Indiana University experts in epidemiology, sport medicine and travel discuss the peanut recall, tips for aging well, which include regular exercise, and tips for frugal travel planning.
Iowa State University researchers have found that certain antibiotics encounter more resistance from Campylobacter coli than other antibiotics, with some variation of resistance levels between farms.
The border is important as a physical space, but the best way to secure the border is to focus on countries' regulatory systems and harmonize them, according to a Kansas State University professor.
The rise in the number of foodborne illnesses from Salmonella, Listeria, and E. coli, coupled with the lack of an effective intervention method, has led to intense scientific research into prevention efforts. One solution may be interfering with quorum sensing, a sophisticated network of cell-to-cell communication in bacteria that may cause foodborne illness, according to a Scientific Status Summary published by the Institute of Food Technologists.
University of Maryland experts are weighing in on the current food safety crisis. They offer their analysis and recommendations on how to ensure that the food we buy is safe to eat.
A new study finds that a botanical drug could provide the key to new treatments for peanut allergies. The findings are published online in The Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology.
The bacterium E. coli, one of the best-studied single-celled organisms around, is a master of industrial efficiency. But how good is it? Weizmann Institute researchers developed a mathematical model "“ which uses only five simple equations "“ to check the efficiency of these complex systems.
Why do restaurant workers -- who handle an estimated 70 billion meals and snacks in the U.S. every year -- sometimes not follow common food safety practices such as washing their hands properly or keeping work surfaces sanitary? According to a recent Kansas State University study, restaurant workers blame time constraints, inconvenience, inadequate training and inadequate resources for failure to follow food safety practices.
Iowa State University Food Safety Consortium researchers are seeking to connect the dots to determine how changes in the pork production process affect the predicted number of people who become ill with salmonellosis because of pork and how food safety interventions affect risk as well as industry costs.
If a case of avian flu is discovered in a U.S. poultry flock, it's likely that poultry consumption would decline. The level of decline would also be likely to vary in different parts of the nation, according to Food Safety Consortium research at Kansas State University.
Americans love their turkey - and increasingly, they're eating it throughout the year. Prof. Nickolas Zimmermann - an associate professor of animal and avian sciences at the University of Maryland is a turkey expert. In this release, he talks about why turkey is so popular - and gives us an update on Avian Flu research.
Most turkeys carry a bacteria called Clostridium perfringens "“ a common cause of food poisoning -- that leave spores strong enough to survive a trip through the oven. These spores will return to a vegetative state if warm turkey meat sits out too long.
An international research team, including University of California, San Diego School of Medicine professor Ajit Varki, M.D., has uncovered the first example of a bacterium that causes food poisoning in humans when it targets a non-human molecule absorbed into the body through red meats such as lamb, pork and beef.
A study, based on DNA-sequence comparison of thousands of bacterial samples collected from human patients and animal carriers, found that 97 percent of campylobacteriosis cases sampled in Lancashire, UK, were caused by bacteria typically found in chicken and livestock.
Research at the University of Arkansas shows that Campylobacter jejuni is vulnerable to stress, so it survives by latching onto other colonies of bacteria known as biofilms.
Iowa State University faculty members Dennis Olson and Sam Beattie are available for interviews on the new FDA regulation that will allow fresh spinach and iceberg lettuce to be irradiated to kill illness-causing bacteria.
With no system for managing multi-state foodborne illness outbreaks, many capable people work hard and do the best they can, but they work within a set of institutional arrangements and with tools that are not up to the task.
Northeastern University scientists have discovered a new and unique DNA binding property of a protein in E. coli. Penny J. Beuning, Assistant Professor in the Department of Chemistry and Chemical Biology, spent the last two years researching double and single-stranded DNA binding of E. coli DNA polymerase III alpha protein and notes that her findings have potential for developing a new antibacterial target.
Metropolitan consumers in Kansas appear less likely to change their purchasing habits when it comes to foodborne outbreaks, according to a new study from Kansas State University's department of agricultural economics.
While many of us are worried about E. coli 0157 in our food supply, a pre-harvest food safety expert at Kansas State University cautions that other types of E. coli shouldn't go ignored.
Researchers from Kansas State University and West Texas A&M University have been studying the effects of a novel vaccine technology to make beef safer.
Mindy Brashears, director of the International Center for Food Industry Excellence at Texas Tech University, can speak about issues involving food safety and E. coli O157:H7.
The E. coli outbreaks in October and December 2006 have thrust the importance of food safety regulation into the spotlight says Dr. Robert Field, chair of the Department of Health Policy and Public Health at University of the Sciences in Philadelphia.
Irradiation of produce could be a possible solution to outbreaks of E. coli, says Dennis Olson, professor-in-charge of Iowa State University's commercial-size irradiation facility. Although the FDA has approved using the technology to destroy insects in produce, it's not approved for E. coli because of a quirk in the agency's rule making process.
As investigators actively seek to identify sources and vehicles responsible for the introduction of E. coli O157:H7 onto California spinach that made its way into the food supply this fall, the Journal of Food Science this month provides up-to-date research on the various ways bacteria can survive on fresh produce.
From pre-harvest to post-harvest phases of food production and processing, researchers at Oklahoma State University are working to reduce potential contamination of foods by E. coli and other common food-borne pathogens.
Purdue researchers are developing two inexpensive technologies that may be able to prevent future food-borne illness, such as the recent outbreak of E. coli in contaminated spinach. Together, these technologies rapidly detect and eradicate food-borne pathogens.
Food safety expert Sanford Miller, senior fellow at the University of Maryland Center for Food, Nutrition, and Agriculture Policy, says the recent spinach contamination won't be the last. Miller talks about produce contamination, what we can expect in the future and how food safety policy can be improved.
More and more people are falling prey to E. coli infection from tainted spinach. E. coli experts like B. Brett Finlay, an HHMI international research scholar at the University of British Columbia in Canada, can explain how the E. coli bacteria place a death grip on intestinal cells.
A food safety expert at Kansas State University says the produce industry must do more to ensure that everyone from farm-to-fork recognizes food safety risks and take concrete actions to reduce the risks of dangerous microorganisms.
According to agricultural economists at Kansas State University, with the removal of all fresh spinach from the market, the short-term cost to spinach producers will be significant to the industry.
As the Food and Drug Administration takes days to track down the source of the E. coli outbreak, Dr. Raj Mutharasan is optimizing a sensor that can enable growers to do the job themselves in a few minutes.
First published in 1997 but still pertinent today, the Institute of Food Technologists' scientific status summary on E. coli O157:H7 describes the pathogen, its ability to infect, the inherent difficulties to inactivate it, and much more.
An E. coli outbreak that has prompted recall of spinach products will create a short-term economic "disaster," especially for growers and marketers, as existing inventories can't be sold for fresh consumption. The long-term impact to the industry will depend on finding the cause of the outbreak and whether consumers feel assured that the incident is isolated or preventable.
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration issued an alert Thursday about a nationwide outbreak of E. coli traced to packaged spinach. Sam Beattie, a food safety extension specialist at Iowa State University, tells consumers that it's almost impossible to ensure that there will not be any pathogenic microorganisms on any raw agricultural product.
CHICAGO"”A scientific leader in food science, food safety, food processing, and more, the Institute of Food Technologists has specialists who can provide insight and expert commentary on the latest food safety alert issued by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration on an outbreak of dangerous E. coli O157:H7 bacteria on bagged fresh spinach.
To help reporters answer food safety questions regarding the recent outbreak of E. coli, Cornell University offers three experts. To reach these professors, please call the Cornell Press Relations office.