More Unwelcome News Coverage About Lab Testing Problems as Ice Cream, Clinical Laboratories, and Public Health Labs Get National Media Scrutiny
Houston newspaper breaks story about failure of many medical laboratories to report certain test results to public health laboratories, thus delaying investigations of disease outbreaks
Once again, problems with the existing system of medical laboratory testing made national news. This time, the key players were a maker of ice cream, clinical laboratories, and public health laboratories.
It was a Houston newspaper that first reported a pattern of failures in how clinical laboratories and public health laboratories communicate as clinical labs identify patients who tested positive for listeriosis, a bacterial infection most commonly caused by Listeria monocytogenes. These test results were associated with the recent listeriosis outbreak that was connected to Blue Bell ice cream.
Blue Bell, Listeria, and Lab Failures
On July 18, 2015, the Houston Chronicle reported on David Philip Shockley. He is a retirement community administrator who believes he contracted listeriosis by eating Blue Bell ice cream. (more…)
