Maryn McKenna's Blog, page 10

Shutdown Salmonella Outbreak Continues. CDC Food Safety Chief: ‘We Have a Blind Spot.’

The Salmonella outbreak affecting 17 states involves multiple bacterial strains, some of which are drug-resistant. And the CDC is still shut down.

There’s a Major Foodborne Illness Outbreak and the Government’s Shut Down

Late-breaking news, and I'll update as I find out more: While the government is shut down, with food-safety personnel and disease detectives sent home and forbidden to work, a major foodborne-illness outbreak has begun. This evening, the Food Safety and ...

A Few Ways the Government Shutdown Could Harm Your Health (And the World’s)

Much of the U.S. government is shut down today. What are the potential health consequences of the Centers for Disease Control being offline? The FDA? The USDA? Wired Science blogger Maryn McKenna describes some possible implications.

CDC Threat Report: Yes, Agricultural Antibiotics Play a Role in Drug Resistance

The CDC has weighed in on the role that agricultural antibiotics might play in the rise of drug-resistant superbugs -- and the news isn't good.

CDC Threat Report: ‘We Will Soon Be in a Post-Antibiotic Era’

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has just published a first-of-its-kind assessment of the threat the country faces from antibiotic-resistant organisms. The news isn't good.

Chipotle + Willy Wonka + Fiona Apple: Whimsy and a Better Food World

For the second time, the marketing crews at Chipotle have produced an ad that combines off-beat animation, an alternative-ish singer, and aspirations for a better food system into an educational, emotional message piece (which, to be fair, also sells burritos). ...

USDA: Chicken Processed in China Can be Sold in the US Without Labels to Say So

Catching up to this news, which dropped quietly just before the holiday weekend: In a first, the US Department of Agriculture has given permission for chicken products processed in the People’s Republic of China to be sold in the United ...

Two Former FDA Commissioners Agree: Ag Antibiotic Policies Must Change

This is an ICYMI (“in case you missed it”) post, twice over. Last week, former Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Donald Kennedy, Ph.D., wrote a piece for the Washington Post in which he urged that the FDA change how it ...

More Tickborne Diseases Other Than Lyme. Maybe Just Don’t Go Outside.

I said in Monday’s post (about the CDC changing its estimate of Lyme disease diagnoses in the US, raising it 10-fold from 30,000 new cases per year to 300,000) that there has been a run of recent news about other ...

CDC: Lyme Disease May Be Diagnosed 10 Times More Than Estimated

Recently I visited a relative on the eastern end of Long Island, about 90 miles outside New York City. The heat was brutal, and the house had no air conditioning and wasn’t accommodating to breezes — so on the first ...