Bailee Henderson

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has asked the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit for a chance to withdraw the agency’s own decision to approve the fungicide difenoconazole for use on crops, agreeing with a lawsuit that states the agency needs to acquire more data on the fungicide’s toxicity.

A California U.S. District Court has upheld the authority of swine processing plant employees to pre-sort animals prior to slaughter as outlined in the Modernization of Swine Slaughter Inspection Rule under the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s New Swine Inspection Service.

A recent study has demonstrated that seasonality and food type can influence the enteric toxicity and bacterial count of foodborne Staphylococcus aureus.

Food Standards Australia New Zealand (FSANZ) has estimated the annual economic burden of foodborne illness in Australia and has valuated other costs associated with business losses, regulatory activities, and outbreak investigations and surveillance.

A study conducted by the UK Food Standards Agency has reported a noticeable increase in antimicrobial resistance (AMR) in Campylobacter from chicken meat to certain antibiotics over the last two decades; however, there has not been a significant increase since 2014.

The UK Animal and Plant Health Agency has published a report that provides an overview of incidences of Salmonella and the pathogen’s overall level of antimicrobial resistance (AMR) throughout the UK in 2021.

An ongoing study funded by the Center for Produce Safety is examining the survival of Salmonella and Listeria monocytogenes on surfaces in dry food packaging facilities, as well as the efficacy of dry cleaning processes on pathogen reduction. The first of three phases has concluded.

The National Association of County and City Health Officials recently published a study, grounded in the Voluntary National Retail Food Regulatory Program Standards, that analyzed the factors affecting the implementation of food safety risk factor intervention strategies among local retail food regulatory programs.

The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) and World Health Organization (WHO) have released findings from recent Joint Expert Meetings on Microbial Risk Assessment (JERMA) sessions on the prevention and control of microbiological hazards in fresh fruits and vegetables.

Recent studies have found that microplastics and nanoplastics move upward through the food chain and land in the human gut, and have also demonstrated the ability of the particles to encourage biofilm formation, harbor pathogens, and affect microbial growth in ways that may affect human health.