This year, the Los Angeles County Public Health Laboratory was host to the 15th Annual PulseNet Meeting in Long Beach, California, September 19-22, 2011. The meeting drew over 285 laboratorians, epidemiologists and environmental health professionals from the United States, Germany, Egypt and Canada. Participants represented federal, state and local public health and food regulatory agencies.
The theme for this year’s meeting was “PulseNet & OutbreakNet: Evolving Connectivity in Food Safety.” Drs. Victor Waddell, President of APHL and Robert Kim-Farley, Director, Communicable Disease and Control for Los Angeles County Department of Public Health gave insightful welcomes during the Welcome Session to start off this year’s meeting. Ms. Mimi Lachica, Long Beach Public Health Laboratory Director, gave a brief overview of the Long Beach Department of Health and the vast array of activities Long Beach had to offer participants. The keynote address was given by Caroline Smith Dewaal, Director of Food Safety, from the Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI). She described her current food safety activities at CSPI and presented data from the latest findings of CSPI’s All Over the Map and her ideas for an improved food safety system. The following day, Dr. Chris Braden, Director of CDC’s Division of Foodborne, Waterborne and Environmental Diseases, opened the first session of the meeting with a welcome address and discussed current challenges and opportunities laboratorians and epidemiologists are faced with at the local and state levels.
Open sessions were held again this year for CaliciNet, PFGE, MLVA and BioNumerics. These sessions provided laboratorians an opportunity to ask CDC experts and technical support staff from Applied Biosystems, Beckman Coulter Inc., Applied Maths and BioRad Laboratories protocol and troubleshooting questions.
The meeting began with a 15 year slideshow and history of PulseNet USA. Findings from the PulseNet Cost Benefit Study and updates to the FoodCORE and EHS-Net were presented. A second session was devoted to the current “hot topic” of non-culture methods and their potential impact to foodborne surveillance and programs such as PulseNet. The following session focused on new technology being used by PulseNet and OutbreakNet.. Topics included the PulseNet Web-portal, Palentir and SharePoint. An algorithm developed at CDC to detect clusters (CODA) was also presented. The state and local public health laboratorians and epidemiologists presented their outbreaks and described how PFGE clusters are monitored at local/state levels. Data sharing tools and practices were also presented by a number of state health departments. An epidemiologist from Germany gave an informative presentation on the international outbreak of STEC O104 infections in Europe which occurred this past summer. CDC provided updates on laboratory and data analysis tools. The meeting closed with a number of presentations from partner agencies and consumer groups. USDA and FDA presented updates on new regulations for meat products and FDA gave an overview and updates on the Food Safety Modernization Act (FSMA) and activities from the office of Criminal Investigations. Participants also learned of a new network, VolunteerNet, a database that industry is currently building for food isolates. The meeting adjourned with a talk on a project the Center for Foodborne Illness Research and Prevention is conducting to assess the long-term sequelae of foodborne disease and a presentation from Kansas State University on food safety culture.
Breakout session topics included laboratory/BioNumerics troubleshooting and MLVA updates, epidemiology/laboratory communication, NORS, a national hypothesis generating/core elements questionnaire, updates on environmental health activities and CIFOR Guidelines. A poster session was held for laboratorians and epidemiologists to display lessons learned from outbreak investigations and projects that were completed during the past year.
This meeting further strengthened PulseNet and OutbreakNet networks by sharing information on new methods, technology and experiences. Moreover, new partnerships among laboratorians, epidemiologists and environmental health specialists were formed and existing relationships were enhanced through the numerous networking opportunities during the meeting.
Food safety resource limitations are being felt at every level in the U.S. government from the local and state laboratories to CDC, USDA and FDA. Throughout the meeting, discussions were held surrounding these types of challenges that face our current food safety system. The discussions also included: workforce reductions, the importance of communication and standardization of data sharing among the different agencies and the limitations of epidemiological investigations in terms of data collection and cluster prioritization. Based on these discussions, meeting participants can conclude that networks such as PulseNet and OutbreakNet are important to the country’s food safety system and leadership will continue to fight for additional resources.
For more information on the PulseNet Update Meeting or for inquires related to the PulseNet Network, please contact Kristy Kubota, Senior Specialist, PulseNet Program for APHL at kristy.kubota@aphl.org.
