Now with the late Friday announcement of the second confirmed case of mad cow disease in the U.S. -- a high-profile example of the need for regulatory protections of the public interest, and a reminder of the consequences of government inaction -- it makes sense to look over the latest news on another food safety danger: Listeria. The White House has inexplicably put the already weak protections against Listeria on a hit list of regulatory safeguards to be weakened or eliminated. Aside from the news of yet another recall of potentially Listeria-contaminated foods, there are two new studies worth knowing more about:

• one showing that the pathogen is remarkably dangerous even after being starved and assaulted by food safety measures: according to the study, "starved and injured cells, after more than six months of languishing, still had enough strength to kill 60 percent of their target cell population within six hours, then 90 percent of the target after eight hours"; and
• another, revealing just how Listeria actually gets into our cells and destroys them from the inside.