bioMérieux's GENE-UP® Pathogenic Escherichia coli assay has been selected by the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Food Safety and Inspection Service’s (USDA’s FSIS’) Field Service Laboratories as the primary method for Shiga toxin-producing E. coli (STEC) detection.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has revealed preliminary findings from a multi-year environmental study of a specific growing region in the Southwest U.S., which sought to better understand the ecology of human pathogens in the environment.

As part of the agency’s Leafy Greens STEC Action Plan, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has published a report detailing the results of targeted inspections and microbiological testing of leafy greens grown in Salinas Valley, California during the region’s 2022 harvest season.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has updated its Leafy Green STEC Action Plan (LGAP), which outlines the agency’s efforts to reduce foodborne illness outbreaks linked to leafy greens that were caused by Shiga toxin-producing Escherichia coli (STEC).

A recent study aiming to describe the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on cases of foodborne enteric diseases in Canada found a considerable reduction in cases in 2020 compared to pre-pandemic levels.

Researchers from Livsmedelsverket, known as the Swedish Food Agency in English, have developed a new approach for ranking and classifying strains of Shiga toxin-producing Escherichia coli (STEC) based on potential public health burden.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Food Safety and Inspection Service (USDA’s FSIS) has notified constituents that establishments wishing to adopt the cloth sampling method (i.e., manual sampling device or continuous sampling device) for Shiga Toxin-producing Escherichia coli (STEC) testing of raw beef products no longer require a “No Objection Letter” (NOL) from FSIS.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has worked with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to update the protocol for the development and registration of antimicrobial treatments for preharvest agricultural water, removing Listeria monocytogenes from the organism test panel.

A recent study is the first to track foodborne pathogens from specific pigs and their associated pork products at all points in the supply chain, from the farm to retail stores. The antimicrobial resistance (AMR) of the pathogens was also evaluated.

A Center for Produce Safety-funded study is working to characterize the physiological changes that occur in Shiga toxin-producing Escherichia coli O157:H7 (STEC) bacteria that is present on romaine lettuce during postharvest cooling and refrigerated transport to processors, which could affect the pathogen’s virulence and detectability characteristics. The end goal of the research is to develop an easily accessible online tool for industry that identifies practices to mitigate the risks of STEC transmission via romaine lettuce.