{"id":244,"date":"2009-01-17T15:19:22","date_gmt":"2009-01-17T20:19:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.nejm.org\/?p=244"},"modified":"2015-06-04T15:31:22","modified_gmt":"2015-06-04T19:31:22","slug":"salmonella-cdc-and-how-to-prevent-a-cold","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.nejm.org\/hiv-id-observations\/index.php\/salmonella-cdc-and-how-to-prevent-a-cold\/2009\/01\/17\/","title":{"rendered":"Salmonella, CDC, and How to Prevent a Cold"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/blogs.nejm.org\/hiv-id-observations\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2009\/01\/december142003bostoncommonsa_small1.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright size-thumbnail wp-image-245\" title=\"december142003bostoncommonsa_small\" src=\"http:\/\/blogs.nejm.org\/hiv-id-observations\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2009\/01\/december142003bostoncommonsa_small1.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"112\" height=\"150\" \/><\/a>Today&#8217;s ID\/HIV Link-o-Rama is being brought to you from the <a href=\"http:\/\/news.bostonherald.com\/news\/regional\/view.bg?articleid=1145657\" target=\"_blank\">frozen tundra of Boston, MA<\/a>:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>This past\u00a0summer&#8217;s salmonella outbreak that sickened more than 1000 people was linked to <a href=\"http:\/\/www.fda.gov\/bbs\/topics\/NEWS\/2008\/NEW01869.html\" target=\"_blank\">raw jalapeno and serrano peppers<\/a>.\u00a0 In the current one, the suspected culprit is <a href=\"http:\/\/www.fda.gov\/oc\/opacom\/hottopics\/salmonellatyph.html\">contaminated peanut butter<\/a>.\u00a0 Aside from the fact that raw hot peppers and peanut butter in a jar are both uncooked, I can hardly think of any two foods as being more dissimilar.\u00a0 (&#8220;Would you like some hot salsa with your peanut butter?&#8221;)\u00a0 Count food safety as one of the formidable challenges for the newcomers to the FDA (along with perhaps updating their <a href=\"http:\/\/www.foodsafety.gov\/~dms\/fs-toc.html\" target=\"_blank\">clunky web site<\/a>).<\/li>\n<li>Another government-agency transition will be taking place at the CDC, as current chief Julie Gerberding\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2009\/01\/11\/us\/11cdc.html?_r=1\" target=\"_blank\">will be stepping down<\/a>.\u00a0 (Can&#8217;t seem to find this info on their now-excellent <a href=\"http:\/\/www.cdc.gov\/\" target=\"_blank\">site <\/a>&#8212; maybe waiting for the official day, Jan 20 2009.)\u00a0 Her tenure will be forever linked to her strong position during\u00a0the anthrax attacks of 2001, which led to\u00a0her subsequent appointment &#8212; plus charges that she <a href=\"http:\/\/www.ajc.com\/services\/content\/printedition\/2009\/01\/11\/cdc.html\" target=\"_blank\">softened her position on global warming <\/a>to match that of President Bush.\u00a0 And there was a notable appearance in this famous <a href=\"http:\/\/www.style.com\/vogue\/\" target=\"_blank\">Journal of Epidemiology<\/a>.<\/li>\n<li>The pneumococcal vaccine has significantly <a href=\"http:\/\/www.cdc.gov\/mmWR\/preview\/mmwrhtml\/mm5801a1.htm\" target=\"_blank\">reduced cases of pneumonia in infants<\/a>, and <a href=\"http:\/\/content.nejm.org\/cgi\/content\/short\/360\/3\/244\" target=\"_blank\">meningitis <\/a>in both children and adults.\u00a0 The current rate of pneumococcal meningitis is 0.79 case per 100,000 persons, confirming what I always tell our ID fellows &#8212; that\u00a0bacterial meningitis is a rare entity indeed, so it&#8217;s no wonder we are consulted on virtually every case.\u00a0 It doesn&#8217;t matter that choosing the right antibiotic is usually easy; these cases are terrifying.<\/li>\n<li>Add a <a href=\"http:\/\/archinte.ama-assn.org\/cgi\/content\/short\/169\/1\/62\" target=\"_blank\">reduced risk of colds <\/a>to the (long) list of benefits associated with a good night&#8217;s sleep.\u00a0 Study volunteers (yes, people volunteered for this) were 3-fold more likely to get a cold after a rhinovirus challenge if they slept less than 7 hours a night.\u00a0 I am not by nature\u00a0one of those paranoid ID doctors who\u00a0believes that the world is filled with nasty micro-critters just waiting to strike &#8212; in fact, I&#8217;m relatively laissez-faire on <em>most<\/em> ID-related issues.\u00a0 (<a href=\"http:\/\/blogs.nejm.org\/index.php\/2008\/08\/04\/drive-on-the-right-most-of-the-time\/\" target=\"_blank\">Eating in Mexico City<\/a>, for example.)\u00a0However, I&#8217;m terrified of colds (am convinced the severity of colds is proportional to nose size) and can think of few greater motivations for getting\u00a0enough sleep than this latest research.<\/li>\n<li>Speaking of cold &#8212; cold weather, that is &#8212; the <em>high temperature<\/em> in Montreal yesterday was <a href=\"http:\/\/www.theweathernetwork.com\/index.php?product=obs24h&amp;placecode=caqc0363\" target=\"_blank\">-4.0 degrees Fahrenheit<\/a>.\u00a0 As I write this, it is a comparatively balmy 1 degree above zero.\u00a0 Say what you will about the CROI organizers, they are a hardy bunch.\u00a0 <a href=\"http:\/\/www.retroconference.org\/2009\/\" target=\"_blank\">This year&#8217;s meeting <\/a>should make those\u00a0Februaries in Chicago\u00a0seem like a trip to the Caribbean.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Stay warm!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Today&#8217;s ID\/HIV Link-o-Rama is being brought to you from the frozen tundra of Boston, MA: This past\u00a0summer&#8217;s salmonella outbreak that sickened more than 1000 people was linked to raw jalapeno and serrano peppers.\u00a0 In the current one, the suspected culprit is contaminated peanut butter.\u00a0 Aside from the fact that raw hot peppers and peanut butter [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,4,5,7,9],"tags":[65,167,211,244,348,370,805,825],"class_list":["post-244","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-health-care","category-hiv","category-infectious-diseases","category-misc","category-policy","tag-anthrax","tag-cdc","tag-colds","tag-croi","tag-fda","tag-food-safety","tag-retrovirus-conference","tag-salmonella"],"post_mailing_queue_ids":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nejm.org\/hiv-id-observations\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/244","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nejm.org\/hiv-id-observations\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nejm.org\/hiv-id-observations\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nejm.org\/hiv-id-observations\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nejm.org\/hiv-id-observations\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=244"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nejm.org\/hiv-id-observations\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/244\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nejm.org\/hiv-id-observations\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=244"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nejm.org\/hiv-id-observations\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=244"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nejm.org\/hiv-id-observations\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=244"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}