In common language, "ick" says it all about food bugs, but health professionals have a glossary of other terms that relate, including:
• Etiology: the cause of a disease. Awful waffles made of bitter batter? Maybe, but a scientist more likely would blame the likes of a spirochete, an undulating bacterium.
• Bacteriophage or phage: a virus that infects bacteria. Yucky, yes, but a phage is sometimes the good guy -- the answer to drug-resistant bacteria.
• Bacteremia: bacteria in the blood, a possible source of infection that might have come from something as innocent-looking as a toothbrush.
• Fomite: any kind of object, such as a dirty spoon or a splotchy spatula, that carries infectious material.
• Fecal-oral route: how something eeg!-nasty got in somebody's mouth -- often by means of a fomite.
• Indigenous flora: the microbe populations that inhabit a person inside and out, most of which help to defend the body against nasty invaders.
BELLY UP
For a longer and even queasier glossary of terms related to foodborne illnesses, see the Food and Drug Administration's Bad Bug Book, available at fda.gov.
ActiveStyle on 09/07/2015