In our ongoing thread on organic food and foodborne diseases (FBDs),
thought you might like to see last week's CDC press release on the
topic, via ProMED.
Note this paragraph, which appears as the next-to-the-last one:
"Although the U.S. food supply is among the safest in the world, the nation
increasingly faces new food safety challenges. Novel pathogens are
emerging, and familiar ones are growing resistant to treatment. Since 1942,
the number of known food-borne pathogens has increased more than five-fold.
American consumers eat out more and cook for themselves less. They also eat
more processed food than ever before, involving more people and more
preparation, thus increasing the chance for disease-producing food-handling
errors. In addition, the number of people most vulnerable to food-borne
disease continues to grow: baby boomers are aging thus increasing their
vulnerability to food-borne illness."
Novel pathogens and treatment resistance are matters of the
industrial/ "managed-care" health and the industrial food systems'
putting unusual selection pressures on microbes, encouraging the
evolution of resistant strains. (I've got another item for you all in
the works on that topic, going back to Russ Bulluck's thoughts on
soil-borne enteric bacteria.)
Increasing consumption of value-added food and food-handling problems
in that sector are features of the industrial food system.
And it's a demographic reality that all people are aging and living
longer. Not, might I note, just "baby boomers." Last I checked, the
people now alive in their 80s, who are among the most vulnerable to
/E. coli/, /Salmonella/, and other FBDs are Depression-era people.
In addition, I don't know what proportion of organic food is sold
directly to consumers or to retail outlets, for home preparation. But
I'm willing to bet that it's a much higher proportion than industrial
food. I base that on CIAS's work in the past 5 years on the
institutional buying of local and organic food--not many institutions
and restaurants source their food from organic farms/growers. And the
key to preventing foodborne illness lies, as it always has, in proper
preparation: cleanliness in handling, appropriate cooking of meats
and eggs, etc. That's a lot harder to get hold of in an
industrialized food system than a more democratized one.
Here's the full release:
FOODBORNE DISEASE ESTIMATES, CDC, PULSENET - USA
*************************************************
A ProMED post
Date: Thu, 16 Sep 1999 23:37:09 -0400
From: Thomas James Allen
Source: CDC press release, 16 Sep 1999 <http://www.cdc.gov>
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) released today the
most complete estimate to date on the incidence of food-borne disease in
the United States. According to data published in the current issue of
CDC's Emerging Infectious Diseases, CDC's peer-reviewed journal that tracks
new and reemerging infectious diseases worldwide, diseases caused by food
may cause an estimated 325 000 serious illnesses resulting in
hospitalizations, 76 million cases of gastrointestinal illnesses, and 5000
deaths each year.
"While the U.S. food supply remains one of the safest in the world, these
new findings further support what we have said all along: the public health
burden of food-borne disease is substantial," said HHS Secretary Donna E.
Shalala. "Our investments in better tracking and surveillance systems have
resulted in more complete data to help us evaluate ongoing and future food
safety efforts. I urge Congress to help us continue to build upon our food
safety programs -- we need to maintain our aggressive efforts on food
safety, and we need to fully fund the President's food safety initiative."
The data being released today come from a variety of sources including new
and existing surveillance systems, death certificates and published studies
from academic institutions. According to CDC Director Dr. Jeffrey Koplan,
these are the most complete estimates ever calculated and should not be
compared to previous estimates since the estimates are a result of better
information and new analyses rather than changes in disease frequency over
time. These new estimates provide a snapshot of the problem and do not
measure trends and do not indicate that the problem is getting better or
worse. In addition, these new estimates include some diseases, such as
those caused by _E. coli_ O157:H7 and Norwalk-like viruses, that were not
included in some previous estimates, he noted.
"Accurate estimates of disease burden are the foundation of sound public
health policy," Dr. Koplan said. "We're extremely pleased to have a new
baseline to measure our future efforts to improve food safety. Updated
estimates of food-borne illness are needed to guide new prevention efforts
and assess the effectiveness of food safety measures." These measures used
1997 as a baseline --- before key food safety programs were implemented.
Although the U.S. food supply is among the safest in the world, the nation
increasingly faces new food safety challenges. Novel pathogens are
emerging, and familiar ones are growing resistant to treatment. Since 1942,
the number of known food-borne pathogens has increased more than five-fold.
American consumers eat out more and cook for themselves less. They also eat
more processed food than ever before, involving more people and more
preparation, thus increasing the chance for disease-producing food-handling
errors. In addition, the number of people most vulnerable to food-borne
disease continues to grow: baby boomers are aging thus increasing their
vulnerability to food-borne illness.
Since 1993, the Clinton Administration significantly has expanded food
safety programs, increasing consumer protections to ensure that the U.S.
food supply remains one of the safest in the world. Some improvements
include: new safety standards for meat, poultry and seafood products,
better surveillance for food-borne diseases through FoodNet, and a new
Early Warning System implemented to improve our detection of outbreaks. In
1998, CDC launched a collaborative interagency initiative called PulseNet
that uses DNA fingerprinting to better detect food-borne illness. Today,
any one of the more than 35 laboratories in CDC's PulseNet network can
fingerprint _E. coli_ in less than 24 hours whereas the process used to
take days or weeks.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Add this to your Debunking Dennis files.
peace
misha
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Michele Gale-Sinex
Communications manager
Center for Integrated Ag Systems, UW-Madison
http://www.wisc.edu
UW voice mail: 608-262-8018
Home office: 415-504-6474 (504-MISH)
Home office fax: Same as above, phone first for enabling
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I eat everything. If anything is there, I eat it. I presume it is
safe and good. --U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Dan Glickman
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