By Katie Gibas
Food is making people sick more and more often. That’s according to experts from the CDC. And the proof? Last year, there were three major outbreaks from contaminated food, including Listeria in cantaloupes, E. coli from organic sprouts and Salmonella from ground turkey meat. Combined they resulted in 46 deaths. That marks one of the worst years on record for food borne illnesses. Despite 21st century safeguards, these outbreaks continue.
The first panelist at Health Journalism 2012 to address the issue was Christopher Braden, M. D., the director of the Division of Food borne, Waterborne and Environmental Diseases at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. He says food safety is not a static issue because pathogens and ecology are constantly changing. He says the challenge to food-related outbreaks is the inherent delay in surveillance because it takes a few days for someone to get sick, and then time to report it, and then even more time to analyze if it is an outbreak. It usually takes two to three weeks to get the issue under control.
Gale Prince, the president of Sage Food Safety Consultants also addressed the issue. He and Braden broke down the reason for continued food-related illnesses. There are a number of contributing factors including:
- The family dinner table- food preparation has moved from home kitchen to food factory. We are in a heat and serve generation.
- Consumer changes – We eat new foods. There is more of an interest in international flavor, and people have a longer life expectancy.
- The young, old, and the immunocompromised are more likely to get sick.
- The growth in food allergens.
- The concentration of production – Food is produced in larger batches with wider area of distribution.
- Year-round availability of different foods. We get food from other countries, and not all countries have the same standards or degree of regulatory oversight
Prince says due to all of these factors, recalls are up 300 percent from 2008 to 2009. He says, on average, four products are removed from shelves every day because of recalls. The number one recall is because of allergens. The number two reason is microbiology. He says other common factors for recalls are:
- Non compliance with good manufacturing practices
- Failure to maintain food processing facilities and equipment
- Weakness in HACCP programs – knowledge of product
Global Factors of Recalls - Not all food safety programs are the same as in the US
- Import alerts – chemicals, microbiology, foreign material,
Ninety-nine percent of recalls are voluntary because if a company does not conduct a voluntary recall, the FDA can force a recall and the company is fined.
Prince discussed the Food Safety Modernization Act, which was the most sweeping reform in food safety laws in nearly 70 years. It requires hazard analysis, preventative controls, identifying critical points and record keeping. It’s one of many changes Prince says needs to happen to ensure better food safety. He calls for increased food safety education, certification for food managers and store owners, quality control measures, and new science to detect contamination ahead of time. He says we need to use these outbreaks as teaching moments and not sit by complacently.
Finally, Caroline Smith DeWaal, the president and founder of the Center for Science in the Public Interest, spoke. She says, 48 million people get sick and 30,000 die each year from food borne pathogens. That’s 1 in 6 people who get sick from food every year. And the worst part, “These illnesses are mostly preventable,” DeWaal said. But pathogens are constantly emerging.
She detailed the history of some of the worst outbreaks in recent years, including sprouts, peanuts, cookie dough, cantaloupe and ground turkey. She says the biggest concern is that experts are seeing an increase in antibiotic resistance to some of these pathogens, including the Salmonella outbreak from ground turkey last year. One of the largest factors contributing to the antibiotic increase is the use of regular doses of antibiotics in food animals.
She addressed the possibility of cross contamination from listeria-tainted cantaloupes. She says if you owned one of the cantaloupes, you should throw it away, throw out all food near it and bleach everything the cantaloupe touched.
The experts agree food-borne pathogens are a rising concern and need to be addressed immediately. “For every one reported case, there are about 30 more that go unreported,” Braden said. That means the disease is far more widespread than it appears.
Katie Gibas is a reporter at YNN-Syracuse, N.Y., and was a 2012 AHCJ-New York Health Journalism Fellow.
