Food Poisoning Trend in U.S. Not So Rosy
You may have heard that food poisoning outbreaks in the United States are declining, but a pre-eminent public health doctor has written in The New England Journal of Medicine that we've made very little progress combatting disease from contaminated food.
Dr. Michael Osterholm, director of the University of Minnesota's Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy, wrote in a "Perspective'' piece in the lastest issue of the Journal that says the best measure for up-to-date trends in foodborne illness is FoodNet, a CDC surveillance system that tracks infections reported to labs in 10 states.
Osterholm notes that when the 2009 incidence of infections with the eight primary bacterial and parasitic pathogens is compared with their incidence in the period from 2006 through 2008, no significant change can be seen for six pathogens. Only the infection rates for Shigella and E. coli O157 show significant decreases . In addition, recent studies have demonstrated a significant increase in the incidence of foodborne disease caused by emerging non-O157 types of E. coli, suggesting that surveillance for O157 is no longer sufficient to determine the effect of foodborne shiga toxin-producing E. coli infections.
"On the basis of FoodNet data for the past 14 years, we must conclude that the improvements made in the late 1990s in the safety of our food supply are still having a positive effect,'' Osterholm wrote. "But we’ve made little additional progress in the last decade.''
The CDC now estimates that there are approximately 48 million foodborne illnesses, 128,000 hospitalizations, and 3000 deaths per year. That means that 15% of Americans can expect to have a foodborne illness annually and that 41 in 100,000 will be hospitalized and 1 in 100,000 will die.
National food safety law firm PritzkerOlsen, P.A., is one of the very few attorney groups in the country practicing extensively in foodborne illness litigation. Dr. Osterholm's son, Ryan Osterholm, is a lawyer for the firm, representing victims of E. coli, Salmonella, Campylobacter, Listeria and other diseases caused by the negligence of food companies, restaurants, distributors and retailers. To contact Ryan about an outbreak of food poisoning that has sickened you or a member of your family and friends, call 1-888-377-8900 (Toll Free) or complete our form for a free consultation.
