In the news

The Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) announced a plan to expand its routine verification testing for six Shiga toxin-producing Escherichia coli (non-O157 STEC; O26, O45, O103, O111, O121, or O145) that are adulterants, in addition to the adulterant E. coli O157:H7, to ground beef, bench trim, and raw ground beef components other than raw beef manufacturing trimmings (i.e., head meat, cheek meat, esophagus meat, product from advanced meat recovery (AMR) systems, partially defatted chopped beef and partially defatted beef fatty tissue, low temperature rendered lean finely textured beef, and heart meat) for samples collected at official establishments. Currently, FSIS tests only its beef manufacturing trimmings samples for these six non-O157 STEC and E. coli O157:H7; all other raw beef products are presently tested for E. coli O157:H7 only. FSIS also intends to test for these non-O157 STEC in ground beef samples that it collects at retail stores and inapplicable samples it ...

Food safety magazine reported that the California Leafy Greens Marketing Agreement (LGMA) appointed a new subcommittee that will focus on how land adjacent to leafy greens farms is contributing to foodborne illness outbreaks associated with romaine lettuce. The group will work closely with university and government researchers to meticulously examine past and current studies. The subcommittee also plans to engage with landowners of properties located near leafy greens farms, including cattle and other crops like wine grapes. The Adjacent Lands Subcommittee will be making recommendations as part of an open, collaborative process now underway for improving the safety of leafy greens. This process is being facilitated by Western Growers and is currently considering new standards for water used to grow leafy greens and for soil amendments and other crop inputs. @ 

https://www.foodsafetymagazine.com/news/lgma-forms-adjacent-lands-subcommittee-to-address-romaine-lettuce-co...

The company produces ready-to-eat (RTE) sandwiches, salads, and bakery items.  visiting the facility in January of 2020 the FDA investigators found serious violations of the Current Good Manufacturing Practice, Hazard Analysis, and Risk-Based Preventive Controls for Human Food regulation. After receiving a reply letter from the FDA on February 19, the FDA issued a warning letter relating to sanitation control procedures and GMP violations. The company’s sanitation control procedures did not ensure the cleanliness of food-contact surfaces and prevention of cross-contamination. They did not implement written sanitation control verification procedures for environmental monitoring and did not do environmental monitoring as they had written in their plan. FDA found cockroaches, flying insects in the facility. Quality Dairy cleaning procedures were found to be inadequate and sanitation controls were not reviewed within 7 days.  @ https://www.fda.gov/inspections-complian...

A team of Princeton researchers reported in the journal Cell that they have found a compound (SCH-79797), that kills both Gram-negative and Gram-positive bacteria. The killing mechanism is through a unique dual-targeting mechanism of action (MoA) with undetectably low resistance frequencies. They demonstrated that SCH-79797 has two independent cellular targets, folate metabolism, and bacterial membrane integrity, and outperforms combination treatments in killing methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) persisters. Building on the molecular core of SCH-79797, they developed a derivative, Irresistin-16, with increased potency and showed its efficacy against Neisseria gonorrhoeae in a mouse vaginal infection model. The Princeton team found that even with extraordinary effort, they were unable to generate any resistance to this compound. This promising antibiotic suggests that combining multiple MoAs onto a single chemical may be an underappreciated approach to targeting an...