Bill Marler

This Wednesday, October 28, the China International Food Safety & Quality Conference (CIFSQ) opens in Shanghai for its twentieth year. On Sunday morning I got a note from Cary Sun, the conference's Global Event Manager, telling me that as part of the 20th anniversary ceremony the conference will recognize me as a Distinguished Contributor. I will not be there to take the plaque – the day job, and a docket full of outbreaks, is keeping me on Bainbridge Island – so someone will accept it on my behalf and send it home. I wanted to say thank you here, where more people will see it.

The Virginia Department of Health (VDH) reports that all eight oyster meat samples collected from Little Wicomico Oyster Company (LWOC) cages on the Little Wicomico River on October 13 tested positive for Salmonella . Whole genome sequencing results, which will show whether the oyster isolates match the outbreak strain, are expected next week.

On October 26, 2026, the Department of Justice's Office of Legal Counsel issued an opinion to the Acting General Counsel of the Department of Health and Human Services titled Public Disclosure of Supply Chain Information in Foodborne Illness Outbreaks and Recalls HHS asked a simple question: is FDA authorized by law to tell the public who is in the supply chain of a food that is making people sick?

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration is cautioning pet owners not to feed two lots of Darwin's Natural Pet Products Natural Selections Chicken Recipe for Cats after FDA samples tested positive for Salmonella

As of October 26, 2026, the Virginia Department of Health has sequenced Salmonella Telelkebir, the outbreak serotype, in oysters from each of the

Some reporting tells you something you suspected. Some reporting proves it with numbers. “The FDA rarely inspects much of the produce Americans eat,” published this morning by The Washington Post, does the second. Tip of the pen to reporters Caitlin Gilbert and Rachel Roubein (with Diana Baptista contributing), who, for the first time, combined FDA fresh-produce import data with FDA inspection data to see who is actually being checked.

As of October 26, 2026, the Will County Health Department counts five laboratory-confirmed Shiga toxin-producing E. coli infections possibly

On Tuesday afternoon, October 27, the County of San Luis Obispo Department of Public Health announced five confirmed cases of Shiga toxin-producing E. coli (STEC) and an investigation into a possible link to Brookshire Farms, the pumpkin patch, corn maze and Christmas tree farm on Los Osos Valley Road. The farm has closed voluntarily while the county investigates. That makes ten confirmed STEC cases tied to two fall pumpkin farms in two states in five days – the other five being at Bengtson's Pumpkin Farm in Homer Glen, Illinois , where four of the five were hospitalized. Every October I write some version of this post. This year I am writing two.

On Tuesday afternoon, October 27, the County of San Luis Obispo Department of Public Health announcedfive confirmed cases of Shiga

In the space of five days this October, three health departments opened investigations into Shiga toxin-producing E. coli (STEC) infections tied to animals at fall attractions: five confirmed cases, four of them hospitalized, at Bengtson's Pumpkin Farm in Homer Glen, Illinois; five confirmed cases at Brookshire Farms in San Luis Obispo, California, which has closed; and a cluster of sick children Dallas County is investigating in connection with the petting zoo at the State Fair of Texas. None of this is new. What follows is a short history of how we got here, and the prevention measures that have been written down, revised and re-published for twenty years.