New report traces source of foodborne illnesses

E.coli 0157 illnesses during the 1998-2016 time period were most often linked to vegetable row crops and beef while salmonella illnesses came from a wide variety of sources. That’s according to a new report by the Interagency Food Safety Analytics Collaboration (IFSAC), which also found listeria monocytogenes illnesses were most often blamed on dairy products and fruits, and campylobacter outbreaks were most often linked to chicken, if dairy illnesses were removed from the estimates. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that together, these four pathogens cause 1.9 million foodborne illnesses in the U.S. each year. For its report, IFSAC analyzed data from just over 1,000 foodborne disease outbreaks to assess which categories of foods were most responsible for the four pathogens, which were chosen because of the frequency or severity of the illnesses they cause, and because targeted interventions can have a major impact in reducing them. IFSAC was created in 2011 by three federal agencies—the CDC, the FDA and USDA’s Food Safety and Inspection Service—to improve coordination of federal food safety analytics efforts and address cross-cutting priorities for food safety data collection, analysis and use.