Viruses and bacteria can be found throughout our world: on table tops, in our bathroom sinks, and sometimes in the food we eat. E. coli, Salmonella, and Staph are some of the more common bacterial infections that can cause foodborne illnesses in humans. Hepatitis A and Calcivirus are two viruses that humans can contract from food. However, not all pathogens cause illnesses in humans. Some viruses only... [more]

Hepatitis A is a contagious liver disease that results from infection with the Hepatitis A virus. It can range in severity from a mild illness lasting a few weeks to a severe illness lasting several months. Hepatitis A is usually spread when a person ingests fecal matter — even in microscopic amounts — from contact with objects, food, or drinks contaminated by the feces or stool of an infected... [more]

A recent article by USA Today reported that school aged children may be at a significant risk of food poisoning from the foods served in school cafeterias. The newspaper looked at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) statistics between 1998 and 2007 regarding reported foodborne illness outbreaks related to school cafeteria foods. According to the paper, 470 school related food poisoning... [more]

Eating or drinking a foodborne pathogen isn’t the only way to contract a foodborne illness. People who are sick or infected with a food poisoning microbe can pass the bacteria, virus or parasite via the fecal-oral route. Person to person transmission (or secondary transmission) occurs in daycare centers, nursing homes and hospitals. Infected food workers can also pose a threat when they continue... [more]

Hepatitis A is a contagious liver disease that results from infection with the hepatitis A virus. It can range in severity from a mild illness lasting a few weeks to a severe illness lasting several months. Hepatitis A is usually spread when a person ingests fecal matter from contact with objects, food, or drinks contaminated by the feces or stool of an infected person. Infection can occur even if... [more]

While most foodborne illnesses are sporadic and often not reported, foodborne illness outbreaks may take on massive proportions. For example, in 1994, an outbreak of salmonellosis, an infection of Salmonella, due to contaminated ice cream occurred in the USA, affecting an estimated 224,000 persons. In 1988, an outbreak of hepatitis A, resulting from the consumption of contaminated clams, affected some... [more]

An estimated 76 million Americans contract a foodborne illness every year. That roughly works out to one in four citizens that at some time or another this year will do battle with a bacterial, viral, chemical or parasitic pathogen. Most of those people will suffer for a day or two and the sickness will pass without further complication. But for a few hundred thousand people the food poisoning will... [more]

After person eats a foodborne pathogen, such as Salmonella, E. coli O157:H7 or Norovirus, what is now going to happen? First, there is a period where the individual experiences a delay between ingestion and illness onset, this is called an incubation period. Incubation periods vary from pathogen to pathogen. Some can be quick like Norovirus which can onset in a matter of hours. Others, like Hepatitis... [more]

Some common diseases are occasionally transmitted through foodborne sources, even though they are usually transmitted by other routes.  These include infections caused by bacterium like Shigella, the virus hepatitis A and the parasites Giardia lamblia and Cryptosporidia.  Even strep throats have been transmitted occasionally through food. [more]

Newspapers are reporting that as many as 30 people have become infected with Hepatitis A after eating at a Milan, IL McDonalds.  It has been reported that a restaurant worker infected with the virus continued to prepare food for nearly a month before the restaurant was shut down and sanitized. As many as 10,000 people may have been exposed to the virus during that time. The hepatitis A virus (HAV)... [more]