Brent Denny, botany graduate student, and Associate Professor Paul Guy of the University of Otago, New Zealand have completed a study of plant viruses in South Island (SI) white clover pastures. They note inAustralasian Plant Pathology that this is the first survey of SI pastures in nearly 50 years.

Eating rice to prevent hypertension? The idea seems far fetched, but not unlikely. Researchers from Japan have  developed transgenic rice accumulating significant levels of the anti-hypertensive proteins gamma-aminobutyric acid (GABA) and nicotianamine (NA).

http://barfblog.foodsafety.ksu.edu/2009/05/articles/listeria-1/over-100-sickened-with-hepatitis-a-linked-to-dried-tomato-product-in-australia/index.html A semi-dried tomato product mixed with garlic, herbs and oil has been linked to a spike in hepatitis A cases in at least three states, health authorities say.

ALAMOSA -- Legal actions resulting from salmonella illnesses, death and business losses last year still threaten the City of Alamosa whose water system was linked to the 2008 outbreak. Contaminants in the water supply led to more than 400 reported salmonella cases, about two dozen hospitalizations and one death, Romeo resident Larry Lee Velasquez, Sr., 55.

CHILE -- At an average of 54 per cent, the levels of Campylobacter contamination on broiler carcasses in processing plants were similar to those found in studies in other countries, and the highest rates were found after evisceration. Guillermo O. Figueroa and colleagues at the University of Chile have published the results of their study in BMC Microbiology. Background

Seeking to buy eggs produced in a more humane way, McDonald's Corp. said Thursday that it would undertake a large-scale study involving tens of thousands of hens. But the Humane Society of the United States said the study probably would delay any significant move by McDonald's into the U.S. cage-free egg market -- a step some of its rivals have taken.

Swine Dysentery [SD] is one of the oldest, and yet still the most common and most economically-damaging, diseases of pigs. David Burch of the UK Pig Veterinary Society comments "Last year we had a number of herds in the UK break down with swine dysentery.

The Ukiah Wendy's was forced to shut down Tuesday after a federal complaint was filed by the Wendy's corporation against Jacob Zachariah, long time Wendy's franchise owner who the corporation alleges was very possibly serving unsafe food to customers since at least last summer.

First results from a large tissue survey in Britain of the agent that causes variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (vCJD) are unable so far to establish that the prevalence is lower than that given by previous estimates, concludes a study published on bmj.com today.