first, the elderly . . . the cdc said: 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 . . . normally the way
one would pursue this line of inquiry is to look at age-specific rates of
food-borne disease . . . the 'elderly hypothesis' would lead one to expect
that rates among older persons are rising faster than rates for younger age
groups, and/or that the number of cases among older persons is rising faster
than numbers for younger age groups . . . whle these may be going on, i have
not seen any analysis that actually shows that it is happening
second, democratization . . . 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 . . . while
i'm all for democratization, i'm not sure that proper preparation is easier
to get hold of in a democratized systrem . . . while presumably the
motivation is in the right place, educating hundreds of millions of food
preparers is an enormous burden, especially if the foodborne disease
situation itself is continually changing so that education has to be
continuing . . . again, i'm not arguing for an industrialized food system; i
am arguing that food safety is not necessarily easier in a democratized
system
cheers,
craig
craig k harris
department of sociology
michigan state university
429b berkey hall
east lansing michigan 48824-1111
tel: 517-355-5048
fax: 517-432-2856
> ----------
> From: Misha[SMTP:mgs23@pacbell.net]
> Sent: Sunday 19 September 1999 8:38 PM
> To: SANET-mg
> Subject: CDC: foodborne disease estimates
>
> Howdy, all--
>
> 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
>
> To Unsubscribe: Email majordomo@ces.ncsu.edu with the command
> "unsubscribe sanet-mg". If you receive the digest format, use the command
> "unsubscribe sanet-mg-digest".
> To Subscribe to Digest: Email majordomo@ces.ncsu.edu with the command
> "subscribe sanet-mg-digest".
>
> All messages to sanet-mg are archived at:
> http://www.sare.org/htdocs/hypermail
>
To Unsubscribe: Email majordomo@ces.ncsu.edu with the command
"unsubscribe sanet-mg". If you receive the digest format, use the command
"unsubscribe sanet-mg-digest".
To Subscribe to Digest: Email majordomo@ces.ncsu.edu with the command
"subscribe sanet-mg-digest".
All messages to sanet-mg are archived at:
http://www.sare.org/htdocs/hypermail