Sick Food

We wrote this article before the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) released their information on 2007 we repeat back, when there was another president and some three (3) years ago and the situation that you did not know (and neither did we) was pretty bad. Sorry we didn't tell you sooner.

The study, Health-Related Costs from Foodborne Illness in the United States, was written by Dr. Robert L. Scharff, a former Food and Drug Administration (FDA) economist and current Ohio State University assistant professor in the department of consumer sciences. The study estimates that more than a quarter of these costs, an estimated $39 billion, are attributable to foodborne illnesses associated with fresh, canned and processed produce. The FDA has announced that it will propose before the end of the year mandatory and enforceable safety standards for the growing, harvesting and packing of fresh produce. These will be the first nationwide safety standards for fresh fruits and vegetables. - Produce Safety Project (PSP)

You can view the entire PDF at this link! If you can to know where the information comes from. You can read it yourself.

The survey was commissioned by the Produce Safety Project (PSP), an initiative of The Pew Charitable Trusts at Georgetown University, and conducted by Safe Tables Our Priority (S.T.O.P.). Thirty-nine of the 51 state and District of Columbia health departments responded to the survey, which asked about the types of questions and questionnaires administered to victims of foodborne illness, the time frame in which they were completed, and how states collected and stored the resulting data for calendar year 2007. Despite the increase in the number of multi-state outbreaks of illnesses linked to fresh produce over the past several years, the data show that only 25 of the 39 states responding to the PSP/S.T.O.P. survey asked victims about specific produce items - even if the item was associated with a past outbreak. "It is important to learn from our experience, and so it is surprising that many states are failing to ask about fruits and vegetables on their questionnaires given to foodborne illness victims," said Jim O'Hara, PSP director. - Produce Safety Project (PSP)

We knew the problem was bad some months ago. There is a difference between knowing three (3) year old information and knowing information that will be reported as bad some years later. Ideally the goal would be to act before the problem becomes a problem as the government did with the swine flu that we were so hyped because we didn't think the numbers of dead and dying were acceptable even though the government and local health departments didn't seem alarmed.

In September 2008 a survey conducted for PSP that people were concerned about safe food and believe their concerns are serious.

In November 2008 they released a report about lessons that could be learned from the Salmonella Saint Paul outbreak of 2008.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) declared the Salmonella Saint Paul outbreak of 2008 officially over on August 28, 2008, some three months after it began. During that time, more than 1,400 persons were reported infected, and if, as suggested by research, this represents an underreporting, [1] the outbreak may have sickened thousands of Americans. Although CDC and FDA initially pointed in early June to tomatoes as the cause of the outbreak based on epidemiological data, no contaminated tomato was ever found. In July, CDC and FDA identified jalapeno and serrano peppers as being responsible for illnesses, and the only microbiological evidence of food contaminated by Salmonella Saintpaul was, in fact, found in jalapeno and serrano peppers.[2] However, as a result of the initial identification of tomatoes as the vector for the disease, the tomato industry, a significant sector of this country's agriculture economy, was another major casualty. Estimates of the economic cost to that industry in Florida alone have been more than $100 million and in Georgia close to $14 million. [3] A less tangible, but still very real, impact of the outbreak may well be its long-term effect on consumer confidence in fresh produce in general and fresh tomatoes in particular. - Produce Safety Project (PSP)

You'll be glad to know that this isn't the end of the story. The government is on it - albeit three years later but lets let everybody calm down. Take a deep, nevermind! Let's just drink a glass of water, eat a piece of chocolate with a bowl of berries or deep vegetables.