Nutrition News & Views

July 31, 1997
Nutrition News & Views July 1997

Contents

National Dairy Council
The National Dairy Council's 1997 catalog of nutrition education materials is now available. To receive a copy contact their office at:

National Dairy Council
10255 West Higgins Road, Suite 900
Rosemont, IL 60018-5616
Phone: 1-800-426-8271
Fax: 1-800-974-6455

Mississippi is serviced out of the Atlanta office of the Southeast United Dairy Industry Association, Inc. Feel free to contact them if you need additional information. Trish Vignati, R.D. services Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, North Carolina, & South Carolina. Her phone number is 1-800-343-4693.

Safe Food Handling Information a Phone Call Away
Two Federal Government hotlines answer questions about safe food handling. For seafood safety, call the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) at 1-800-FDA-4010. Meat and poultry safety information can be obtained from the USDA Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) Meat and Poultry Hotline by dialing 1-800-535-4555.

Navigating the Road to Food Safety Information on the World Wide Web

(The Food Safety Educator, USDA/FSIS, 1997 Vol. 2 No. 1, by Cindy Roberts, USDA/FDA Foodborne Illness Education Information Center)

When foodborne illness outbreaks occur, the general public, as well as health professionals, have an overwhelming number of questions, many of which could be answered by a quick trip to one of many Federal sites on the World Wide Web.

Center for Disease Control (CDC) and Prevention(http://www.cdc.gov/)
CDC's home page provides access to a number of information sources _ including the widely disseminated Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report (MMWR) which provides case studies of foodborne illness outbreaks.

Foodborne illness statistics are always a hot topic _ and you can find them through CDC. You can access CDC's new 5-year surveillance summary for 1988-1992. To access the 68 page report, go to: http://ftp.cdc.gov/pub/Publications/mmwr/ss/ss4505.pdf. Items of interest from this report include:

  • In 59 percent of the outbreaks, the cause of the outbreak was not determined.
  • In the 41 percent of the outbreaks where a cause was identified, 79 percent were traced to bacterial pathogens.
  • Salmonella caused 69 percent of the bacterial outbreaks.
  • S. Enteritidis caused more deaths than any other pathogen. Of these deaths, 85 percent occurred among residents of nursing homes.
  • For each of the years covered in the report, the most commonly reported food preparation practice that contributed to illness concerned improper holding temperature.
  • The second most commonly reported practice concerned poor personal hygiene of food handlers.
(If you can't access the report and would like a copy, call our office and we will get you a copy.)

You can also check out fact sheets on all major pathogens, plus links to specific case studies from past issues of the MMWR. Access to the Bacterial Disease/Foodborne Diarrheal Diseases section can be found at: http://www.cdc.gov/ cidod/dbmd/foodborn.htm

Food and Drug Administration (FDA)
(http://vm.cfsan.fda.gov/list html)
The home page run by FDA's Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition is a good information resource. Food product recall press releases are posted here and consumers can find safe food handling information. This home page also contains FDA's Bad Bug Book. This is a more technical treatment of the subject matter than the CDC fact sheets. For some entries, there are links to literature review, research papers and other relevant sources. This online version is much more up to date than a printed version could possibly be.

Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS)
(http://www.usda.gov/fsis)
The FSIS site is loaded with food safety information, regulatory information concerning meat and poultry inspection, press releases, speeches, testimony, meeting information and more. Some of the most useful sections for the general public and health community include the meat and poultry product recall notices and publications area. Full-text publications are offered on everything from cutting board safety to summer food handling tips. If you are using a Web browser such as Netscape or Mosaic, you can e-mail the publications directly to people.

USDA/FDA Foodborne Illness Education Center
(http://www nal.usda.gov/fnic/foodborne/foodborn.htm)
For links to other food safety related sites check the USDA/FDA Foodborne Illness Education Center.

State Extension Sites for Food Safety Information
(http://www.reeusda.gov/new/statepartners/usa.htm)
You can connect to a wealth of food safety information at other state extension sites by accessing the above site.

The Food Safety and Quality web page of the MSU-ES home page will have links to the above mentioned sites.

Consumer Information Center (CIC) Catalog and Publications are now

The CIC offers more than 200 publications from the Federal Government on topics as varied as buying a home, managing money and food safety and health. Now the CIC Catalog, full-text publications and consumer news features are available electronically. To get the latest information on electronic access to CIC:
  • Address an e-mail message to: cic.info@pueblo.gsa.gov
  • Leave the subject line blank
  • Type only the words SEND INFO in the body of the message.
Or connect to the Consumer Information Service through the World Wide Web at:
http://www.pueblo.gsa.gov/

Food Safety News is Now Available Via E-mail

A daily summary of breaking stories concerning food safety is now available and can be subscribed to free of charge. The service, called FSNET, is produced by Doug Powell at the University of Guelph in Canada. The service provides an alert on foodborne illness outbreaks throughout the world. It also summarizes newly published journal articles and studies. To subscribe, user must send an E-mail message to:
listserv@listserv.uoguelph ca
Leave the subject line blank, but in the body of the mail message, type (all on one line):
subscribe fsnet-L Your First name Last name

Melissa Mixon, Ph.D., R.D., L.D.
Human Nutrition Specialist

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