05.04.2013

By: DeWaal, and Glassman CSPI (Center for Science in the Public Interest)

Every year, one in six Americans - 48 million people - contract a foodborne illness from contaminated food. Of these, 128,000 are hospitalized and 3,000 die.
While the vast majority of foodborne illnesses are isolated cases, this report analyzes outbreaks - clusters of two or more illnesses resulting from the same contaminated food source.
This report analyzes the most recent ten years of outbreak data available from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), covering 2001‐2010.
For this report, the Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI) has analyzed 4,229 foodborne disease outbreaks occurring between 2001 and 2010 that were identified by the CDC and other sources. These outbreaks were responsible for 106,635 cases of foodborne illness. Although the CDC collects and publishes
outbreaks with incomplete investigation data, for this report CSPI only analyzed those outbreaks with investigations in which both the contaminated food and the foodborne contaminant were identified.
Outbreaks associated with meat categories include poultry (458 outbreaks and 11,338 illnesses), beef (363 outbreaks and 7,528 illnesses), pork (176 outbreaks and 3,794 illnesses), and luncheon and other meats (134 outbreaks and 4,151 illnesses).
Meats, poultry, and seafood are far more likely to cause illness than produce. When the risk of illness‐per‐pound consumed was analyzed, poultry products topped beef and pork, and seafood was the most hazardous food.
The most common identified pathogens in meat products were Salmonella species (spp.) in poultry.