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The Foodborne Illness statistic of the year

06/27/08, by Kate Hopkins Email 1125 views • Categories: Salmonella

According to a recent Public Health Services Report entitled "FoodNet estimate of the burden of illness caused by nontyphoidal Salmonella infections in the United States", for every confirmed case of Salmonella, there are 38.6 (on average) that out in the public that went undocumented.

After estimating the number of culture-confirmed infections in the United States, we extrapolated, using “multipliers” of surveillance artifacts ...to estimate the total number of Salmonella infections. Using this method, we estimated that there were 38.6 cases of Salmonella infection for each culture-confirmed case. Using a similar method, Chalker and Blaser [2] calculated a multiplier of 39 to estimate the total number of cases of salmonellosis in the United States, including asymptomatic infections. Mead et
al. [5] used a multiplier of 38 that was based on preliminary FoodNet data.

To put this into context of the latest outbreak, Reuters is stating that there are currently 756 confirmed cases of salmonella. If the above report is to be believed, then the true number of cases is over 29,000.


Comments, Pingbacks:

Comment from: marybeth [Visitor] Email · http://www.dinkswithkids.com
And people think that I am nuts for feeding my family raw dairy milk and cheese...that is tested for pathogens....every single batch. Not many food suppliers can say that! (Some would even like to prevent places like Windsor from doing so much testing.)

I certainly have more faith in my local Windsor Dairy than in Kraft Foods.

MaryBeth
PermalinkPermalink 06/27/08 @ 09:13
Comment from: Kevin [Visitor] Email
Including asymptomatic infections? Are we trying to protect everyone from a single encounter with a germ or pathogen?? Alarmist statistics like this are just meant to scare losers into worrying more. Lick the floor once in a while people, it's not going to kill you! Wake up!
PermalinkPermalink 06/27/08 @ 16:03
Comment from: Kate Hopkins [Member] Email · http://www.accidentalhedonist.com
Calling people losers in the comments isn't going to get people to take you seriously. If you have a point to dispute the study, make it.

The bigger picture isn't that all Salmonella cases are the same, even from the same source. People react differently. However, If the FDA really wants to get serious about how encompassing the recent tomato salmonella outbreak was, I believe that statistics like that mentioned in the article are worthwhile.

Come on Kevin, yelling at people that sometimes eating germs is going for you, and calling people losers and alarmists doesn't address much of anything.
PermalinkPermalink 06/27/08 @ 19:06
Comment from: Kevin [Visitor] Email
That's true. I've wasted my time by typing and reading all this stuff. Cya!
PermalinkPermalink 06/28/08 @ 00:51
Comment from: Kate Hopkins [Member] Email · http://www.accidentalhedonist.com
Kevin,

I'm not sure if you'll read this, or even understand it, but if you want to be taken seriously, you need to make serious arguments and speak with intellectual integrity. Being childish and churlish gets you nothing.
PermalinkPermalink 06/28/08 @ 11:04
Comment from: Mark [Visitor] Email
I think Kevin's point is that:

(1) Most "cases" of food poisoning in highly publicized outbreaks are psychosomatic or misattributed; everyone with a tummyache calls their doctor.

(2) Getting hit with salmonella is not that big a deal to the vast proportion of the population, and it's only because of the 24/7 cable news cycle and the like that we get the impression that it's super dangerous and a big risk.

(3) To a certain extent our aseptic lifestyles have set up the people who are in fact in danger to be so susceptible to salmonella.

If you do things in your life like walk down stairs, drive in cars, take airplanes, drink alcohol, etc., you are putting yourself at much greater risk than you would be from eating a tomato in the midst of a salmonella outbreak.
PermalinkPermalink 07/21/08 @ 20:11

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