According to Reuters, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is building a network—known as GenomeTrakr—of state and federal labs equipped to map out the exact DNA sequence of strains of Listeria, Salmonella, and other foodborne pathogens found in sick patients. These sequences are then uploaded to a public database housed at the National Institutes of Health (NIH).
The FDA has also begun sequencing pathogens found during routine plant inspections and adding those to the database. One benefit of that, they say, is being able to quickly connect patients within an outbreak. Another is the potential to identify the source of an outbreak after just a few patients fall ill, shortening the time it takes to get tainted food off store shelves.
Since the start of GenomeTrakr in 2012, 25,000 genomes from a variety of pathogens have been added to the database, and several state and federal partners, including the U.S. Dept. of Agriculture (USDA) and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), have signed on.
Now, the FDA wants manufacturers to contribute samples of pathogens found during their own plant inspections to increase the odds of a match. Some contamination is common in food plants. When it is found in the manufacturing facility, but not in food products, companies generally are required only to clean it up without recalling products.
However, convincing companies to offer up potentially incriminating evidence has been difficult. This is why the FDA and its partners are working on ways to allow companies to provide blind samples through a third party. One such program called VoluntaryNet at the University of Georgia would allow companies to provide samples anonymously. For companies, the program could alert them of pathogens residing in their plants. If a submitted pathogen starts making people sick, public health officials could alert companies about the problem, and possibly pull food off market shelves more quickly.
