S.T.O.P. Comments on Preliminary Reports of a
Decrease in Foodborne Disease in 2004

by Barbara Kowalcyk, Biostatistician and spokesperson for Safe Tables Our Priority (S.T.O.P.)

"We're thrilled that the food safety reforms S.T.O.P. and others have fought so hard for a decade to earn appear to be working.

Still, we're troubled by limitations in the data and any suggestion that America's foodborne disease crisis has been solved. These apparent declines may be confounded by several factors. For E. coli O157:H7 and Campylobacter, there are important differences among the various sites that may indicate regional differences. We are also eager to see whether the 2004 HUS data, which will not be available for another year, confirms the declines, and encourage the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to initiate more active FoodNet surveillance of non-O157 STEC strains that have sickened individuals in the United States and are not well understood. Further, we are concerned about the increases seen in several of the antibiotic resistant strains of Salmonella and the clear increase in Vibrio, which has a mortality rate of up to 50%.

USDA's Food Safety and Inspection Service has linked decreases in E. coli O157:H7 to improved meat production practices, but S.T.O.P. shares CDC's concern that insufficient information is available to confirm specific industry practices that have influenced those numbers. We call on industry to work more collaboratively with CDC to share its actions and findings regarding specific reforms, not only to ensure that producers can maintain actions that have contributed to these promising trends, but to help other industries, such as poultry and swine producers, reduce their contribution to America's foodborne disease burden.

Finally, we are concerned about proposed budget cuts affecting CDC and their probable negative impact for foodborne illness surveillance. We cannot stress enough that, while these declines are encouraging, each year millions of Americans are still being sickened and thousands die from foodborne disease. Clearly, we still have a long way to go."

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