Perspective: Emerging infectious determinants of chronic diseases
0 Comments Published by jab on June 26, 2006 at 11:29.
Evidence now confirms that noncommunicable chronic diseases can stem from infectious agents. Furthermore, at least 13 of 39 recently described infectious agents induce chronic syndromes. Identifying the relationships can affect health across populations, creating opportunities to reduce the impact of chronic disease by preventing or treating infection. As the concept is progressively accepted, advances in laboratory technology and epidemiology facilitate the detection of noncultivable, novel, and even recognized microbial origins. A spectrum of diverse pathogens and chronic syndromes emerges, with a range of pathways from exposure to chronic illness or disability. Complex systems of changing human behavioral traits superimposed on human, microbial, and environmental factors often determine risk for exposure and chronic outcome. Yet the strength of causal evidence varies widely, and detecting a microbe does not prove causality. Nevertheless, infectious agents likely determine more cancers, immune-mediated syndromes, neurodevelopmental disorders, and other chronic conditions than currently appreciated. Infectious agents have emerged as notable determinants, not just complications, of chronic diseases. Not infrequently, infection may simply represent the first misstep along a continuum from health to long-term illness and disability. Preventing or treating infection or the immune response to infection offers a chance to disrupt the continuum, avoiding or minimizing a chronic outcome. To capitalize on these opportunities, clinicians, public health practitioners, and policymakers must recognize that many chronic diseases may indeed have infectious origins. For the complete research article, please go here. Read more!
Ozone was good, but adding ionization appears to be better when it comes to getting rid of foodborne pathogens. And what is ionization? Jim Marsden of a Food Safety Consortium research team at Kansas State University likens a new process using ionization to a 'miniature sun' of ultraviolet energy interacting with oxygen and drawing particles out of the air, thus producing an antimicrobial effect.
'When Mount St. Helens went off, you had all these particles floating around,' Marsden said. 'The reason they're not still floating around is that ionization from the sun caused them to fall out of the air.' Marsden's KSU team worked with EcoQuest International, a Greeneville, Tenn.-based company, to determine the potential use of its ionization generator for food safety in processing plants. The researchers wanted to find out its effectiveness in reducing several pathogens including E. coli, Listeria monocytogenes and Staphylococcus aureus. For the original, please go here. Read more!
'When Mount St. Helens went off, you had all these particles floating around,' Marsden said. 'The reason they're not still floating around is that ionization from the sun caused them to fall out of the air.' Marsden's KSU team worked with EcoQuest International, a Greeneville, Tenn.-based company, to determine the potential use of its ionization generator for food safety in processing plants. The researchers wanted to find out its effectiveness in reducing several pathogens including E. coli, Listeria monocytogenes and Staphylococcus aureus. For the original, please go here. Read more!
A British study suggests that the use of cast copper alloys containers used in food processing may help prevent cross-contamination of E. coli. Researchers at the University of Southampton and Copper Development Association Inc. in New York studied cast copper alloys -- a mixture of metals containing varying degrees of copper -- and stainless steel exposed to E. coli, some mixed with beef juice, some without incubated at either 22 degrees Celsius or 4 degrees Celsius for up to six hours. E. coli O157 is a serious food-borne pathogen worldwide found in cattle, and many outbreaks have been associated with consumption of undercooked ground beef. Stainless steel has been the metal of choice for food preparation. The results clearly demonstrate the antimicrobial properties of cast copper alloys with regard to E. coli O157, and consequently these alloys have the potential to aid in food safety, the researchers wrote in the journal Applied and Environmental Microbiology. No significant reduction in cell numbers was reported for stainless steel.Read original Read more!
Effect of refrigeration on in vitro penetration of Salmonella Enteritidis through the egg yolk membrane (Journal of Food Protection article)
0 Comments Published by jab on at 15:34.
Internally contaminated eggs have been implicated as leading sources of transmission of Salmonella Enteritidis (SE) to humans. Although SE is not often deposited inside the nutrient-rich yolks of naturally contaminated eggs, penetration through the vitelline membrane to reach the yolk contents could result in rapid bacterial multiplication. In previous studies, such penetration has been observed occasionally at warm temperatures during experiments with in vitro egg contamination models. The present study was conducted to determine whether refrigeration affects the frequency of in vitro SE penetration of the egg yolk membrane. After inoculation of small numbers of SE onto the outside of the vitelline membranes of intact yolks, immediate refrigeration of contaminated samples prevented the penetration of SE into the egg yolk contents during 24 h of storage. However, SE penetrated inside the yolk contents in 4% of contaminated egg samples refrigerated after 2 h of storage at 30°C, 15% of samples refrigerated after 6 h of storage at 30°C, and 40% of samples stored at 30°C for 24 h (48 samples per treatment group). These results highlight the value of prompt refrigeration for restricting the opportunities for SE to multiply to high numbers inside the yolks of contaminated eggs.Read original Read more!
