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Foodborne Illness Costs US $152 Billion Annually: Study
WASHINGTON - Foodborne illnesses cost the United States $152 billion in health-related expenses each year, according to a study released by consumer and public health groups on Wednesday.
Bundled spinach is pictured in a cooler at a wholesale farmer's market in Washington September 15, 2006. Foodborne illnesses cost the United States $152 billion in health-related expenses each year, according to a study released by consumer and public health groups on Wednesday. (REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst) Food safety advocates are hoping that the study will boost efforts in Congress to overhaul the nation's antiquated food safety system.
Dozens of pathogens, many of them unknown, creep into the food supply each year, sickening millions. The price tag includes medical costs, lost productivity and quality-of-life, according to a study from the Produce Safety Project.
"This is significantly more than previous official estimates and it demonstrates the serious burden that foodborne illness places on society," said Sandra Eskin, a spokeswoman with Make Our Food Safe Coalition, a group of consumer, public health and other groups pushing for stronger food safety laws.
The latest study to delve into foodborne illnesses comes as Congress works to craft legislation that would mark the first major overhaul of the food safety system in 50 years.
The House passed its bill last July and the Senate, which has been bogged down with healthcare and regulatory reform, is expected to act this year.
"My hope... is that the sobering numbers of this report will compel the Senate to act immediately on food safety legislation," said Rep. Rosa DeLauro, who has vigorously pushed for food safety reform. "We literally cannot afford to wait."
Past official government estimates of health-related costs of foodborne illness have ranged from $7 billion to as much as $35 billion, but they considered only limited costs and pathogens, according to the report.
The new study, an initiative of the Pew Charitable Trusts and Georgetown University, considered more pathogens and health-related costs, pushing the price tag to $152 billion. Overall, foodborne illness costs related to produce total $39 billion per year, the study estimated.
The U.S. food supply has been battered by a series of high-profile outbreaks, many involving produce, such as lettuce, spinach, peppers and peanuts, since 2006 led to a rash of illnesses for consumers and cost businesses millions.
Many firms including Kellogg Co, whose company lost nearly $70 million in products from the recent peanut recall, and ConAgra Foods have been among those affected.
An estimated 76 million people in the United States get sick each year with foodborne illness and 5,000 die, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The study found Kentucky had the lowest cost per foodborne case at $1,731. Alternatively, greater exposure to higher cost pathogens pushed the price tag to about $2,008 per case in Hawaii. The average cost in the United States was $1,851.
Typical medical costs from a case of foodborne illness range from $78 in Montana to $162 in New Jersey with much of the difference due physician and hospital charges. The average productivity loss from a case of foodborne illness is between $377 in Mississippi and $924 in Delaware.
(Editing by Rebekah Kebede)
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11 Comments so far
Show All$162 billion in savings would make a serious dent in the cost of health care in this country. Besides, who doesn't want disease free food?
Gary
"At home I serve the kind of food I know the story behind."
-- Michael Pollan
New addition to the real cost of cheap food.
Buy local pay more, but you get better health...
Tim
When you buy a certified organic product from a N.O.F.A. certified C.S.A. or a farm stand ,or a certified farmer in a market you are generally safer.A federally certified organic seal should at least be free from active e-coli and other bacterium due to hot composting regulations and distance requirement for raw manure speading on adjascent fields.Otherwise you are on your own.Grow your own food dude!
peace
In 1998, I lived and worked in Venezuela for 10 months. In 2002-2003, I lived and worked in Bolivia for 11 months. Yesterday, I returned from a 4-week trip to southern China. In all of these places, I ate the local food which was purchased from markets that have no refrigeration - seafood, beef, pork, chicken, fruit and vegetables. Never did I get sick. Twice I have been hospitalized with food poisoning, both times in the US.
Hmmmmmmm..........
Gee Dizi,you sound cute.I have dated carnivores before,but vegetarians sometimes taste better.Are you near the N.E. right coast?Let me cook you a nice vegetarian dinner.
eat for peace!
Nowhere near the NE - deep South. Spent a good bit of time eating vegetarian, and I do eat mostly veggies, but love a little meat, especially fish and pork. I try to buy from the boat and the farm, but the small farms are getting hard to find.
This Article is horrible. Who is this author? Talk about classic Liberal BS - there oughtta be a Law....
There have been many good articles here by Organic Farmers in the Past. They are already in big trouble on all fronts, and the Government is one of them. Big Agra is the other. (the Economy is a distant third)
There is already a plethora of government Agencies to deal with the safety of our food. These Agencies - which used to work reasonably work have been defenistrated (demolished) over the last 30 years.
Big Agra Corporate Execs have been appointed to head these agencies whose sole mission was to castrate them. Read the article here last week on USDA inspectors. What a joke. We don't need anymore laws - we already got too dang many. What we need is to ENFORCE existing law.
