technology. APHL supports member laboratories in the PulseNet network to improve surveillance though trainings, technical meetings, information dissemination, and grants.
This recall demonstrates the critical importance of the public health laboratory system and the need for maintaining and expanding food safety surveillance networks. By catching contamination more quickly, labs are able to prevent widespread outbreaks of foodborne illnesses; another important way that public health laboratories are keeping you healthy.
New culprits, including ingredients that were overlooked years ago, are now being detected as the source of food contamination. In the past few weeks, public health officials have heightened surveillance for Salmonella in the wake of the recalls of hydrolyzed vegetable protein or HVP. HVP is a flavoring additive that has been widely used in the food industry. It is sometimes referred to on packaging as “natural flavors.” This additive is found in thousands of products ranging from snack foods, ready-to-eat products (hot dogs, for example) soups, sauces and other processed foods. This recall may be the largest to date. (List of recalled foods.) Although no human illness has been associated with the recalls to date, the implicated strain of Salmonella was found at a food flavoring processing plant in Nevada.
APHL continues to support member laboratories on foodborne surveillance networks such as PulseNet. This laboratory-based surveillance system detects clusters of foodborne illnesses by using DNA fingerprinting technology. APHL supports member laboratories in the PulseNet network to improve surveillance though trainings, technical meetings, information dissemination, and grants.
This recall demonstrates the critical importance of the public health laboratory system and the need for maintaining and expanding food safety surveillance networks. By catching contamination more quickly, labs are able to prevent widespread outbreaks of foodborne illnesses; another important way that public health laboratories are keeping you healthy.
Wednesday, February 17, 2010
Yet Another Multi-state Salmonella Outbreak Proves Need for PulseNet
The latest large-scale foodborne disease outbreak—involving Salmonella-tainted Italian salami products—has sickened at least 225 people in 44 states and Washington, DC. More than 50 are suffering illness severe enough to require hospitalization.
Coming on the heels of several high-profile, multi-state outbreaks involving everything from spinach to peanut butter, the latest incident raises questions about the safety of the food supply.
A quick review of the current outbreak reveals several trends.
1) The outbreak involves a collection of food items: about two dozen different ready-to-eat salami products. (Recall that a 2008-2009 Salmonella outbreak was linked to more than 400 different peanut-butter-containing foods).
2) The volume of products recalled is immense: more than 1.25 million pounds of meat.
3) The suspected source of the bacterium is an imported food item: the black pepper used to flavor the salami products.
In short, the food chain has become increasing convoluted and global in nature. Foods travel farther distances to reach consumers, and one product may contain ingredients sourced from several distinct producers (who may be based in the US or abroad, potentially in countries with more lax food safety regulations than the US). All of these factors increase the risk for contamination.
While APHL has no formal role in preventing food contamination, the association has played a pivotal role in detecting it so fewer people suffer illness. Laboratory-based surveillance—using the APHL/CDC PulseNet system—enables outbreaks to be identified much more swiftly than would otherwise be the case (including the ongoing salami-related outbreak), and undoubtedly detects small outbreaks that would otherwise go unnoticed. In the absence of more stringent food-safety regulations, PulseNet offers some assurance that tainted food products will be brought to the attention of state and federal authorities. In fact, the PulseNet system has proven so effective that there has been great interest in expanding it internationally.
APHL has also provided substantive input into the Guidelines for Foodborne Disease Outbreak Response recently released by the Council to Improve Foodborne Outbreak Response. These guidelines are important because they provide a model and benchmarks for the kind of multi-disciplinary and multi-agency collaboration essential to contain an outbreak. The recent Salmonella outbreak, for example, involves ingredients regulated by two different federal agencies: the USDA, which regulates meat, and the FDA, which regulates pepper.
Coming on the heels of several high-profile, multi-state outbreaks involving everything from spinach to peanut butter, the latest incident raises questions about the safety of the food supply.
A quick review of the current outbreak reveals several trends.
1) The outbreak involves a collection of food items: about two dozen different ready-to-eat salami products. (Recall that a 2008-2009 Salmonella outbreak was linked to more than 400 different peanut-butter-containing foods).
2) The volume of products recalled is immense: more than 1.25 million pounds of meat.
3) The suspected source of the bacterium is an imported food item: the black pepper used to flavor the salami products.
In short, the food chain has become increasing convoluted and global in nature. Foods travel farther distances to reach consumers, and one product may contain ingredients sourced from several distinct producers (who may be based in the US or abroad, potentially in countries with more lax food safety regulations than the US). All of these factors increase the risk for contamination.
