Food Poisoning Law Blog

The amount and variety of foodborne illnesses in the United States has increased in recent years due to changes in America’s eating habits and the adequacy of government regulation over food production, according to a story in U.S. News & World Report.

The number of outbreaks of foodborne illness has not increased, but scientists and experts have noticed a growing number of contaminations in foods never before affected by pathogens. These new sources of outbreak have included spinach, peanut butter, and vegetarian snack foods. Government agencies do not fully understand how these products become contaminated and also have problems locating sources of contamination before products are sold to consumers.

Although the number of Listeria outbreaks declined, there have been numerous Listeria recalls and a recent Listeria outbreak linked to Whittier Farms milk that has killed 4 people.   Although the number of Salmonella outbreaks has not risen, there have been several recent Salmonella outbreaks that have sickened hundreds (thousands if one counts unconfirmed cases) of people.

There is an increasing amount of E. coli 0157:H7 contamination occurring, both in ground beef and fresh produce.  The alarming rise in ground beef recalls due to possible E. coli  contamination may be due to the rise in ethanol production and the cattle feed that is made from the by products.  Employment practices and lax sanitation standards may also be responsible for the contamination.  Whatever the cause, over 33 million pounds of ground beef have been recalled in the last year and hundreds of people have been sickened in E. coli outbreaks.

With consumer demands for fresh produce and not cooking the produce, opportunities for the growth of E. coli have drastically increased. The U.S. News and World Report story pointed out that In California, home to the largest milk and produce industry in America, the different agricultural industries compete for land, often putting cattle farms right next to produce farms, which increases the spread of E. coli into produce.

The story goes on to say that improvements to the food industry are hindered by the increasing size of the food industry itself. Large farms ship their products to large processing plants that ship the products via large distribution firms. The growing size of monopolies in the food industry makes sure that any contamination will occur on a massive scale.

The increasing size of the food industry also makes it difficult for government agencies to regulate food safety, the story states. Government funding to the FDA and USDA has been cut in the past decade, and the division of funding is greatly disproportionate. The USDA which handles 20% of foods receives 80% of government funding, whereas the reverse is true for the FDA. 

All in all, the problem of the monopolized food industry with the growing demand for fresh produce increases the risk for the outbreak of foodborne illnesses in ways never before expected. This also presents a new challenge to an already struggling bureaucracy charged with regulating the nation’s food products.