According to the new estimates announced Wednesday, about 48 million fall ill, 128,000 are hospitalized, and 3,000 die each year from foodborne diseases.  For the past decade, the most reliable estimates were 76 million annual foodborne illnesses, 325,000 hospitalizations, and 5,000 deaths.

CDC officials emphasized that the significantly lower estimates are the result of better data and smarter methodology, not a steep decline in the actual number of illnesses.  A number of critical differences in data and methodology impact the numbers–so it is not possible to make a direct comparison between the reports.

“The lower numbers are largely the result of more and in some cases better data than we had in 1999 and also innovative, new methods that we have developed to calculate the current estimates,” explained Dr. Chris Braden, director of CDC’s Division of Foodborne, Waterborne and Environmental diseases, on a call with reporters. “For this reason, we really can’t compare the two estimates to measure trends, as tempting as that may be.”

According to the revised estimates, norovirus in the most common of the known pathogens, responsible for 5.4 million illnesses and 149 deaths each year.  Salmonella is now estimated to cause more than a million illnesses and 378 deaths annually.  E. coli toxins are estimated to cause 176,000 illnesses and 20 fatalities a year.  Campylobacter is estimated to cause 845,024 illnesses and 76 deaths.  Listeria is one of the most lethal pathogens, estimated to cause 1,591 illnesses and 255 deaths.

“The remaining 38 million illnesses are from unspecified agents, which include known agents without enough data to make specific estimates, agents not yet recognized as causing foodborne illness, and agents not yet discovered,” according to CDC.  ”In both the 1999 and current estimates, unspecified agents were responsible for roughly 80 percent of estimated illnesses.”

Using the new numbers, reducing foodborne illness by one percent would keep about 500,000 Americans from getting sick each year and reducing foodborne illness by 10 percent would keep about five million from getting sick, according to CDC.

Reaction from the public health community

Consumer, public health, and industry groups alike welcomed the updated estimates.

Dr. Richard Raymond, former under secretary for food safety at the U.S. Department of Agriculture, lauded the new report.  Raymond has been a vocal critic of the way the outdated foodborne illness stats were being used to further political agendas.

“I think it’s a tremendous improvement,” Raymond said. “They really did the best they can with what they got. Any weakness, as they said, is because of lack of data.”

“I think in 10 years form now they will be even better,” he added.

Caroline Smith DeWaal, food safety director at the Center for Science in the Public Interest, said she hopes there will be more revisions as better information becomes available.  ”A report like this should be coming every two years, not every 10 years. It is my hope that they can deliver this kind of information more quickly.”

DeWaal contends that if CDC kept consistent data sources and methodology, then the  estimates could be better used to track increases or decreases in particular pathogens.

“I think the more up-to-date numbers from the CDC are excellent,” said Bill Marler, food safety attorney and publisher of Food Safety News.  ”There are two things that the data show clearly: first,  the need for more resources at the CDC and state health departments to track foodborne disease, and second, that the numbers are not mere statistics; they represent real people and families with horrible losses, medical expenses and wage loss, and represent businesses with recall costs and lost sales.”

The Consumer Federation of America echoed similar concerns about the ability of local and federal public health agencies to accurately capture the public health costs of foodborne illness.

“[The new report] also demonstrates that, a decade after the first effort to estimate the total burden of foodborne illness, the nation remains largely ignorant of the full human and economic costs of these preventable diseases,” the consumer group said in a statement. “The CDC acknowledges that the majority of illnesses are caused by unidentified organisms and that their data rely on estimates because local, state and national surveillance and reporting systems remain primitive.  Most people stricken by gastrointestinal illness are never seen by a physician and if they are, only a few are tested to determine the organism that caused the illness.”

CFA also said the prevalence of illnesses caused by “unspecified agents” illustrates the lack of adequate information about foodborne illness and the need for more intense surveillance and reporting.  It is difficult to prevent people from getting sick, the group noted, if you don’t know what is making them sick.

Dr. Braden said the new estimates will serve as a foundation for future reports and that CDC is working to improve foodborne illness surveillance. CDC hopes to release data on food attribution–which foods are most often linked to particular pathogens–in 2011.

