More recalls as US faces several foodborne illness outbreaks

Key Points:

• The US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) announced a $4 million initiative to expand rapid syphilis testing in emergency departments and nontraditional healthcare settings to prevent congenital syphilis in mothers and babies.
• Congenital syphilis cases have risen over the past 12 years, with 4,000 cases reported in 2024 and 279 stillbirths and infant deaths linked to syphilis in 2023; timely testing could have prevented 83% of these cases.
• Researchers from Stanford University and the Broad Institute used artificial intelligence to design functional bacteriophages that effectively destroyed antibiotic-resistant E. coli strains, advancing synthetic genomics and phage therapy development.
• Experts from Johns Hopkins University warn that while AI-designed phages show promise, they raise serious biosafety and biosecurity concerns, urging caution against using this technology to create genomes of pathogens infecting humans, animals, or plants.
• They recommend updating safety frameworks for generative genomics and excluding sensitive viral sequences from AI training data to prevent misuse and potential creation of harmful pathogens.