2007 Outbreak Alert! Report
Unsafe foods cause an estimated 76 million illnesses and 5,000 deaths each year in the United States. Although people from all walks of life can develop foodborne illness, those who are most at risk include the elderly, young children, pregnant women and their fetuses, and the immuno-compromised. While such illnesses largely occur as isolated cases, outbreaks of food poisoning are clusters of illness that result from ingestion of a common contaminated food. A single outbreak can affect hundreds, or even thousands, of people.
Foodborne-illness outbreaks are primarily investigated by state and local health departments. These local officials sometimes call on the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to help investigate large or multistate outbreaks. The CDC is also responsible for nationwide surveillance of outbreaks and for tracking of new and emerging pathogens. But many outbreaks fall through the cracks, because the states are not required by law to report food- poisoning outbreaks to the CDC.
In Outbreak Alert! CSPI has helped fill in the gaps by contacting the states for outbreak information, searching scientific and medical journals and newspapers for outbreak reports, and gathering information from the CDC, in order to compile the most complete information available about foodborne-illness outbreaks linked to specific foods. For more information on CSPI's methodology in creating the database, see the July 2006 issue of Food Protections Trends. CSPI's outbreak database highlights the food vehicles most likely to be linked to an outbreak. CSPI is currently working towards putting the data in a searchable online database for public access. For inquiries regarding specific foodborne outbreaks please contact us at foodsafety@cspinet.org.
