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The Bacteria That’s Most Likely To Be Lurking In Your Food

A scientist holds up a petrie dish smothered in a varient of the E.coli bacteria. CREDIT: AP PHOTO/PA-ADAM BUTLER
A scientist holds up a petrie dish smothered in a varient of the E.coli bacteria. CREDIT: AP PHOTO/PA-ADAM BUTLER

Four years ago, three government agencies joined forces to attempt to determine the food sources for common pathogens like salmonella, E.coli, listeria, and campylobacter. Their efforts have culminated in a 12-page document that provides the answers to those questions.

In its new report, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), The Food and Drug Administration, and the U.S. Department of Food and Agriculture’s Food Safety and Inspection Service attributed more than 80 of E.coli cases to beef and leafy vegetables, more than 80 percent of campylobacter illnesses to dairy and chicken, 80 percent of listeria cases to dairy and fruit, and more than 70 percent of salmonella cases to seeded vegetables, chicken, beef, and pork.

The agencies compiled these findings by using foodborne illness source attribution, a process of estimating the most common food sources responsible for foodborne illnesses by using data that involves the use of information collected during outbreak investigations, infections not associated with outbreaks, and food product testing.

“Having these estimates help us understand the scope of the public health problem,” the multiagency team — known as the Interagency Food Safety Analytics Collaboration (IFSAC) — wrote in the report.

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“Determining the types of food that cause foodborne illnesses will not only guide efforts to improve food safety, but will also help identify opportunities to influence food safety policy. Regulatory agencies can use source attribution estimates to inform agency priorities, support development of regulations and performance standards and measures, and conduct risk assessments, among other activities,” the report said.

Foodborne illnesses, which strike nearly 48 million people and kill nearly 3,000 people annually, have been a topic of great discussion in recent years. Even with the CDC’s best efforts to decrease the instances of food poisoning, rates of some pathogen-causing illness have stagnated while others have increased. While the IFSAC’s use of food illness source attribution would better allow the IFSAC to pinpoint the products that have the highest risk of carrying pathogens, much of the criticism around food safety has centered on what has been described as an unreliable inspection process.

In 2009, the now-defunct Peanut Corporation of America knowingly shipped its salmonella-tainted products around the country and sent customers tests results from clean batches under the FDA’s radar. The act of deception caused more than 700 illnesses in 46 states, the largest food recall in U.S. history, and the first ever criminal trial of a food manufacturer. In 2011, Listeria-tainted cantaloupe from Colorado sickened nearly 150 people in 28 states, 36 of whom died. In August of that year, Cargill, Inc. recalled 36 million pounds of ground turkey after authorities linked the batch to 79 illnesses across 26 states.

Lawmakers have attempted to strengthen food regulations and hold manufacturers accountable by way of the Safety Reporting Portal and the Food Safety Modernization Act but federal regulations only require the FDA to release information about food safety violations by the end of the year.

Additionally, the food inspection system that’s governed by 30 laws and maintained by more than a dozen government agencies hasn’t been able to effectively inspect domestic products and imports reaching U.S. shores. Agencies often overlap in their duties and duplicate inspection and training activities that slow down the inspection process and cost taxpayers at least $14 million annually.

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A solution might be on the horizon. Earlier this month, the Obama Administration released a 2016 budget that would consolidate the 15 federal food regulatory agencies to set food safety standards, streamline the food inspection process, and better enable officials to hold manufacturers accountable. The entity, which would be named the Food Safety Administration, would be housed under the Department of Health and Human Services. It has the potential to better target major foodborne pathogens, especially with food illness source attribution at its disposal.

However, Doug Powell, a former professor of food safety at Kansas State University, remains skeptical that food safety inspection and regulation would better work under one agency. Other people share his sentiments, citing the level of bureaucracy within the Department of Homeland Security and agencies into other countries.

“The research doesn’t support the idea that a single agency would protect food safety any more than the system U.S. currently has in place,” Powell told the New York Times. “Look at the United Kingdom and the horse-meat scandal or Canada, which had a massive beef recall a few years ago. Both of those countries have single food safety agencies, and it didn’t stop contaminated products from reaching the public.”