CDC Issues Study on Foodborne Illnesses

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has issued a report
titled “Attribution of Foodborne Illness, Hospitalizations, and Deaths to Food
Commodities by using Outbreak Data, United States, 1998-2008,” based on
data involving 17 food categories and the roughly 48 million people who “get
sick from food eaten in the United States” each year.

While produce is evidently responsible for more food-borne illness (46
percent) than other food categories, meat and poultry apparently cause
more death (29 percent) and dairy “accounted for the most hospitalizations”
(16 percent). CDC’s estimates are based on the 4,589 foodborne disease
outbreaks reported over an 11-year span. The report cautions that the findings
should not cause people to “avoid certain categories of food,” because
many food-borne bacteria can be killed by cooking to proper temperatures
and a varied diet is important to a healthy lifestyle.

Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI) Food Safety Director Caroline
Smith DeWaal responded to the study by focusing on the role of dairy
products as “big contributors to foodborne illness,” contending that “[t]he
risk from dairy products has increased in recent years with the increased rise
in popularity of unpasteurized raw milk and cheeses. People who consume
unpasteurized dairy products have no protection from hazards like E. coli
O157 and Salmonella that are commonly found in dairy cattle.” She advocates
rapid implementation of the Food Safety Modernization Act to address the
CDC study’s findings that produce, such as leafy greens, is a “top contributor”
to food-borne illness. See CSPI News Release, January 29, 2013.