Food illnesses held steady

by Anthony J Sepe

http://fromadietitiansperspective.blogspot.com

 

Salmonella

The Associated Press reports that Americans didn’t  suffer more food poisoning last year despite high-profile  outbreaks involving peppers, peanut butter and other foods, according to a government report released Thursday.

Rates of food-borne illnesses have been holding steady for 5 years.  They had been declining from the mid-1990’s until the beginning of this decade, mainly because of improvements in the meat and poultry industry, some experts say.

But produce-associated food poisonings have been increasing, and the nation is no longer whittling down food-borne disease, government officials said.

“Progress has plateaued,” said Dr. Robert Tauxe of the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) and prevention, a co-author of the report.

The report looks at the occurrence of about 10 leading food-borne illnesses in 10 states that participate in a federally funded food poisoning monitoring system.

The research appears in this week’s issue of the CDC publication, Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report.

Salmonella remained the most common cause of food poisoning, triggering more than 7,400 lab-confirmed illnesses in those states.  That translates to a rate of about 16 cases for every 100,000 people.  There has been no significant change in the salmonella rate in recent years, CDC officials.

An estimated 87 million cases of food-borne illnesses occur in the US each year, including 371,000 deaths, according to an Associated Press calculation that used the CDC formula and current population estimates.

Nipped in the bud; possibly?

by Anthony J Sepe

http://fromadietitiansperspective.blogspot.com

 

Yesterday, we talked about the salmonella-tainted pistachios.  And, today, it appears from different news service reports that the reason it didn’t take dozens of illnesses for federal regulators to learn about salmonella-tainted pistachios has nothing to do with federal regulations.

Seemingly, routine, but unrequired testing by a manufacturer for Kraft Foods Inc. first detected the contamination almost 2-weeks ago, when workers at a plant in Illinois decided to check roasted nuts going into huge vats of trail mix.  Private auditors hired by Kraft later found problems they think caused the contamination at a supplier’s processing facility in central California.

Two weeks ago?  I guess it seems like a long time to me.  It appears that something’s still wrong with this picture to me.   

Again? First, peanut butter; now—pistachio nuts: Officials probe firm

by Anthony J Sepe

http://fromadietitiansperspective.blogspot.com

 

The associated press reports and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) officials are investigating a central California plant that processed pistachios tied to nationwide recalls of trail mix and bagged nuts because of possible salmonella contamination.  (Approximately six -hundred medical cases of documented illness and 9 deaths were linked to the previous salmonella contamination case, just recently.) 

The California Department of Public Health said Monday it was investigating Setton Farms in Tulare County.

Officials say Setton sent its pistachios to the Georgia Nut Co., which recalled its Kraft Back to Nature Nantucket Blend trail mix on Wednesday.

Grocery operator Kroger Co. says the California firm also supplied the line of pistachios it recalled because of possible salmonella contamination.  Those nuts were sold in 31 states.  No illnesses have been reported, thus far.