Slide Presentations
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Monday, September 19, 2011
Welcome Session
Welcome to Long Beach
Mimi Lachica, Long Beach Public Health Laboratory
Welcome
Robert Kim-Farley, Los Angeles County Department of Public Health
15 Years of PulseNet: Evolution of a Foodborne Pathogen Tracking Network
Brian Sauders, New York State Department of Agriculture & Markets
All Over the Map: Ideas for Improving State Outbreak Reporting
Caroline Smith DeWaal, Center for Science in the Public Interest
Tuesday, September 20, 2011
Session I: PulseNet and FoodCORE - The Essential Connection between Laboratory, Epidemiology and Environmental Health
Introduction and Welcome
Christopher Braden, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
The PulseNet Cost-Benefit Study: It’s All Good and Should Only Get Better
Craig Hedberg, University of Minnesota
FoodCORE: OSS 2.0
Jennifer Wright, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
Environmental Health Specialists Network (EHS-Net): 11 Years of Collaboration
Carol Selman, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
Session II: Challenges of Non-culture Methods
Potential Impacts of Culture-Independent Diagnostics on Enteric Disease Surveillance and Investigation Activities
John Besser, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
Multicenter Study to Evaluate Diagnostic Methods for Detection and Isolation of Campylobacter from Stool
Patricia Fields, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
Epidemiology of Shiga Toxin-producing E. coli (STEC) Infections and the Role of the Shiga Toxin Enzyme Immunoassay
Patricia Griffin, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
Session III: Technology: Improving Communication, Detection and Coordination in Outbreak Response
Multistate Foodborne Outbreak Investigations Using the Palantir Platform
Thai-An Nguyen, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
The PulseNet Web Portal and SharePoint
Peter Gerner-Smidt and Brenda Brown, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
Data Sharing and Communication in Massachusetts
Tracy Stiles and Emily Harvey, Massachusetts Department of Public Health State Laboratory
CODA Overview
John Copeland, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
Session IV: International Connectivity During Outbreak Response
Reach and Impacts of Cholera in Haiti
Daphne Moffett, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
International Outbreak of STEC O104:H4 Associated with Fenugreek Sprouts – Epidemic Profile and Investigations in Germany
Dirk Weber, Robert Koch Institute
PulseNet USA’s Response to International Outbreaks
Steven Stroika, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
PulseNet, Subtyping and International Outbreaks
Efrain Ribot, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
Wednesday, September 21, 2011
Session V: Evolution from Lab Results to Usable Data
2011 PulseNet PFGE Laboratory Update: PFGE Myth Busters
Molly Freeman, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
The Current State of MLVA Protocols and Data Interpretation
Eija Trees, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
PulseNet Database Reminders, Updates, and Future Changes
Beth McGlinchey, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
Clusters Detection and Reporting: Why Doesn't Everything Get a Code?
Kelly Hise, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
Prioritization of Clusters from a Large Lab Perspective
Carol Sandt, Pennsylvania Department of Health
Cluster Prioritization: Does Size Really Matter?
Pamela O'Brien, Hawaii Department of Health
"The OC" Perspective of Prioritization of Clusters
Julia M. Wolfe, Orange County Public Health Laboratory
Session VI: Perspectives on Food Policy and Regulation
USDA FSIS Perspective
Emilio Esteban, US Department of Agriculture, Food Safety and Inspection Service
FDA Perspective
Susan Lance, US Food and Drug Administration
Florida Department of Agriculture: Food Laboratory Capacity and Impact of the Food Safety Modernization Act on State Laboratories
Amy Bryant, Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services
Industry Perspective
Will Daniels, Earthbound Farm
Thursday, September 22, 2011
Session VII: Connecting Food Safety to the Community
Food Safety Concerns and Strategies to Increase Fruit and Vegetable Access in Schools: Gardens and Salad Bars
Diane Harris, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
From Farm to Fork to Physician: Assessing the Long-term Sequelae of Foodborne Disease
Barbara Kowalcyk, Center for Foodborne Illness Research and Prevention
FDA's Office of Criminal Investigations, Building Relationships with our Federal, State, and Private Partners
George Hughes, US Food and Drug Administration
Food Safety Culture
Douglas Powell, Kansas State University
Poster Abstracts
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