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Online Epidemiology: RUSICK2
surfinbox writes "Forbes magazine print edition mentions Michigan State University's online epidemiology site called RUSICK2. If you get sick from a probable food bourne bug, log in to RUSICK2 and report where you ate and when. When they start to see a pattern, they can take action to prevent further illness. I love the RUSICK2 logo!"
Duh. How about just examining your vomitus and/or feces? That should jog your memory. I mean, if you aren't puking or drizzling, you wouldn't be reporting to this site, right?
Because sometimes what made you sick isn't what you are puking up or droping out. Some pathogens take over 48 hours to incubate into an illenss by then the food that you ate is long gone.
I used to work for Communicable Disease Control for the state of Missouri. They had problems with a lot of people reporting resturants as the source of their illness since it was the last place they ate. So they blamed the Wendy's they ate at on the way home from a day at the lake where they had grilled chicken and infected themselves.
As x approaches total apathy I couldn't care less.
Last spring I had the unfortunate experience of getting horrifically ill from a local resteraunt here in East Lansing. I had just read about RUSICK2, so I signed up and headed off to use the site. Sure enough, when I searched for others who might have been ill during the same time as me I found three others who ate at the same place.
Unfortunately, the site was quite laborious and no one is really going to take the time to fill out *all* the information that they ask for. Here in East Lansing, MI almost no one has ever heard of RUSICK2. If no one knows about the site, the sampling size will never be large enough to be useful. To be fair though, it is a great idea and definitely steps in the right direction.
And on a side note...avoid the kimchee cheegae. Ugh.