Moreover, Big Agfa has been trying by all means necessary to destroy the Organic Farmers. Provisions of the new Ag Bill in Congress will only assist them at their nefarious task.
Most Organic Farmers say that these provisions are: unnecessary for good organic farming - ridiculously expensive - will put them out of business - and won't solve the problem.
Big Agra IS the problem.
Remember that e.coli outbreak on the Spinach crop last year. Guess what - Factory farm - Industrial Cattle Feed Lot manure/sludge sprayed on the tasty green leaves. People get sick. Yeech!
It is Big Agra that needs to be knocked hard by enforcing existing regulations.
How 'bout all those pesticides - think they're not making you sick, too
IMO, the last thing we organic growers need is THIS Congress messing around with us. It is well known (Bankers, MIC, BigAgra, etc) whose side Washington is on.
Rosa DeLauro's deserves a lot of credit for getting big agribusiness PAC money and having a husband, Stanley Greenberg, who works for Monsanto (if listing Monsanto on his website as a client, is "working for," something she denied), and having liberals in Connecticut who hate Monsanto not notice. Claiming to be a "feminist" seems to do the job.
She introduced the biggest bill that last year - HR 875, one that includes "no judicial review over even the validity and appropriateness of the orders": of the Administrator, expected to be Monsanto executive, Michael Taylor. So, she submitted a bill that sets up essentially Star Chamber in the US, because nothing Taylor will do can be reviewed by a court and he can apply invalid and inappropriate orders. Also, unlimited penalties ("in addition to and not exclusive of other remedies that may be available").
The bill couldn't be more totalitarian but people in Connecticut haven't seen what she is doing to them. Actually, to everyone in the country, since the bill covers everyone who "holds" food. It includes warrantless entry and can be used for dealing with any dissident. Police can come in on some baseless charge (food contamination in your fridge) and Taylor can decide any punishment at all, including prison and million dollar fines or seizure of property or ....
Sounds impossible? Monsanto just lost its bid to get one of its GM-crops introduced into India, and immediately after, there was a bill introduced that would put all GM approval under a biotech agency with only 3 people deciding about GMOs for the entire country, and with prison for those who question GM food or vaccines. Journalists and government officials are not excluded.
Meanwhile, with these bills, Monsanto denies any association with HR 875 or that they would benefit from it in any way.
http://www.gmwatch.eu/latest-listinga/1-news-items/11593-monsantos-history-of-lies-and-toxicity
http://www.vanityfair.com/politics/features/2008/05/monsanto200805
Last year articles were written on Reuters for mistakenly writing that 500,000 a year die from food borne illness, when 5000 do. 80,000 have died from Avandia but the FDA doesn't take it off the market but goes after natural health companies who only have 0 deaths, so the FDA would be excellent for tracking food issues as well.
As a small organic farmer, I agree with what's being said. More regulation's is just going to hurt us. Another big battle facing us is access to fresh water. California is trying to build new infrastructure for water with public funds and then privatize the profits for the long term.
Seasonal,organic and local.
It is all a game and the AMA (American Medical Association) is winning. The AMA wants you sick believe it or not and so does the goverment. The goverment inspects the food and the AMA makes us feel better after we eat it. Sounds fishy to me. Think about like this, if we never got sick what would the AMA do? Why are drug commercials all over daytime tv? Why doesn't the AMA have cures in drug stores rather than temporary relief of the illness? Is the goverment holding back the AMA from releasing a cure for the common cold or cancer or any other ilness? Where are the cures for all these diseases? How come there are natural cures for alot of illnesses in the U.S. but our goverment won't allow them to be sold in drug stores? Can we really trust the goverment when it comes to what we eat and drink anymore? When i say they want us sick i don't mean everyone just enough of the population to keep them in business. In medical school doctor's are taught to write perscriptions so the AMA can stay in business. We were taught growing up that if we had a cold take a pill and we would be better. Little did we know that it was not to cure us but to relieve the illness. We take more drugs over the counter than any other country, and still we are the sickest. Why is that? Greed maybe!!!
I've read HR 875 and it has been seriously misrepresented here in other comments. There is judicial review to civil law if it is filed within 30 days. There is no confiscating personal property. There is no invasion of your kitchen because you store food. The law only applies to those in the business of doing so and required to be registered for tracking of disease. The bill does need some exclusion of small farmers who don't engage in interstate commerce which would include the friend that I buy eggs from and others like him.
The lack of funding and deliberate restraint on the FDA by the Bush administration resulted in serious damage to our food supply and numerous outbreaks of disease; most of the problems would be resolved if we got the government regulations that already exist back to the enforcement level. However we import so much food in the winter that we need new legislation that allows some regulation and inspection of it.