Food Borne Illness

Foodborne illness carries substantial health and economic consequences. The World Health Organization (WHO) estimates that food related illness is responsible for 600 million illness and 400,000 deaths annually. The Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) believes that foodborne disease affects 179 million Americans annually. Additionally, Robert Scharff, an economist for the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), estimates that foodborne illness costs the US fifty to ninety billion dollars each year. This is an ongoing problem that has not been appropriately addressed and we see outbreaks every year such as the papaya salmonella instance this year and Chipotle's E.coli outbreak two years ago.