The Food and Drug Administration and the Texas Department of Health recently issued health alerts after four infants were hospitalized with botulism after using pacifiers containing honey.
While essentially rare worldwide, ninety percent of the world’s cases of infant botulism are diagnosed in the United States, mainly because of physician awareness.
So what is infant botulism and why should infants avoid honey?
Joining me to answer these questions and more is Amesh Adalja, MD. Dr Adalja is a Senior scholar at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security and an infectious disease expert.
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Related:
- LA County: More wound botulism cases reported
- Ukraine reports 8th botulism death of 2018
- Botulism: 29 confirmed foodborne cases in the US in 2016, most linked to Mississippi outbreak
More interviews with Amesh Adalja, MD:
- Adenovirus: What is it and why the high percentage of deaths in the NJ outbreak?
- Ricin: A weapon of assassination rather than mass destruction
- Undocumented immigrants and the import of infectious diseases: A real health security risk to the US?
- Totalitarian governments spawn infectious disease outbreaks that place other countries at risk
- Raw water: ‘In defiance of everything science tells us’
- The Donald Trump neurosyphilis article: Should a physician comment on this from a distance?
- Diphtheria: A short history, the disease, treatment and the success of the vaccines
