Sources and Causes of Salmonella, Listeria, E.coli

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New Report Reveals Sources of Foodborne Illnesses

by: Food and Drug Law at Keller and Heckman of Keller and Heckman LLP - The Daily Intake

Tuesday, November 13, 2018

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On November 9, 2018, the Interagency Food Safety Analytics Collaborations (IFSAC) released a report on foodborne illnesses caused by four pathogens. The data in the report, titled, “Foodborne illness source attribution estimates for 2016 for Salmonella, Escherichia coli O157, Listeria monocytogenes, and Campylobacter using multi-year outbreak surveillance data, United States,” came from 1,255 foodborne disease outbreaks that occurred from 1998 through 2016. According to the report:
- Salmonella illnesses came from a wide variety of foods;
- E. coli O157 illnesses were most often linked to Vegetable Row Crops (such as leafy greens) and Beef;
- Listeria monocytogenes illnesses were most often linked to Dairy products and Fruits; and
- Campylobacter illnesses were most often linked to Chicken after removing Dairy outbreaks from the estimates.
The analysis to develop the report involved a method developed by IFSAC to estimate foodborne illness source attribution (see our blog on IFSAC research on how to categorize foods linked to foodborne disease outbreaks). IFSAC includes the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), and the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Food Safety and Inspection Service (USDA-FSIS).
Each year in the United States, foodborne disease caused by known pathogens results in an estimated 9 million people becoming sick, 56,000 hospitalizations, and 1,300 deaths, according to the report. The pathogens in the report were chosen because of the frequency or severity of the illnesses they cause. CDC estimates that, combined, the four pathogens cause 1.9 million foodborne illnesses in the United States each year. The four pathogens also were selected because targeted interventions can have a major impact in reducing foodborne illness caused by these pathogens.