"virus" news and stories

Eating out can be a rather nasty business. Even in restaurants that exceed their state's cleanliness standards, food is generally handled by a succession of bare hands – some of them crawling with germs. Innumerable elements of the prototypical great dining experience – crowding together with friends, sharing appetizers, shaking the manager's hand at the end of an evening well-spent – are an epidemiologist's worst nightmare.

As servers, we're constantly exposed to all sorts of viruses. That's why it galls me that so many diners make the situation worse by ignoring hygiene altogether.

Of course, we can't quarantine cold-sufferers. But having the sniffles is not license to leave your wadded-up tissues all over your booth and half-sucked lozenges on your table. Why must so many diners treat linen napkins like handkerchiefs?

The FDA has just approved the a mixture of viruses, bacteriophages, to be used to kill bacteria commonly found in foods, marking the first time that a virus has been approved as a food additive. The mixture contains strains of six different bacteriophages designed to fight Listeria monocytogenes, the bacteria that cause listeriosis, a disease which sickens about 2,500 people per year and kills 500. Listeriosis primarily affects pregnant women, women who have just given birth and infants, in addition to other people who have weakened immune systems for one reason or another. The bacteria is found mostly in packaged, processed meat products, so the additive will be used on cold cuts, various sausages and other "ready to eat" meat products.

The FDA imposed its strictest standards to scrutiny to this additive, developed by a company called Intralytix, and is confident that the bacteriophages are safe. The Department of Agriculture will regulate and supervise the use of the additive. A spokesman for the Office of Food Additive Safety at the FDA says that " consumers will not be aware which meat and poultry products have been treated with the spray."

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A study was done recently that concluded that obesity might be contagious. This conclusion was extrapolated from data that showed an increase in the weight of chickens who had been exposed to the human adenovirus Ad-37. Adenoviruses can cause colds and other illnesses in humans. The reasoning seems to follow this line of thought: Chickens, when exposed to a particular, contagious human virus, got fat . Since it is a human virus, humans who catch this virus will get fat. Since the virus is contagious, it follows that obesity is contagious.

So is obesity only contagious when the carrier of the virus has a cold? Can you catch it from sitting next to someone on an airplane? To say that this line of reasoning is flawed is an understatement. It is simply incorrect.

Simply because a cold can cause a chicken (or a human, for that matter) to gain weight does not mean that all weight gain is caused by colds in general or this virus in particular. Nor does it mean that because colds are contagious, so is weight gain. Someone needs to retake their deductive reasoning courses.

 

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