CDC DATA IMPLICATE POULTRY AS MOST COMMON SOURCE OF FOOD POISONING.

CDC DATA IMPLICATE POULTRY AS MOST COMMON SOURCE OF FOOD POISONING.
Newly released CDC data indicate that "poultry was the most commonly identified source of food poisoning in the United States in 2006." During processing, chickens are at risk of being exposed to Clostridium perfringens, and the bacterium's spores can survive cooking processes, according the agency's Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report. "Salmonella, the bacteria found in nationwide outbreaks of contaminated peanut butter, spinach, and tomatoes, was the second-leading cause of sole-source food illnesses," while, "dairy products accounted for just three percent of traceable food-related outbreaks," with 71 percent of the cases being "traced to unpasteurized milk."
But "while poultry is the most common source of illnesses among the 17 different foods tracked by federal officials...two-thirds of all food-related illnesses traced to a lone ingredient were caused by viruses, which are often added to food by restaurant workers who fail to wash their hands."

OTHER FOODBORNE INFECTIONS
Foodborne infections are mostly manifested as intestinal illnesses and are largely preventable. The World Health Organization estimates that in 2005, 1.5 million people died, worldwide, from diarrheal diseases. A separate study estimated that 70% of diarrheal diseases are foodborne. The widely cited US estimate is that there are 76 million foodborne illnesses annually, resulting in 325,000 hospitalizations and 5200 deaths. The annual cost in the USA of all foodborne diseases is estimated to be $1.4 trillion.
, humanity has become vulnerable to cross-species illnesses, thanks to modern advances such as the rapid transportation of both goods and people, increasing population density around the globe, and a growing dependence on intensified livestock production for food. The global transport of animals and animal products, which includes hundreds of species of wildlife, also provides safe passage for the harmful bacteria, viruses, and fungi they carry, not to mention the prion proteins that cause insidious illnesses such as mad cow disease and chronic wasting disease in deer and elk. Comment:

Not only is local and national health care often a problem; internationally, no agency is responsible for, or capable of, monitoring and preventing the myriad diseases that can now cross the borders between countries and species.

More specifically, no organization has the mandate to pursue policies based on a simple but critically important concept: that the health of people, animals, and the environment in which we all live are inextricably linked. Money must be found to help protect us more from foodborne infections, because these diseases are preventable. If the food production and marketing chain supplied food to consumers that were virtually free of pathogens there would be very little foodborne disease.

To produce food virtually free of pathogens the government would have to take additional actions to prevent contamination-- more than the actions taken so far which documents that even the minimal food safety regulations taken 10 years ago have been effective in reducing contamination.


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