A New Year and Another Salmonella Food Poisoning Outbreak
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Salmonella enteriditis, an organism dear to my heart (luckily not my posterior small intestine) is a common cause of food poisoning. As some of you may know, I did my PhD thesis work on Salmonella gastroenteritis (aka food poisoning) and I like to think that I am something of an expert on the topic.
Typically, Salmonella food poisoning outbreaks are localized and rarely reach epidemic proportions. However, there have recently been two major nationwide Salmonella outbreaks in the US —one in 2007 and now in early 2009.
The current outbreak has afflicted 388 people in 42 states and may be caused by the same strain (Saint Paul) that was responsible for the 2007 outbreak. Ultimately, the 2007 outbreak was linked to contaminated tomatoes. The jury is still out on the cause of the most recent outbreak. Needless to say, CDC scientists are scurrying to quickly identify the source of the current outbreak because it took the agency over 5 months to conclusively identify the culprit in the 2007 epidemic. Not surprisingly, many grocery stores and restaurants suffered financially because of the outbreak.
Many of you may be wondering why Salmonella food poisoning is becoming such a problem in the US. I don’t believe that the strains responsible for the most recent outbreaks are more virulent than the ones that have traditionally caused more localized outbreaks. Instead, the reliance of food manufacturers and grocery store chains on one or two major food distributors (rather than multiple suppliers) is likely responsible for the severity and breadth of these nationwide outbreaks. This suggests that regulatory agencies ought to more closely scrutinize the microbiological quality of the operations of the major distributors. I believe that those efforts would greatly reduce the likelihood of future major outbreaks of food poisoning.
Until next time.
Good Luck and Good Job Hunting (avoid raw vegetables, undercooked poultry and raw eggs)
