CDC: E.Coli Food Poisoning DOWN Last Year

ATLANTA — Americans suffered a bit less food poisoning last year.

There were significant drops in illnesses from shigella and the most dangerous form of E. coli, according to a government report released Thursday. But overall, food poisoning rates have been flat for more than five years.

The report is based on cases in 10 states that participate in a federally funded monitoring system of lab-confirmed infections that can be spread through food. They reported about 17,500 cases of the nine leading illnesses last year, down from about 18,500 in 2009.

More important to scientists are the rates of illness. The report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention noted a 12 percent decrease in the incidence rate for E. coli O157:H7 from 2008. The rate dropped to its lowest level since 2004.

That E. coli strain is a dangerous form of an ordinarily harmless family of bacteria that can cause abdominal cramps, fever, bloody diarrhea, kidney failure, blindness, paralysis, even death. Cases occur in about 1 in every 100,000 people.

The decrease was probably due to better safety measures in the meat and produce industries, health officials said.

Shigella (shih-GEHL'-uh) is a bacterial infection that is about four times more common. It also declined significantly, about 40 percent. However, only about 20 percent of shigella cases are thought to be caused by food. It's usually spread by person-to-person contact, with day care centers a traditional hot spot for infections.

That decrease may have been driven by unusually high amounts of hand-washing and disinfection because of the swine flu pandemic that broke out last year, said Elliot Ryser, a professor of food science at Michigan State University, who was not involved in the study.

"You might kill two birds with one stone" by hand-washing, Ryser said, referring to swine flu and shigella.

For other illnesses, the CDC reported:

_ Salmonella – the most common of the illnesses – was down slightly, despite a national outbreak of peanut-related salmonella at the beginning of 2009.

_ Vibrio, a rare illness associated with shellfish, continued to rise.

_ Listeria also rose, despite efforts by the packaged meats industry to prevent the illness.

Deaths from these bugs are unusual. In the 10 states last year, salmonella was the deadliest with 24 deaths attributed to it. Listeria was second with 20 deaths. Vibrio was blamed in seven deaths, the dangerous E. coli strain in two and one from shigella, according to CDC data.

The study is being published in a CDC publication, Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report.

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On the Net:

The CDC publication: http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr

Comments

[desertdweller]

06:13 PM on 04/18/2010

Isn't it obvious? This is a direct result of President Obama's so-called "Muslimization" of America. More and more people, in accordance with the Koran, are now using their left hand to wipe their butts and reserving their right hands for handling food. Under the new Sharia Law, those that do not comply simply have their hands lopped off. Brilliant. Glenn Beck should apologize and then thank the President.

[2CLEVER]

06:03 PM on 04/17/2010

well if they keep killin off enuf people it should b goin down

[Ecoli]

03:22 PM on 04/17/2010

Warning: Avoid beef serve in restaurants....

http://www.cdc.gov/ecoli/2010/index.html

[Patrick TFD]

04:11 PM on 04/16/2010

While it would be nice to believe that foodborne illness is actually on the decline in America, the fact is that there are a number of problems with the data behind this story. Among these are concerns about how representative the 10 states involved are, the omission of major outbreaks like the massive salmonella outbreak associated with the Peanut Corporation of America, and alternate explanations of the perceived decline including cuts to budgets and staff at state health departments.

The CDC's outbreak data is tremendously important and helpful, and is the best source of information we have about foodborne illness in this country, but we need to be careful about the qualifying the conclusions we draw from it. Figuring out what externalities - like budget changes at the state level - affect the CDC reporting data is a very complicated task, but without doing so it is misleading to assert, as many authors have in the last few days, that our food is somehow safer based on this data.

A more detailed treatment plus some good links at my blog:
http://foodinamerica.wordpress.com