The U.S. Department of Agriculture's Food Safety and Inspection Service has issued a public health alert due to recent 32 salmonellosis poisoning cases in 12 states.

The department said illness caused by Salmonella may be associated with raw, frozen, breaded and pre-browned, stuffed chicken entrees

Mexico has quietly agreed to stop shipments of beef and processed poultry to the United States after U.S. officials repeatedly raised concerns over the quality and safety of Mexican food.

The action comes less than two months after U.S. Department of Agriculture officials finally traced a U.S. salmonella outbreak to shipments of fresh jalapenos and serranos peppers grown in Mexico. It is difficult to trace illness back to the contaminated source food that caused it, so before officials traced the outbreak to Mexican peppers, they warned people away from American tomatoes, costing U.S. farmers tens of millions of dollars

The new U.S. Food and Drug Administration law permitting the use of irradiation on spinach and iceberg lettuce will take some time before it will be practiced widely across the country.

According to David Gombas, senior vice president of the United Fresh Produce Association, the slow adoption to the technique is due to its cost, lack of irradiation facilities, questions over its effectiveness and consumer response to produce zapped by radiation waves

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) on Thursday allowed food processors to irradiate fresh spinach and iceberg lettuce to kill E. coli and other pathogens.

The use of ionizing radiation will not only eliminate pathogens but also extend shelf life, the FDA said on it website. Under the FDA rule, which takes effect Friday, the packages of irradiated lettuce and spinach, like other irradiated food products, will have to bear the radura logo and one of two statements: "treated with radiation" or "treated by irradiation

The bird flu detected in Nigeria last month is a new strain of the deadly H5N1 virus that has not been recorded in Africa previously.

Laboratory tests from Nigeria and the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) in Italy found the virus from "backyard poultry" in Katsina and Kano states to be an H5N1, clade 2, EMA3