The U.S. food supply is still “one of the safest in the world” in the wake of several foodborne illness outbreaks, the Food and Drug Administration said Wednesday. organic carrots To Deli meats To McDonald's Quarter Pounders. e coli, listeria And other pollutants have sickened thousands of people and forced many recalls in recent months.
But despite those high-profile examples, the data quoted The FDA suggests the recalls last year were not unusually high.
For the fiscal year ending in September, 179 recalls were issued by the agency's food and cosmetics branch. highest risk An assortment of issues, such as possible contamination from bacteria or undeclared allergens.
That's more than the 145 high-risk recalls in 2023, but less than the 185 the agency recorded in 2022. There were 167 high-risk recalls in 2019.
This classification involves the recall of thousands of cases of onion Processed by Taylor Farms, which were taken down earlier this fall because authorities suspected they were responsible for a fatal incident E. coli outbreak McDonald's linked to Quarter Pounder burger that went bad more than a hundred People.
“Our ultimate goal is for the industry to play its part in ensuring that the foods they are bringing to market are not falsified adulterated Or misbranded. This helps to quickly remove food from the market if something goes wrong. “The outbreak advisory provides important food safety information to the public,” an FDA spokesperson said in a statement.
The spokesperson also pointed to The Economist report Measuring global food security. The US food supply is “one of the safest in the world” and “ranks tied for first place for food security indicators in 2022”, the spokesperson said.
In fact, the FDA suggested, the number of recalls is an indicator that the safety system is working.
“The recall and outbreak events mean that manufacturers, importers and distributors are monitoring the issues and taking action when problems are discovered,” an FDA spokesperson said.
CDC data shows increase in illnesses — but also increase in testing
Data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention show the number of high-profile recalls has increased since last year, though not by much.
10 so far this year “Multistate Foodborne Outbreak Notice” Are issued by CDC. Last year there were nine notices. 24 notices were issued in 2018, the highest compared to any year in the last decade.
Infections caused by the culprits behind foodborne outbreaks, such as Shiga toxin-producing E. coli, or STEC, have reached at least 13,962 this year, according to the CDC. record match.
About 13,140 were reported by health departments around this time last year and 12,119 were reported by this time in 2019.
food borne diseases Cases involving other pathogens have also increased across the country in recent years, reports The CDC's FoodNet system suggests, however, that improvements in how patients are tested for these pathogens may help explain some of the increase.
“Laboratory technology changes and that impacts what we see in surveillance data. As lab testing gets faster, it gets more specific, it gets better than other methods. This data makes it a little less comparable,” Sharon Shea, senior director of food safety at the Association for Public Health Laboratories, told CBS News.
Shea, who has worked as a microbiologist in hospital laboratories as well as public health laboratories, said public health departments and doctors have also gotten better at other ways of responding to foodborne outbreaks.
Some of these are a time-saving shift toward “molecular-based” panel tests, which can be run by hospitals and clinical laboratories for a range of pathogens, rather than one-off tests for specific pathogens, Which were started after 2012.
Labs have also switched to the CDC-run PulseNet network “whole genome sequencing,” A more accurate approach to pinpointing unique genetic fingerprints that can help investigators link different cases together, Shea said. These connections could be important for uncovering common foods eaten by sick people during outbreaks.
“Most preventable, unnecessary deaths”
Food safety advocates outside the government say there is still much room for improvement in food safety in the United States.
“It doesn't help to say 'Americans have the safest food in the world' when people are dying.” baby carrots,” said Sarah Sorscher, head of regulatory affairs at the Center for Science in the Public Interest.
Sorscher acknowledged that public health departments have become better at investigating outbreaks, but cautioned that only a fraction of foodborne illnesses are still solved.
“Our public health system is getting better at resolving outbreaks because of advances in whole genome sequencing and artificial intelligence, so it may be that we are seeing more icebergs now than we did a few years ago,” he said.
Staff shortages and food safety breakdowns have also led to an artificial decline in the number of recalls and reported illnesses during the COVID-19 pandemic, Sorscher said.
“Our food supply is not as safe as it was even five years ago. Anyone who has gone to a grocery store or looked through their refrigerator to see what onions and carrots are in the produce drawer is the subject of the latest recall , he knows it,” said. Scott Faber, senior vice president of government relations at the nonprofit Environmental Working Group.
Faber pointed to the previous point report Tracking the return of food recalls after 2020, based on data from the FDA as well as the US Department of Agriculture.
Environmental Working Group says FDA inspections of food facilities fall short of congressional mandate arguedThey have also criticized the agency for not requiring testing of irrigation water sprayed on crops, which could create problems. risk of contamination From nearby animal feeding operations.
Faber said, “Unlike washing your hands or not cutting your vegetables on the same cutting board as your chicken, these are just common-sense measures to reduce the risk of foodborne illness. And these are the most preventable, unnecessary deaths.” that can be imagined.”