Journalist and Author
This is a follow-up to my post over the weekend on the #StandingwithDNLee situation that enveloped Danielle N. Lee, Ph.D., her blog at Scientific American, SciAm’s partner organizations, and — by extension — the many thousands of people who expressed support for her. While the situation is sure to have a long tail, some significant […]
Read MoreA couple of unpleasant and deeply dismaying things have happened in the science blogosphere in the past 36 hours or so. I’m posting on it, along with a growing number of other science bloggers, in order to stand in solidarity with a fellow blogger and to ensure her voice is not silenced. (If you’d like […]
Read MoreThe Salmonella outbreak affecting 17 states involves multiple bacterial strains, some of which are drug-resistant. And the CDC is still shut down.
Read MoreLate-breaking news, and I’ll update as I find out more: While the government is shut down, with food-safety personnel and disease detectives sent home and forbidden to work, a major foodborne-illness outbreak has begun. This evening, the Food Safety and Inspection Service of the US Department of Agriculture announced that “an estimated 278 illnesses … reported in 18 states” have been caused by chicken contaminated with Salmonella Heidelberg and possibly produced by the firm Foster Farms.
Read MoreMuch of the U.S. government is shut down today. What are the potential health consequences of the Centers for Disease Control being offline? The FDA? The USDA? Wired Science blogger Maryn McKenna describes some possible implications.
Read MoreThe CDC has weighed in on the role that agricultural antibiotics might play in the rise of drug-resistant superbugs — and the news isn’t good.
Read MoreThe U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has just published a first-of-its-kind assessment of the threat the country faces from antibiotic-resistant organisms. The news isn’t good.
Read MoreFor the second time, the marketing crews at Chipotle have produced an ad that combines off-beat animation, an alternative-ish singer, and aspirations for a better food system into an educational, emotional message piece (which, to be fair, also sells burritos). The short film (at 3:23, it’s too long to be called an ad) was released […]
Read MoreCatching up to this news, which dropped quietly just before the holiday weekend: In a first, the US Department of Agriculture has given permission for chicken products processed in the People’s Republic of China to be sold in the United States without labeling that would indicate where the chicken products came from. The news was […]
Read MoreThis is an ICYMI (“in case you missed it”) post, twice over. Last week, former Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Donald Kennedy, Ph.D., wrote a piece for the Washington Post in which he urged that the FDA change how it regulates antibiotics that are used in agriculture as part of meat production. His prescription is […]
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