Food Sickness Prevention in the U.S.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) released their  Food Safety Report .  Although there has been some improvement in combating foodborne illnesses, there is still much more work that needs to be done. 

One area of relative progress is the rate of salmonella, which is the most common foodborne illness in the country.  Salmonella illness decreased by about 9% in 2013, compared with the previous three years. But that decline simply brings the rate of infection down to where it was in 2006-2008. Vibrio infections, which are often linked to eating raw or undercooked shellfish, jumped by 75%:  Fortunately, vibrio is the least common bacteria, contributing to just about 1%of foodborne illnesses.

Food safety experts are more concerned about salmonella and campylobacter, which are both associated with chicken, and E. coli, which includes certain strains that can make young children severely ill. Unfortunately, we’re not exactly improving much in those areas. 

In the United States, about 48 million people fall ill after eating contaminated food every year and about 128,000 of them get sick enough to go to a hospital. Advocates have been pushing for better food safety regulations for years, noting that our meat industry has considerably less oversight than Europe’s.

The U.S. agencies that oversee food safety have been plagued with rounds of budget cuts, including across-the-board cuts resulting from last fall’s sequester. Foodborne illnesses do not appear to be a top priority on Capitol Hill!

The first major food safety overhaul in over 70 years, the Food Safety Modernization Act of 2011, seeks to address some of these issues.  FDA officials warn that won’t become a reality without more funding.

Still, federal health officials say they’re hopeful about future policy changes that may help decrease the number of Americans getting food poisoning. The U.S. Department of Agriculture recently released a Salmonella Action Plan to modernize the way that poultry is slaughtered and inspected.

Do you think that food safety needs to become a higher priority for the FDA, CDC and USDA?

For More Information:

http://thinkprogress.org/health/2014/04/18/3428582/foodborne-illnesses-report/