Lab Matters Spring 2026 | Page 15

FEATURE

Protecting the United States food supply from pathogens and contaminants that cause foodborne illness has long been a multiagency effort at the federal level, with state and local health departments contributing to the investigation of, and response to, foodborne outbreaks. Today, as more human and animal foods are made with globally sourced ingredients, public health laboratories play an increasingly critical role in protecting food safety through testing innovations and collaborations that can help detect foodborne threats to US consumers and stop outbreaks before they start.

Sinisa“ Sin” Urban, PhD, chief of the Division of Environmental Sciences at the Maryland Department of Health( MDH) Laboratories Administration, says his laboratory works closely with the US Food and Drug Administration( FDA) to test samples of imported foods and ingredients. In 2022, MDH analyzed samples of imported enoki mushrooms and identified both strains of Listeria linked to an outbreak of Listeria monocytogenes infections in people who consumed the mushrooms. Six people in four states and Canada became ill and were hospitalized, and because of this testing, the FDA added enoki mushrooms from China to a countrywide import alert.

This collaboration is an example of how public health laboratories help protect US consumers from pathogens in imported foods.