While APHL has no formal role in preventing food contamination, the association has played a pivotal role in detecting it so fewer people suffer illness. Laboratory-based surveillance—using the APHL/CDC PulseNet system—enables outbreaks to be identified much more swiftly than would otherwise be the case (including the ongoing salami-related outbreak), and undoubtedly detects small outbreaks that would otherwise go unnoticed. In the absence of more stringent food-safety regulations, PulseNet offers some assurance that tainted food products will be brought to the attention of state and federal authorities. In fact, the PulseNet system has proven so effective that there has been great interest in expanding it internationally.
APHL has also provided substantive input into the Guidelines for Foodborne Disease Outbreak Response recently released by the Council to Improve Foodborne Outbreak Response. These guidelines are important because they provide a model and benchmarks for the kind of multi-disciplinary and multi-agency collaboration essential to contain an outbreak. The recent Salmonella outbreak, for example, involves ingredients regulated by two different federal agencies: the USDA, which regulates meat, and the FDA, which regulates pepper.
Friday, January 22, 2010
The Scoop: Michael Taylor, FDA’s First Deputy Commissioner For Foods
By Nancy Maddox, MPH
The new Food and Drug Administration (FDA) post, deputy commissioner for foods (DCF), was created to help fulfill President Obama’s pledge to strengthen food safety in the wake of a number of multi-state outbreaks that have made Americans wary of the food-industrial complex.
According to an FDA press release, the deputy commissioner will:
• Help the agency plan and implement a “prevention-based strategy for food safety.”
• Implement new food safety legislation being crafted in Congress that will almost certainly expand FDA oversight authority.
• Ensure accurate nutritional information on food labels.
The first person to hold this post, Michael Taylor, has received mixed reviews from the blogosphere owing his industrial ties. Taylor has been in and out of government service, mixing work at the FDA and U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) with a “public policy” (a.k.a. lobbying) position at Monsanto, a position at a law firm representing Monsanto, a stint at a think tank (Resources for the Future) and a research and teaching position at the George Washington University (GWU) School of Public Health and Health Services.
The Washington Post reports that Taylor was responsible for unpopular federal safety regulations impacting producers of seafood, juices, meat and poultry. But during his FDA tenure, the agency approved Monsanto’s bovine growth hormone, declared that milk producers have no requirement to disclose BGH use, and issued a policy stating that genetically-engineered plant varieties (such as those produced by Monsanto) require no special agency oversight.
Most recently, as a senior FDA advisor, Taylor tried to ban the sale of warm-water oysters harvested between April and October, unless treated to kill Vibrio vulnificus. Faced with opposition from Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-LA) and others, the agency has agreed to postpone a ban and study the issue further.
Noted nutritionist Marion Nestle, a professor at New York University, considers Taylor a good choice. She points out that as head of the USDA Food Safety and Inspection Service, he required science-based hazard analysis and critical control point (HACCP) systems in every meat and poultry plant—a move that took “real courage.”
Nestle also applauds “Stronger Partnerships for Safer Food: An Agenda for Strengthening State and Local Roles in the Nation’s Food Safety System,” a report Taylor co-authored while at GWU in collaboration with the Association of Food and Drug Officials, the Association of State and Territorial Health Officials and the National Association of County and City Health Officials.
The report endorses many APHL food safety priorities, including implementation of guidelines produced by the Council to Improve Foodborne Outbreak Response (CIFOR), of which APHL is a member.
Among other things, the report calls for more uniform laboratory methods for food safety testing, increased funding for FoodNet, greater multi-disciplinary collaboration in food safety investigations and greater federal investment—specifically in the form of a food safety block grant and federal matching grant program—to build the capacity of state and local food safety programs and “foster improvement and innovation beyond base capacity building.”
APHL wishes the new commissioner the best of luck and looks forward to working with him to advance many of these goals.
The new Food and Drug Administration (FDA) post, deputy commissioner for foods (DCF), was created to help fulfill President Obama’s pledge to strengthen food safety in the wake of a number of multi-state outbreaks that have made Americans wary of the food-industrial complex.
According to an FDA press release, the deputy commissioner will:
• Help the agency plan and implement a “prevention-based strategy for food safety.”
• Implement new food safety legislation being crafted in Congress that will almost certainly expand FDA oversight authority.
• Ensure accurate nutritional information on food labels.
The first person to hold this post, Michael Taylor, has received mixed reviews from the blogosphere owing his industrial ties. Taylor has been in and out of government service, mixing work at the FDA and U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) with a “public policy” (a.k.a. lobbying) position at Monsanto, a position at a law firm representing Monsanto, a stint at a think tank (Resources for the Future) and a research and teaching position at the George Washington University (GWU) School of Public Health and Health Services.
The Washington Post reports that Taylor was responsible for unpopular federal safety regulations impacting producers of seafood, juices, meat and poultry. But during his FDA tenure, the agency approved Monsanto’s bovine growth hormone, declared that milk producers have no requirement to disclose BGH use, and issued a policy stating that genetically-engineered plant varieties (such as those produced by Monsanto) require no special agency oversight.
