In this bonus episode of Food Safety Matters, we speak with two food safety experts from MilliporeSigma—Justyce Jedlicka, Food and Beverage Regulatory Liaison in North America, and Andrew Lienau, Food Regulatory and Validation Expert—to discuss the threat that Cronobacter poses to food safety and public health, and how testing for this complex pathogen is crucial to controlling its impact.
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has updated its infant formula compliance program, which outlines the agency’s approach to inspections, sample collection, sample analysis, and compliance activities for FDA personnel, with a focus on Cronobacter and Salmonella contamination.
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has provided an update on its work to prevent Cronobacter sakazakii illnesses associated with consumption of powdered infant formula.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Food Safety and Inspection Service (USDA’s FSIS) has announced a virtual public meeting of the full National Advisory Committee on Microbiological Criteria for Foods (NACMCF) on August 30, 2023 to discuss a report on Cyclospora cayetanensis in produce and a charge on Cronobacter in powdered infant formula.
A recent study conducted by researchers from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign concluded that, when sampling powdered infant formula for Cronobacter contamination, sampling with stratification may be more powerful than random sampling, and that taking more samples, even if smaller, increases the ability to detect contamination.
On June 29, 2023, the Council of State and Territorial Epidemiologists voted to make Cronobacter sakazakii a nationally notifiable disease, requiring health departments in the U.S. to track and report cases of C. sakazakii to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
In June, the Council of State and Territorial Epidemiologists (CTSE) will vote to decide if it will officially recommend adding Cronobacter sakazakii to the list of nationally notifiable diseases to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
The full committee of the National Advisory Committee on Microbiological Criteria for Foods (NACMCF) will hold a hybrid in-person and virtual public meeting on May 16, 2023, to provide an update on the Cyclospora cayetanensis in produce and Cronobacter in powdered infant formula subcommittee work.
In a letter, top U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) officials called upon the infant formula industry to help the agency in protecting infants by ensuring the safety of their products.
he U.S. Department of Justice’s Consumer Protection Branch has launched a criminal investigation against Abbott Nutrition due to the 2022 foodborne illness outbreak linked to powdered infant formula manufactured at the company’s Sturgis, Michigan facility.
