Author: Tony Coveny, Ph.D

Miami based Global Garlic, Inc. has issued a voluntary recall of its 12 ounce Cuajada Fresca and Cuajada Olanchana, UPC code 896211002380 with a Best Used by date between July 1st and December 31st of this year, after the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) announced it was investigating instances of human illness linked to consumption of those products. According to the release, the product may be contaminated with Listeria Monocytogenes, a dangerous bacterium that can cause serious illness and even death. The elderly, very young, and pregnant women are among the most susceptible groups, with Listeria being known to…

Escherichia coli (E. Coli) bacteria causes at least 400,000 deaths, and about 400 million cases of diarrhea each year – this according to scientists in the early stages of research intended to eventually develop an E. Coli vaccine to prevent the roughly 350 strains of E. coli which have been linked to human illnesses and death. According to one of the lead researchers, Astrid von Mentzer, E. Coli is the number one cause of diarrhea in the developing world, and a threat to human health globally. He, along with other researchers from Cardiff University and the University of Gothenburg, have…

The California Department of Public Health (CDPH), along with contributory information from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the U.S. Department of Agriculture-Food Safety and Inspection Service (USDA-FSIS), has issued a “final report” on the Salmonella Enterica Outbreak of Heidelberg, CDC Cluster 1306MLJF6-1, that was confirmed in nearly 500 Californians and over 600 in a wider 29 state geographical outbreak. According to the report, between March of 2013 and July of 2014, the outbreak strains of Salmonella Heidelberg were epidemiologically confirmed in 634 victims in 29 states and Puerto Rico, including the 490 California residents. Most…

At least eleven individuals in the Blandford area, southwest of London in the Dorset region (near Southampton), have acquired a rare form of E. coli never before recorded in the United Kingdom. The E. coli O55 has been tenuously linked to the Blandford Children’s Centre Nursery where at least two of the victims were attending when sickened. The first child was sickened in mid-October compelling the nursery to close for three days to engage in intensive cleaning and sanitizing of the premises. But then, over a month later, on Monday the 24th of November, a second child presented with the…

The latest bacterial outbreak linked to sprouts has now been linked to nearly 70 cases in 10 states, with at least 5 cases in New York where the Brooklyn company at the center of the outbreak is located. The company, Wonton Foods, Inc., supplied the bean sprouts to restaurants, mostly serving Asian cosine, and has assured inspectors that the product is no longer in circulation. This outbreak follows about 30 recorded bacterial outbreaks since 1996, or between one and two each year, linked to sprouts. The bacteria in this outbreak is salmonella, but others have been linked to Listeria and…

Earlier this year, during the summer, at least two Listeria deaths were alleged to have been caused by consumption of mung bean sprouts in the nation’s Midwest. This was preceded by an outbreak of E. coli mostly in the Eastern states, with at least 19 individuals being confirmed ill with E. coli after eating raw clover sprouts. And now, at least 63 individuals have been sickened with salmonella bacteria in a wide-spread, 10-state region of the nation’s Northeast. The illnesses, which began to present in late September, have continued into early this month. And although officials believe the suspected batch…

So far, of the nearly 6 dozen victims in a 10-state outbreak of two rare strains of salmonella, New Hampshire health officials have identified at least four individuals in their state linked to the outbreak. The New Hampshire Department of Health and Human Services (NHDHHS), and more specifically the Division of Public Health Services (DPHS), is warning potential victims to be wary as the consumption of bean sprouts at restaurants in the state has been identified as the source of their illnesses. According to the Director of Public Health at DPHS, Dr. José Montero, his agency “will continue to investigate…

The last shipment of contaminated bean sprouts was shipped on November 18, 2014, this according to the CDC’s report that the source of a five-cluster outbreak of two rare strains of salmonella bacteria has been identified. The outbreak, which has sickened more than five dozen consumers, began when the first victim presented with the symptoms of salmonellosis on September 30th, and soon grew as laboratories associated with the national surveillance system known as PulseNet identified more and more cases spanning a ten-state region in the north east. The beans sprouts were consumed at a number of restaurants in the region,…

Since September 30th of this year, state and local health officials had begun to see a spike in the number of reports of Salmonella Enteritidis, including at least five clusters of illnesses centered in the nation’s northeast. The cases, initially treated as distinct outbreaks, were linked through the PulseNet system, a network of laboratories throughout the U.S. that identify the DNA fingerprint of a given pathogen using pulsed-field gel electrophoresis (PFGE). What the laboratories found immediately raised concern, as two distinct and rarely reported PFGE patterns of Salmonella were identified in nearly 70 victims – between both of these rare…

The Massachusetts Department of Public Health (MDPH) has identified a cluster of salmonella illnesses. The announcement was made in Boston, Massachusetts, but implicates illnesses in more than one state, this according to health officials from MDPH. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is also looking for the source of the outbreak, which by definition is more than one illness in a “cluster” that is linked together by careful analysis of the salmonella bacteria taken from each victim (traditionally collected from stool samples or blood cultures). In this case, following standard protocol, cases of food borne illness were identified, sent…