Ten Years After the Jack-In-the-Box Outbreak: Why Are People Still Dying from Contaminated Food in 2003?

Publication Date:

Publisher: Safe Tables Our Priority (S.T.O.P.)

Author(s): S.B. Eskin; N. Donley; D. Rosenbaum; K.T. Mitchell

Research Area: Health

Type: Report

Abstract:

Foodborne illness remains a serious, yet largely preventable, health threat. Each year in the United States foodborne illness accounts for 76 million sicknesses, 325,000 hospitalizations, and 5,000 deaths. Specifically, thousands of children die each year from the Escherichia coli (E. coli) pathogen in food. In this report, Safe Tables Our Priority (STOP) examines the state of foodborne illness- focusing on meat and poultry products - and the United States Public Health Response. The report is organized into the following sections: (1) background information on foodborne disease, (2) preventing pathogenic contamination at the source, (3) minimizing and managing the risks of contaminated food, (4) treating and responding to foodborne illness, and (5) creating a better food safety system. Each section identifies existing problems and outlines what actions need to be taken to move towards eliminating the health threat of foodborne illness. This report calls for the government to implement measures that will prevent food contamination at the source, strengthen policies to protect food from pathogenic contamination during processing, ensure open, timely, and accurate communication about foodborne disease between all government bodies, consumers and industry, improve medical and public health response to foodborne disease, and enact a comprehensive, uniform, risk-based federal food-safety law, enforced by a single, federal food safety agency.