You Read about Food Poisoning

Flipping through the "Infectious Diseases Caused by Bacteria" section, a "Food Poisoning" chart catches your eye. You read on about some bacteriological diseases that humans can contract from food, and what antibiotics commonly are used to treat them:

Disease Name	Typical Source	Causative Agent	Suggested Drug Therapy
Gram-positive cocci
"Food poisoning"	Meat, milk, bakery	Staphylococcus (various)	None usually necessary
Gram-negative bacilli
Brucellosis	Meat, milk	Brucella (various)	Various in combination
Salmonellosis	Food	Salmonella (various)	None usually necessary
Shigellosis	Food	Shigella (various)	Ampicillin
Gram-positive bacilli
Listeriosis	Raw milk	Listeria monocytogenes	Ampicillin, gentamicin
"Food poisoning"	Meat	Clostridium perfringens	None usually necessary
Gram-negative curved bacilli
Cholera	Food, water	Vibrio cholerae	Ampicillin, chloramphenicol
"Food poisoning"	Shellfish, seawater	Vibrio vulnificus	Penicillin
"Food poisoning"	Meat, water	Campylobacter fetus (jejuni)	Erythromycin, ampicillin

On another page you read about mycobacteria. Mycobacteria are extremely slow-growing. Tuberculosis, a wasting infection of the respiratory tract, is caused by Mycobacterium tuberculosis.

A picture on the page shows a disk diffusion test: a paper disk is soaked in an antibiotic, and placed in the middle of a petri dish inoculated with bacteria. If the bacteria will not grow anywhere near the disk, then the antibiotic is effective against that bacterium.

Continue in the back room

An Access Excellence Science Mystery sponsored by Genentech, Inc.