Originally published on Food Safety News

Jake came down with flu-like symptoms in January 2009. We cared for him as such until we noticed blood in his diarrhea. We took him to the pediatrician who dutifully ran tests of his stool sample. As we waited for the lab results we were encouraged by the pediatrician’s office to give him food if he would eat it and keep it down. We were given the green light by our doctor for him to eat his favorite comfort snack food: Austin Toasty Crackers with Peanut Butter, manufactured by Kellogg.

Jake was sick for 11 days and eventually got better; but we were devastated to find out thereafter that while he was sick, we had unknowingly been continuing to feed him the very food that had poisoned him. It was not until 15 days after he became ill that we found out that he had become one of the more than 700 Americans from 46 states to be sickened by a major outbreak of Salmonella-contaminated peanut products from the Peanut Corporation of America (PCA)-which ultimately killed at least nine people.

Over time, we came to find out the outbreak was not just a random occurrence, but a part of a pattern of outbreaks impacting tens of millions of Americans every year. Like many Americans who are impacted by foodborne illness, I was shocked to find out that the nation’s food-safety system is based, in large part, on century-old laws. Furthermore, the agency charged with overseeing about 80 percent of the U.S. food supply–the Food and Drug Administration (FDA)–inspects domestic food-processing facilities on average only once every 10 years. In the area of inspections, as well as other components of our food-safety system, the laws and regulations are severely lacking and simply unsatisfactory in successfully managing what has evolved into a complex global food supply.

Americans were alarmed by the peanut product outbreak. Over 3,000 products were recalled–one of the largest single food recalls in U.S. history. Outraged lawmakers convened hearings and promised to implement meaningful food-safety reforms. President Barack Obama and Congressional leaders from both parties have called for action. According to a bipartisan poll commissioned by The Pew Charitable Trusts, nine out of 10 Americans favor legislation to strengthen our food-safety laws. Yet, here we are, one year after the outbreak was identified, and Americans are still waiting for Congress to enact comprehensive FDA food-safety legislation.

Since Jake’s illness, we have become food-safety advocates. Last year, Jake and I testified at the PCA Congressional hearing. We later returned to D.C. to meet with Congressmen Walden and Schrader to discuss and lobby for the House of Representatives’ Food Safety Enhancement Act of 2009 (H.R. 2749). The House has since passed this bill. Jake and I then returned to D.C. for a third time to meet with Oregon’s Senators Merkley and Wyden’s staff to push for the passage of the Senate’s version of the bill, the FDA Food Safety Modernization Act (S. 510). We’re headed to D.C. next week to lobby for food-safety reform–again.

Recently, the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor & Pensions unanimously approved S. 510. This bill is strongly supported by Senators on both sides of the aisle–something that is not often seen in Washington these days. This says to me that the time has come to make food safety a priority and enact sweeping changes to the nation’s food oversight system.

Last month–on the anniversary of the peanut butter outbreak–many of the victims of food borne illness, including myself, wrote a letter to lawmakers, asking them to keep their promise of reform. My son’s firsthand account is a painful reminder that despite continued outbreaks–from peanut butter, hazelnuts, fresh fruits and vegetables, to cookie dough, and many other foods–Congress has yet to pass food-safety legislation.

Had legislation been in place a year ago, things could have been different for Jake and for tens of thousands of other Americans. The legislation under consideration shifts the FDA’s regulatory approach from reaction to prevention, establishes minimum inspection frequencies for processing plants and requires processors to establish food-safety plans. If these measures had been in effect, PCA would have been required to develop a food-safety plan and FDA would have been inspecting its plants more frequently. Instead, hundreds were sickened, dozens will have life long health issues, and nine families have lost a loved one.

It is outrageous that a company and its employees could knowingly allow tainted product to go out the door and into the nation’s food supply, as it appears PCA did. We need to strengthen the FDA and its ability to oversee our food supply. Without doing so, the outbreaks of contaminated food are sure to continue, causing millions more Americans to suffer the devastating and sometimes fatal consequences. We were lucky–it could have been very different for us. On behalf of all Americans, our whole family, Jake and I ask that our government be given the power to put our public health and food-safety first. The American people deserve better; as a nation, we cannot continue to let this happen.

Historic reform to protect Americans is in sight. I am asking my Senators Merkley and Wyden to urge Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid to bring S. 510 to the floor for a vote as soon possible. I’m asking you do the same with your senators. The longer it takes Congress to pass this comprehensive legislation, the more consumer confidence in our food supply will erode, and the more people will get sick.

Originally published on Huffington Post