Food safety; Twitter for epis?

Is it safe to eat? This article outlines foodborne disease outbreaks and their prevalence in modern times. The author notes that food today is much safer with milk pasteurization, refrigeration, and other technologies. "Part of the explanation, public health experts say, is that the technology for identifying multistate outbreaks has improved greatly. Decades ago, the burden of illness was probably higher, but foods were not recalled as often, simply because investigators could not implicate them in a given outbreak. Now, modern genetic techniques can often link cases of food-borne illness, even in different parts of the country, allowing investigators to pinpoint the tainted food." Take a look at the rest of the article, it's interesting.

Twitter helping to identify epidemics? This visualization uses Twitter to track people's comings & goings around the globe. If not completely accurate or helpful to epidemiology, it's interesting. Take a look here.