-- Plutonium Page
Minnesota's success in tracing the nationwide salmonella outbreak to peanut butter is a testament to its disease detectives. It also shows what's wrong with the nation's patchwork system of detecting dangerous illnesses spread by food. The system -- if it can be called that -- relies on 50 states and hundreds of local health agencies with widely varied expertise, funding and methods to detect pathogens loose in the food supply. The Minnesota investigators, based in the state health and agriculture departments, have cracked cases when other states have followed the wrong trail or didn't see one at all.
Minnesota's success in tracing the nationwide salmonella outbreak to peanut butter is a testament to its disease detectives. It also shows what's wrong with the nation's patchwork system of detecting dangerous illnesses spread by food.
The system -- if it can be called that -- relies on 50 states and hundreds of local health agencies with widely varied expertise, funding and methods to detect pathogens loose in the food supply. The Minnesota investigators, based in the state health and agriculture departments, have cracked cases when other states have followed the wrong trail or didn't see one at all.