Personal Injury and Wrongful Death

PulseNet

PulseNet PFGEPulseNet has revolutionized foodborne outbreak investigations, making it possible to quickly identify a multi-state outbreak.  It is a network of local health departments, state health departments and federal agencies (CDC, USDA-FSIS, FDA) that maintains a database of the DNA fingerprints (PFGE patterns) of bacterial foodborne pathogens, including Escherichia coli O157:H7, Campylobacter, Listeria, Salmonella and Shigella that have sickened people throughout the country.

The PulseNet computer database of PFGE patterns is housed at CDC. PulseNet participants can submit PFGE patterns of pathogens that have made people sick to the database over the Internet. The PulseNet computer then automatically scans previously submitted patterns searching for matches, i.e., indistinguishable PFGE patterns of pathogens that have made other people sick around the country. If a match is found, a signal is given to the submitter that duplicate patterns are present and where they came from, so that an investigation can begin to look for a common source.

PulseNet is an invaluable resource that identifies multi-state outbreaks that would have most likely gone unnoticed. In the 2006 E. coli outbreak linked to bagged, fresh spinach, state epidemiologists uncovered the outbreak using PulseNet technology and quickly alerted the CDC. Within a short period of time, the FDA issued a warning regarding fresh, bagged spinach that may have prevented many more illnesses and deaths.

Pulsed Field Gel Electrophoresis (PFGE) is a methodology that digests bacterial DNA into fragments which can be run on gels, which produces unique patterns. Like human fingerprints, each bacteria and its offspring have a unique PFGE pattern. If two bacteria are found with an indistinguishable pattern, it is likely that they have a common source and may be part of an outbreak.  Read more about PFGE.


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