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Little progress in preventing foodborne ills: CDC
2008-04-10
U.S. efforts to contain foodborne illness have made no dent in reducing the number of infections, which were flat last year after a period of decline, according to a government report released on Thursday. In the past two years, high-profile food safety scares involving peanut butter, spinach and other products have intensified pressure on lawmakers to protect the nation's food supply. Yet the 10-state report issued by government researchers found no change in the rate of infections caused by Listeria, Salmonella, Shigella, E.coli O157 and several other nasty bugs in 2007 compared with the previous three years. It also showed that levels of Cryptosporidium, a parasite which causes diarrhea, actually increased compared with 2004-2006. "We can't say we've made tremendous progress in the last year," Dr. Robert Tauxe, deputy director of the Centers for Disease Control's Division of Foodborne, Bacterial and Mycotic Diseases told a news conference. "The most salient observation we see is that there is not a particularly important change from the last few years," Tauxe said. "A lot of things have been going on to improve food safety and we still think they are likely to bear fruit ... but we have not seen a particular decrease in the important sections that we are tracking," Tauxe said. Faye Feldstein, acting director of the Food and Drug Administration's Office of Food Defense, said the FDA will continue to pursue strategies to reduce all foodborne illness. One key was a food protection plan, to cover the span from production to consumption, or "from farm to fork," and involves preventing foodborne contamination, intervening at critical points in the supply chain and responding to minimize harm, Feldstein said. Consumers can reduce their risk for foodborne illness by following safe food-handling recommendations and avoiding the consumption of unpasteurized milk, raw or undercooked oysters, raw or undercooked eggs, raw or undercooked ground beef, and undercooked poultry. The data were collected under a collaborative effort among CDC, the FDA, the U.S. Department of Agriculture and state surveillance sites. The effort tracks data on infections diagnosed in 10 states and adds the results of other surveys to get an overall picture on individual infections, said Tauxe. An apparent rise in the foodborne illness Cryptosporidiosis was linked to a new treatment which was making it more likely that doctors would send specimens for testing, Tauxe said. "There is more of a reason to get the specimen to the lab and to have the test done so that doesn't mean that there is actually more Cryptosporidiosis illnesses but it means that more are being diagnosed now," said Tauxe. (Additional reporting by Matthew Bigg; Editing by Cynthia Osterman)
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