Most recently, as a senior FDA advisor, Taylor tried to ban the sale of warm-water oysters harvested between April and October, unless treated to kill Vibrio vulnificus. Faced with opposition from Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-LA) and others, the agency has agreed to postpone a ban and study the issue further.
Noted nutritionist Marion Nestle, a professor at New York University, considers Taylor a good choice. She points out that as head of the USDA Food Safety and Inspection Service, he required science-based hazard analysis and critical control point (HACCP) systems in every meat and poultry plant—a move that took “real courage.”
Nestle also applauds “Stronger Partnerships for Safer Food: An Agenda for Strengthening State and Local Roles in the Nation’s Food Safety System,” a report Taylor co-authored while at GWU in collaboration with the Association of Food and Drug Officials, the Association of State and Territorial Health Officials and the National Association of County and City Health Officials.
The report endorses many APHL food safety priorities, including implementation of guidelines produced by the Council to Improve Foodborne Outbreak Response (CIFOR), of which APHL is a member.
Among other things, the report calls for more uniform laboratory methods for food safety testing, increased funding for FoodNet, greater multi-disciplinary collaboration in food safety investigations and greater federal investment—specifically in the form of a food safety block grant and federal matching grant program—to build the capacity of state and local food safety programs and “foster improvement and innovation beyond base capacity building.”
APHL wishes the new commissioner the best of luck and looks forward to working with him to advance many of these goals.
Monday, November 23, 2009
PulseNet International: Detecting Global Foodborne Outbreaks
by Kristy Kubota, MPH, senior specialist for PulseNet Program, and Kara Watarida, temporary PulseNet program coordinator
Imagine an international outbreak of E. coli O157:H7. With the changes of the nation’s eating habits, the dynamics of the US population, increased international travel and the globalization of the food supply, global foodborne outbreaks do occur and may increase due to these factors. Thanks to PulseNet International there is a way to determine if an outbreak happening in your town is linked to an outbreak in Europe.
On November 12-13, CDC, APHL, WHO and PulseNet regional coordinators from around the world met in Buenos Aires, Argentina, for the 2nd PulseNet international Steering Planning meeting. This meeting brought together PulseNet coordinators from the United States, Europe, Canada, Pacific Asia, Latin America and Middle East to discuss issues related to protocols/next generation subtyping methods, regional updates and development of a strategic plan for the coming year.
One of the more interesting aspects of this meeting was learning about international outbreaks and how molecular subtyping has been applied for foodborne investigations worldwide. With all nations using the same standardized PulseNet protocols, DNA fingerprints are generated and can be “matched” across country borders. For example, in 2009 PulseNet Pacific Asia conducted an E. coli O157:H7 outbreak investigation associated with a steakhouse restaurant with possible links to U.S. imported beef. The link was dismissed upon sharing the subtyping information between the US and Japan.
The PulseNet network has come a long way since its inception in 1996, as a collaborative “project” between CDC, APHL and a few US states. It has now grown to PulseNet International -- United States, Europe, Canada, Asia Pacific, Latin America, Middle East and soon Africa. APHL will continue to support these partners in working towards a sustainable international foodborne diseases surveillance network.
Imagine an international outbreak of E. coli O157:H7. With the changes of the nation’s eating habits, the dynamics of the US population, increased international travel and the globalization of the food supply, global foodborne outbreaks do occur and may increase due to these factors. Thanks to PulseNet International there is a way to determine if an outbreak happening in your town is linked to an outbreak in Europe.
On November 12-13, CDC, APHL, WHO and PulseNet regional coordinators from around the world met in Buenos Aires, Argentina, for the 2nd PulseNet international Steering Planning meeting. This meeting brought together PulseNet coordinators from the United States, Europe, Canada, Pacific Asia, Latin America and Middle East to discuss issues related to protocols/next generation subtyping methods, regional updates and development of a strategic plan for the coming year.
One of the more interesting aspects of this meeting was learning about international outbreaks and how molecular subtyping has been applied for foodborne investigations worldwide. With all nations using the same standardized PulseNet protocols, DNA fingerprints are generated and can be “matched” across country borders. For example, in 2009 PulseNet Pacific Asia conducted an E. coli O157:H7 outbreak investigation associated with a steakhouse restaurant with possible links to U.S. imported beef. The link was dismissed upon sharing the subtyping information between the US and Japan.
The PulseNet network has come a long way since its inception in 1996, as a collaborative “project” between CDC, APHL and a few US states. It has now grown to PulseNet International -- United States, Europe, Canada, Asia Pacific, Latin America, Middle East and soon Africa. APHL will continue to support these partners in working towards a sustainable international foodborne diseases surveillance network.
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