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Study Finds Gaps in Food Safety

By Pritzker | Ruohonen

Twenty states and Washington, D.C., did not meet or exceed the national average for identifying the pathogens responsible for foodborne disease outbreaks, according to a newly released study of America's preparedness for health emergencies.

The sixth annual Ready or Not? Protecting the Public's Health from Diseases, Disasters and Bioterrorism report said the national average for states finding the causitive agent in food poisoning outbreaks is 44 percent of the time. Thirty states met or exceeded the average while 20 states and D.C. had a lower percentage.

Conducted jointly by two non-profit organizations -- Trust for America's Health and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation -- the food safety portion of the study was based on summary statistics from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control for 2004, 2005 and 2006 -- the most recent year for which figures were available. The study was published this week.

Authors of the study said that identifying pathogens responsible for foodborne illness outbreaks is meritorious for its own sake, but also because it requires the same skills and technology to detect and mitigate bioterrorism.

According to the study, 325,000 Americans are hospitalized each year with bacterial infections carried by food. On average, 5,000 people a year die from the diseases, the study said.

The study's authors claim that America's food safety system has not been fundamentally modernized in more than 100 years. They call for Congress to establish a single, unified agency responsible for food safety and focused on prevention of outbreaks. In the short term, the authors said, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services should split the U.S. Food and Drug Administration in two: One to focus on drugs, medical devices and cosmetics and the other to dwell on food.

Full post as published by Food Poisoning Law Blog on December 09, 2008 (boomark / email).