"Myths, Lies and Downright Stupidity" by John Stossel on food irradiation
0 Comments Published by jab on at 15:13.
In his latest book, "Myths, Lies and Downright Stupidity," John Stossel expands on his popular "Myth" segments on ABC Television's "20/20" and unearths truths often distorted -- or disregarded -- by the media. Below is an excerpt: Thomas Jefferson said he'd rather live in a country with a free press and no government, than in one with a government but no press. "The only security of all is in a free press," he wrote. "It is necessary, to keep the waters pure." I couldn't agree more. Without media to tell us about the excesses of government, the risks of life, and the wonderful new ideas that emerge constantly from every cranny in America, our lives would be narrow, and our freedom diminished. The Fourth Estate both informs and protects us. "Where the press is free, and every man able to read," said Jefferson, "all is safe." However, thirty-six years working in the media has left me much more skeptical of its product. Reporters are good at telling us what happened today: what buildings burned down, what army invaded, the size of the hurricane that's coming. Many reporters take astonishing risks to bring us this news. We owe them thanks. But when it comes to science and economics, and putting life's risks in perspective, the media do a dismal job. MYTH: Radioactivity is deadly; keep it away from food! TRUTH: Food irradiation saves lives. A classic example of journalists falling for a stunningly stupid scientific scare -- falling en masse and really hard -- was the outcry over treating food with radiation. The irradiation process would give consumers wonderful new options: strawberries that stay fresh three weeks, and chicken without the harmful levels of Salmonella that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says kill six hundred Americans every year, and cause countless cases of food poisoning. (The last time you thought you had the flu, you may have really been sick from bacteria on chicken -- this is no myth! Wash the counter, your hands, and everything that touches raw meat, because they are all crawling with potentially dangerous germs.) But reporters and environmental activists don't worry much about the horrible toll from bacteria. For some reason, even when bacteria pose a far greater risk, the media obsess about chemicals and radiation. Radiation! Horrors! Three Mile Island! Jane Fonda! Nuclear bombs! They don't worry much about bacteria because bacteria is natural. But radiation is natural too. We are exposed to natural radiation every minute of our lives: cosmic radiation from space, radiation from the ground, and radiation from radon in the air we breathe. Every year, the average U.S. citizen is exposed to natural radiation equal to about 360 dental X-rays. The reporters and protesters probably didn't know that, but even if they did, they'd still be upset because irradiation plants propose passing radiation through food. News stories featured Dr. Walter Burnstein, founder of a "consumer group" named Food & Water, saying, "This will be a public health disaster of the magnitude we have never seen before!" I have to admire the activists' skill in naming groups: Food & Water. What reporter could argue with a group with a name like that? They must be the good guys, right? I interviewed Dr. Burnstein and his "political organizer," Michael Colby. MR. COLBY: If you look at the existing studies on humans and animals fed irradiated food, you will find testicular tumors, chromosomal abnormalities, kidney damage, and cancer and birth defects. STOSSEL: Caused because somebody ate irradiated food? MR. COLBY: Absolutely. Absolutely. STOSSEL: [Food & Water claimed an Indian study had said that, but we called the author and she told us she didn't conclude that at all.] We just talked to her and she says she didn't say that! She never said those kids were developing cancer. DR. BURNSTEIN: These are pure scientists and she doesn't want to make that break. We are taking it the extra inch. We're saying to people, "Don't -- don't be put to sleep by people who work in test tubes -- don't." I don't need proof that it goes to cancer. We already know it leads to cancer. Reporters gave Burnstein and Colby's dubious claims so much credulous press coverage that politicians in Maine quickly banned food irradiation. New York and New Jersey followed suit. That spread fear to other states. I went to Mulberry, Florida, to report on a protest against Vindicator, a plant that proposed using radiation to kill germs on strawberries. When I got there, demonstrators were marching with picket signs, chanting, "Don't nuke our food! Don't nuke our food!" Their campaign persuaded the state of Florida to put a moratorium on Vindicator's opening. DR. BURNSTEIN: Vindicator will go out of business, and not only Vindicator. That'll be the end of the entire irradiation industry ... When we go to talk to people, we don't have to break their arms to convince them not to eat irradiated food. We just say, "Irradiated food," and people go, "What? Who wants the food irradiated?" The fact that Dr. Burnstein was not a research scientist, but rather an osteopath with a family practice in New Jersey, didn't diminish the respect he got from the media. His protests drew headlines and TV coverage. Reporters knew radiation was bad for humans, and therefore bad for food. One woman stood outside the Vindicator plant shouting angrily, "How much pollution are we going to put into our mouths?!" "None," is the answer. People think food irradiation makes food radioactive, but it doesn't; the radiation just kills the bacteria, and passes right out of the food. That's why the FDA and USDA approved the process a long time ago. Spices have been irradiated for more than twenty years. Irradiation is good for us. If it were more common, all of us would suffer fewer instances of food poisoning and we could have fruits and vegetables that stay fresh weeks longer. But scaremongering has kept it from catching on. Food & Water told people that the AMA and the World Health Organization did not approve of irradiation, but that was a lie. Both organizations did approve. WHO told us irradiation is as important as pasteurization. Pasteurization also met public skepticism when it was introduced. Louis Pasteur discovered that heating milk would kill bacteria, but critics charged that pasteurization was "meddling with nature," and that it might change the properties of the food-or contaminate it. The U.S. dairy industry actually promoted raw milk as more acceptable than pasteurized milk. Only the persistence of scientists and medical experts allowed pasteurization to become standard practice. Irradiation might save as many lives, if the scaremongers would just get out of the way. After three years of delays, the Vindicator plant finally was allowed to open. But fear of radiation has kept this good idea from spreading across America. Only a tiny fraction of American meat is irradiated today. If 50 percent were irradiated, the CDC says nearly a million cases of bacterial infections could be avoided and 350 lives could be saved every year. 350 lives! Why isn't the press screaming about that? Because reporters and legislators look for danger in the wrong places. Many reporters believe the activists because "something must be causing the cancer epidemic." Mysterious and unnatural additions to our environment are an easy suspect. After all, during the past fifty years, Americans have been exposed to chemicals and forms of pollution and radiation that humans have never experienced before. "No wonder there's so much more cancer!" say reporters. Get the shovel.Read original
