July 2005

By Carole Sugarman
My daughter never met a chicken tender she didn’t like. But during a recent family vacation in Florida, 9-year-old Anna was struck with a bad case of salmonellosis — disease caused by salmonella. And while we’ll never know for sure, we strongly suspect it was caused by contaminated, undercooked poultry at one of her daily restaurant chicken meals.
There is more than a little irony in this tale of excruciating stomach pains, bathroom vigils and hospital emergency rooms.
As a food writer for 25 years, I’ve interviewed numerous victims of food-borne diseases and parents of children who’ve died from them. I’ve attended scores of conferences and hearings where food safety issues are debated among government officials, industry and activist groups.
But this was the first time I got to see firsthand how devastating full-blown food-borne illness can be. Believe me, we’re not talking about a bad tummy ache.Continue Reading A Taste of Food Poisoning

www.about-campylobacter.com
Campylobacter jejuni (Pronounced “camp-e-low-back-ter j-june-eye”) was not recognized as a cause of human foodborne illness prior to 1975. Now, the bacterial organism is known to be the most common cause of bacterial foodborne illness in the U.S.1 (Salmonella is the second most common cause).
Most cases Campylobacter infection occur as isolated, sporadic events, not as a part of the large outbreaks. Even though surveillance is very limited, over 10,000 cases are reported to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) each year. Active surveillance for cases indicates that over 17 cases for each 100,000 persons in the population (or about 46,000 cases) are diagnosed yearly.1 Undoubtedly, many more cases go undiagnosed and unreported, and estimates are that Campylobacter causes 2-4 million cases per year in the United States.4Continue Reading What is Campylobacter jejuni?