Vice President Al Gore, Agriculture Secretary Glickman and HHS Secretary Shalala last week announced the launch of a national computer network able to identify outbreaks of food-borne diseases and a system to issue alerts five times more quickly.
The network, called PulseNet, will link public health laboratories and state health departments with investigators at the Centers for Disease Control, the Food and Drug Administration and the Agriculture Department.
Gore said PulseNet will be able to provide alerts via the Internet in as little as 48 hours for a "quick response to food safety outbreaks when and where they happen. ... Every single second counts."
PulseNet uses "fingerprint DNA" to identify and match such food-borne pathogens as the E.coli bacteria.
As of today, 16 states are connected to the system, and the CDC expects the rest to be added by 1999.
Gore also announced a new task force to bring federal, state and local agencies together to plan better responses to outbreaks of food-borne illnesses.
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