BACKGROUND In Ontario, local public health inspectors play an important frontline role in protecting the public from foodborne illness. This study was an in-depth exploration of public health inspectors' perceptions of the key food safety issues in public health, and their opinions and needs with regards to food safety information resources. METHODS Four focus group discussions were conducted...

With the introduction of the Food Safety Initiative in 1997, food safety activities and research funding have increased dramatically. Advances in microbiological methods and epidemiologic research have provided significant progress in our understanding of foodborne diseases and in our implementation of control programs. This article highlights some of those food safety activities and epidemiolo...

Bacteriophages (phages) are naturally occurring viruses of bacteria that only infect and multiply within their specific bacterial hosts [1, 2]. Their host specificity is generally restricted at strain level, species level, or, more rarely, at the genus or class level. This specificity has allowed for directed targeting and killing of pathogenic bacteria using phages in what is referred to as ph...

Key Points • Despite the many potential health risks associated with foods, in practice the degree of risk associated with the modern food supply is extremely low. • By far the most important hazards of significance are those from biological agents: pathogenic bacteria, viruses, fungi and a few toxic seafoods. • Trends to larger-scale production, longer distribution chains in the food supply, i...

The destiny of nations depends on how they nourish themselves. Two papers in this issue of the Journal of Infectious Diseases focus on food safety from 2 different angles. First, in an elegant work from Finnish investigators [1], the culprit behind an epidemic caused by Yer-sinia pseudotuberculosis was uncovered: grated carrots. The same serotype and pulsed-fiel gel electrophoresis (PFGE) type ...

Globalization has engendered increased complexity in the modern society. This complexity penetrates almost every aspect of our life. In the context of food systems, globalized food supply chains have created greater challenges for assuring food safety, with myriad actors, who are economically, socially and culturally diverse, involved in the production and distribution processes. To manage such...

With the improvement of people’s living standards, the food safety issue occurs frequently. How to identify all kinds of risks, evaluate these risks scientifically and manage the risk control effectively are the challenge for each sully chain manager and the relevant researchers. In order to reduce the occurrence of the food safety issues and ensure the quality of the people’s life, it is neces...

Melamine (MEL) may be degraded into cyanuric acid (CYA) and some other analogs by rumen microorganism. This study was conducted to investigate the residue of MEL and CYA in milk and tissues of dairy cows fed with different doses of MEL. Forty mid-lactation dairy cows (157 ± 43 DIM, 20.8 ± 1.4 kg of milk/d) were divided into 4 groups (n = 10/group) in a completely randomized design. The cows of ...