The headlines about Shigella have taken a sharp turn. For most of my career the bug showed up in the news the way I knew it best — a daycare outbreak, a sick restaurant worker, a batch of contaminated produce. Lately the headlines read more like something out of an STI clinic: “sexually transmitted superbug,” “drug-resistant Shigella spreading among […]
Holding an FDA-only Listeria summit is not a structural necessity. It is a choice. And it is the wrong one. On July 8, the FDA announced a public meeting on August 18-19, 2026, at the Harvey W. Wiley Federal Building in College Park, Maryland, on the prevention of Listeria monocytogenes. It is billed as the first in […]
E. coli O145:H28 is a Shiga toxin–producing E. coli — a STEC, in the shorthand. The number-and-letter name is just how microbiologists fingerprint the bug: “O145” describes the sugar coat on the outside of the cell, and “H28” describes its flagella, the little whip it swims with. Put them together and you have one specific, […]
If there is one sentence every family kept taped to the freezer door, it is this: when in doubt, throw it out. I honestly do not know who coined the phrase. But whoever it was understood something a lot of companies still don’t: a bag of contaminated food is never worth a child’s kidneys. On July 3, […]
Over at USA TODAY health reporter Mary Walrath-Holdridge asked a simple, sensible question: which states have the most cases of the “explosive diarrhea” parasite going around this summer? It is exactly the question a worried parent, a restaurant owner, or a public-health nurse would type into a search bar. And it is a question the country’s official outbreak map […]
Another organic product, another Shiga toxin-producing E. coli outbreak, and another family who did nothing wrong except buy blueberries at their neighborhood grocery store. The FDA and CDC, along with state and local partners, are investigating a multistate outbreak of E. coli O145:H28 infections linked to frozen GreenWise-brand organic blueberries recalled by Frutas y Hortalizas […]
FSIS has a new pilot. The agency is inviting poultry plants to volunteer to measure Salmonella more precisely as birds move through slaughter and processing — either by biomapping the plant top to bottom, or by building a validated critical control point for Salmonella into their HACCP plan, quantifying and serotyping as they go. In return, a plant that signs […]
Location on Illnesses – Florida and Georgia. The FDA and CDC, in collaboration with state and local partners, are investigating illnesses in a multistate outbreak of E. coli O145:H28 infections linked to frozen GreenWise brand-organic blueberries recalled by Frutas y Hortalizas del Sur S.A, of San Carlos, Chile. On July 1, 2026, the Florida Department of Health […]
On July 6, 2026, the CDC and FDA updated their joint investigation of the infant botulism outbreak linked to Nara Organics Whole Milk Organic Powdered Infant Formula. A fourth infant has now been confirmed sick. All four babies — every one of them a boy between two and five months old — were hospitalized and treated […]
Frutas y Hortalizas del Sur S.A., San Carlos, Chile is recalling frozen GreenWise Organic IQF Blueberries 10 oz. Because it may be contaminated with Escherichia coli O145:H28 (E. coli O145). E. coli O145 is a Shiga toxin-producing E. coli (STEC) that can cause illness characterized by severe stomach cramps, diarrhea (which may be bloody), and vomiting. While most healthy individuals recover within […]
The Honorable Bill Cassidy, M.D., ChairmanThe Honorable Bernie Sanders, Ranking MemberCommittee on Health, Education, Labor, and PensionsUnited States Senate428 Senate Dirksen Office BuildingWashington, DC 20510 Re: Finish what the Senate started — botulism in infant formula, the shared milk and powdered-milk supply behind two outbreaks, and the case for hearings and parent testimony Dear Chairman Cassidy, […]
Today the FDA updated its Nara Organics infant botulism outbreak page with two findings that matter. First, FDA’s traceback determined that the Nara formula lots fed to the three sick infants were made with milk supplied by Organic West Milk (Organic West) and spray-dried by Dairy Farmers of America (DFA) — the same two suppliers behind the ByHeart botulism outbreak […]
On June 2 you toured a formula plant in Eau Claire and, the same day, stood on a dairy farm and praised whole milk. I represent the families whose babies were hospitalized by what was in that milk — in powdered form. They have not been in the room. Dear Secretary Kennedy: You know I […]
You spent years as a lawyer defending an infant-formula maker against claims that it failed to warn. Now you hold the pen at the FDA. I am writing to ask you, one formula lawyer to another, to require the testing and inspection that would actually meet the standard of care — across the whole chain […]
Illnesses reported in Illinois, Maryland, New York and Virginia. 10 have been hospitalized and 1 death has been reported from Maryland. Epidemiologic, laboratory, and traceback data show that some requesón cheeses supplied by Clover Hill Dairy are contaminated with Listeria monocytogenes and are making people sick. The investigation is ongoing to determine the source of […]