HHS HealthBeat (January 27, 2011)

Illness in the millions

From the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, I’m Ira Dreyfuss with HHS HealthBeat.

The latest and most accurate estimate of how many Americans get sick from the food they eat is pretty high. The data are from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Researcher Elaine Scallan, who’s now at the University of Colorado Denver, worked on the project while she was at CDC:

``Our study estimates that there are about 48 million foodborne illnesses each year in the United States. These foodborne illnesses result in about 128,000 hospitalizations and 3,000 deaths.’’ (13 seconds)

Scallan says people can help to prevent disease at home by separating raw meats from produce, cooking meat and poultry to the right inside temperatures, and promptly chilling leftovers.

The studies are in CDC’s journal Emerging Infectious Diseases.

Learn more at hhs.gov.

HHS HealthBeat is a production of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. I’m Ira Dreyfuss.

Last revised: May 7, 2011