Recalls of lettuce, jalapeno peppers and eggs because of foodborne illness outbreaks have put a spotlight on the safety of the U.S. food supply. How much do the recalls tell us?
Transcript
ADRIAN FLORIDO, HOST:
This summer has set new records for cyclosporiasis. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention now says the caseload for the foodborne intestinal illness has reached more than 17,000, nearly nine times the previous annual record. Separately, the Food and Drug Administration has also recently logged recalls of eggs, alfalfa sprouts and jalapenos linked to salmonella and E. coli outbreaks. Joining us now to take stock of our food supply is NPR health correspondent Yuki Noguchi. Hi, Yuki.
YUKI NOGUCHI, BYLINE: Hi.
FLORIDO: So is this just a terrible year overall for foodborne illness? Because it sounds like.
NOGUCHI: Yeah, certainly true for cyclosporiasis. While that official case count, as you noted, is more than 17,000, you know, the actual number of people sickened is probably much, much higher because, you know, not everyone goes to the doctor or gets tested. But for context, Sandy Eskin, the CEO of the advocacy group Stop Foodborne Illness, put it this way.
SANDRA ESKIN: Those numbers are breathtaking. In the 30 years that I’ve worked on food safety policy, we have not seen an outbreak with this many illnesses.
NOGUCHI: You know, but verifying whether this year is worse overall for foodborne illness or how much worse is actually a hard thing to do. And a big reason is that the CDC last year pared back a lot of programs as a result of Trump administration federal cuts. And this included things like foodborne pathogen surveillance.
FLORIDO: How did that surveillance work in the past? And how has it changed now because of those cuts?
NOGUCHI: Yeah, the CDC runs something called FoodNet. There are sites around the country that actively monitor and investigate disease. And they track not just frequency or scope of outbreaks but, you know, the severity of illness or who was getting sickest. Last year, CDC cut back to only two pathogens. Cyclospora was one of those that was left out. And without this database, there’s just a lot less reliable data that tell us where things are trending. And that’s why when I asked Sarah Sorscher, who heads food safety at the consumer group Center for Science in the Public Interest, what we know about how this year compares to others, she said…
SARAH SORSCHER: You don’t (laughter). That’s one of the problems with cutting FoodNet, is that we lost our ability to have great data on whether the food is getting riskier, if the food is making us more sick.
NOGUCHI: FoodNet now only tracks E. coli and salmonella trends.
FLORIDO: And so what about recalls in general, Yuki? Are they a gauge of food safety about what is safe and what is not?
NOGUCHI: Not really. You know, the number of food recalls this year hasn’t changed much, although this summer’s cyclospora problem has certainly made the public more nervous, and therefore, people are paying more attention to food recalls. But there are many other reasons food gets recalled, you know, mislabeling, for example, you know, not always because someone got sick. So Sorscher says that recalls are not a good proxy for how safe our food is. And, in fact, you know, if a food is tainted, a recall can be a good thing – right? – in that it prevents others from getting sick.
FLORIDO: Yeah. NPR health correspondent Yuki Noguchi. Thanks, Yuki.
NOGUCHI: Thanks.
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