Food Security - National Agricultural Biotechnology Council ...

Figure 10. All Salmonella Typhimurium, 9/1/2008–12/15/2008, weekly.“Before” and “after” pictures are shown in Figure 12. The upper “before” picture is theepidemiologic curve from the Jack In The Box outbreak of E. coli O157 in 1993, whichtook a long time to detect and resulted in many cases and four deaths. After seven weeks,150,000 hamburger patties were withdrawn. The lower “after” pattern, of a 2002 outbreakof E. coli O157:H7 in Colorado, starts out looking similar whereas rapid detection ledto early recall of hamburger meat and curtailment of the outbreak. This is an example ofhow PulseNet works and a hundred similar examples exist.The theory underpinning PulseNet is that by detecting more outbreaks and curtailingthem, future disease incidence will be reduced. We have seen this occur with listeria(Figure 13). Subsequent to the initiation of PulseNet for listeria in the 1990s, we detectedmore outbreaks, and, recognizing the roots of the problems, disease incidence fell. Wehave a long way to go with shiga-toxin-producing E. coli and salmonella, but every caseof those diseases is potentially preventable; we need to work harder to reduce the burdenof disease.180 Food Security: The Intersection of Sustainability, Safety and Defense