Foodborne illnesses may cost U.S. more than $150 billion annually

The total cost of foodborne illnesses in the United States may be as much as $152 billion per year, according to a recent report from the Produce Safety Project at Georgetown University.

Robert L. Scharff, PhD, JD,assistant professor in the department of consumer sciences at The Ohio State University, said in a press conference that the new report is a more comprehensive look at foodborne pathogens than a similar previous iteration from the CDC in 1999.

“We looked at bacteria, parasites, viruses and unknown sources of foodborne contamination,” Scharff said. “We also looked at a broader set of health losses. The medical costs we looked at included physician, hospital and quality of life costs. We looked at costs incurred by productivity and work loss. We looked at sequelae from foodborne illnesses such as hemolytic uremic syndrome from Escherichia coli and reactive arthritis from Campylobacter disease.”

The report includes state-by-state and pathogen-by-pathogen breakdowns that detail such figures as cost per capita, cost by source of contamination, cost per case of infection and total medical costs incurred by foodborne illness.

Scharff said the cost per case of foodborne illness overall varies from state to state, with residents in high-income states such as Hawaii and Connecticut paying about $2,000 per case.

“There is also variation in the cost by pathogen,” he said. “For example, a case of Vibrio vulnificus can cost as much as $3 million per case. Other pathogens are not so expensive, but they are obviously still of concern.”

The previous CDC data indicated that as many as 5,000 deaths and 325,000 hospitalizations may occur from approximately 76 million new cases of food-related illness each year in the United States.

“It is worth noting those numbers because they only accounted for five pathogens,” Scharff said. “We have every reason to believe that the trends are continuing. Current data on costs, hospitalizations and mortality rates are included in the report, and those numbers have been vetted by the CDC.”

Also involved in the press conference were Jim O’Hara, director of the Produce Safety Project, and U.S. Rep. Rosa DeLauro, D-Conn.

“We conducted this study because it is critical to the cause of public health to have a map of the problem you are trying to attack,” O’Hara said. “This will serve as a blueprint, not only to measure what kind of interventions are necessary, but eventually to evaluate whether those interventions are working.”

DeLauro said congressional focus on foodborne illness is long overdue. “If Congress cannot engage on this because of public health or humanitarian reasons, at least listen to the economics,” she said.

DeLauro said she favors a single independent food-safety agency because, currently, there are 15 agencies that deal with food safety, so the ability of the government to deal with foodborne illnesses is hindered by bureaucracy.

“It is time to split the FDA into two separate agencies,” she said. “One to deal with food, the other to deal with drug- and tobacco-related issues.” – by Rob Volansky

Foodborne disease is common in our country and costly as these reports attempt to quantify.We must develop effective means to better diagnose foodborne disease and to make our food more safe to consume. Improved methods of detection of pathogens both in patients and in food are needed. Food irradiation will play an important role in improving the safety of some foods that are associated with unacceptable risk. More research is needed on food safety and prevention of foodborne infection.

– Herbert L. DuPont, MD
St. Luke's Hospital, Houston