Public health is often on the front-line of budgetary restrictions. And there’s indifference. Same in Australia.

As the University of Nebraska-Lincoln ramps up a $25 million war against E. coli announced at UNL earlier this week, federal scientists at Clay Center are hot on the trail of one potential source of the troublesome bacteria. It's wet distillers grain, an increasingly popular item in the state's cattle feedlots.

John’s second question that he asked me to answer was what effect did “career lifer bureaucrats” have on helping or hindering an undersecretary implement common sense change in policy at the USDA?

ABSTRACT

The Global Food Safety Initiative (GFSI), managed by The Consumer Goods Forum, announced today that a recent study conducted by the University of Arkansas shows that food manufacturers who achieve certification on one of the Global Food Safety Initiative (GFSI) internationally recognized benchmarked schemes strengthen their food safety programs resulting in safer food for consumers.

The salad chefs I know fall into two camps: Some serve pre-washed bagged leafy greens straight from the bag. The others insist on washing them first, even though the bag label promises that the contents are "triple-washed."

Survey results seem to indicate that about 80 percent of poultry growers don’t ever sanitize their crates, according to an Auburn University survey of 10,317 farms. What’s more, just 18.3 percent sanitize their trucks and trailers – two areas that contribute to the spread of Salmonella and Campylobacter.

A major public health threat Salmonella – a bacterium causing salmonellosis in humans – was until 2005 the most common food-borne disease in European Union (EU) with almost 200.000 reported human cases that year. It is estimated that the overall economic burden of human salmonellosis for the EU could be as high as EUR 3 billion a year.

It’s been just four months since a listeria outbreak linked to Colorado cantaloupes led to more than 140 reported illnesses and 30 deaths. But sources are optimistic that cantaloupes — and the entire melon category — will bounce back.