A new estimate by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention lowers the number of people who get sick or die from food poisoning each year in the United States, a revision that officials said is the result of changes in method and data analysis and not vast improvements in the nation’s food system.
According to an estimate released Wednesday by the agency, about 48 million people get sick and more than 3,000 die each year from food poisoning in the United States.
While those are big numbers, they are lower than an earlier estimate of 76 million illnesses and 5,
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The new numbers don’t necessarily mean there is less food poisoning. They simply mean that scientists think they can now do a better job of guessing how many illnesses actually occur. Government scientists said the new estimate should be viewed as the more accurate guess based on better information. The revision means that one in six Americans gets sick each year from tainted food, not one in four,
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“There’s more that needs to be done,” said Dr. Christopher R. Braden,
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It was not clear whether the lower estimate might affect the fate of the long-awaited food safety bill, which remains trapped in legislative purgatory. The bill,
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The Food and Drug Administration issued a statement saying the data underscored the need approve the legislation.
“The C.D.C. data underscore the magnitude of foodborne illness in the United States, and because these illnesses and deaths are preventable,
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The estimates,
WINTER CLASSIC Ice Hockey Jerseys, old and new, rely heavily on the idea that most cases of food poisoning never get reported. The symptoms may be too mild for a person to see a doctor. Or, in more severe cases, testing may fail to uncover a pathogen.
So researchers take data on reported cases and make educated guesses on how many more illnesses actually occur.
The new estimate, published in the journal Emerging Infectious Diseases, says that only about a fifth of all foodborne illness is the result of pathogens that scientists have been able to identify.
Several of those have become household names and the stuff of headlines. Salmonella, the bacteria behind this summer’s massive egg recall,
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The most common pathogen was norovirus, which is more commonly passed along in person-to-person contact. It was estimated to cause 5.4 million foodborne illnesses and 149 deaths a year.
Dr. Braden said the new study will help regulators and scientists determine what pathogens to focus on in seeking to prevent foodborne illnesses. He said further research would look at which foods were most often associated with particular pathogens.