What Food Made You Sick?

WebMD Medical News By Kathleen Doheny Reviewed by Laura J. Martin, MD Jan. 29, 2013 — Every year, about 48 million Americans — 1 in 6 — get a food-borne illness.  Often, the culprit food is a mystery. Now, a new CDC report based on a decade of data offers the first comprehensive estimates of which foods are to blame. Produce accounts for nearly half of the illnesses, and the norovirus is often to blame. Norovirus causes about 20 million cases of “stomach flu” each year. A new strain is going around the U.S. Poultry is the food source with the most fatal infections. Salmonella and listeria are the common germs causing these infections. “There is food-borne illness caused by a wide variety of foods,” says researcher John Painter, DVM, an epidemiologist at the CDC. “We didn’t attempt to assign any risk for [specific] foods in the study,” he says. The report does not mean people should avoid any foods, especially healthy choices such as produce, he says. The foods most often involved in outbreaks are often the foods we eat frequently and are part of a healthy diet. The report is published in the journal Emerging Infectious Diseases. According to the CDC, the report is the most complete effort to attribute illness to specific foods. Food-borne Illness Report: Details Food-borne illness sends 128,000 Americans to the hospital each year and kills 3,000 annually. To compile the report, the CDC evaluated nearly 4,6...
Source: WBZ-TV - Breaking News, Weather and Sports for Boston, Worcester and New Hampshire - Category: Consumer Health News Authors: Tags: WebMD News Source Type: news