Walking pneumonia is a very common type of respiratory illness, with an estimated 2 million cases annually in the United States, caused by Mycoplasma pneumoniae. The mycoplasmas are the smallest known...

The controversial animal disease research laboratory, Plum Island Animal Disease Center, located on the relatively remote island off the tip of Long Island will be moving to the heartland of America, Manhattan,...

Many in the Lyme disease community and so-called “conspiracy theorists” have been making this claim for a long time. While no surprise, the Department of Homeland Security has unequivocally denied...

The Gram stain: even many lay people have heard of this basic but incredibly important test that serves an integral role in the microbiology laboratory. Here I would like to give a brief overview over...

Last week, a media report said that the government of Kenya has issued warnings about a possible outbreak of aflatoxin in contaminated maize. Aflatoxin is a potent toxin and a very serious health issue...

Though this horribly disabling disease is virtually unknown to many Americans, trachoma is responsible for an estimated 7-8 million cases of permanent blindness particularly in the Middle East and Africa. The...

Since the research published last week about this lethal strain of fungus in PLoS Pathogens last week, there has been a plethora of media attention concerning the yeast, Cryptococcus gattii. Here I’d...

I can remember my mother warning me as a kid that I could get food poisoning from a sandwich that was left out of the refrigerator that had mayonnaise on it. Was this a justified concern on my mom’s...

With the recent discovery that King Tut was afflicted with the parasitic disease malaria, I wanted to briefly explore infectious diseases that affected or killed famous people throughout history, ancient...

It was first described in the 1960’s in a 29 year old schoolteacher in Northern Luzon in the Philippines. He had diarrhea for 3 weeks prior to admission to the Philippine General Hospital, Manila....