In the U.S. one is twice as likely to get food poisoning when eating at a restaurant as they would be eating at home.
Researchers found that 1,610 outbreaks that sickened 28,000 people over the course of a decade occurred from restaurant food compared with 893 outbreaks linked to home-cooked meals that caused 13,000 cases of food-borne illness, a Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI) news release reported. Poor responses by public officials also left data unrecorded.
Out of 104 outbreaks linked to milk, 70 percent were caused by consuming raw milk.
"Pasteurization of milk is one of the most important public health advances of the last 100 years, sparing countless people from infections and deaths caused by Salmonella, E. coli, and Listeria," CSPI senior food safety attorney Sarah Klein, said in the news release. "Consumers should avoid raw milk, and lawmakers should not expand its availability."
The researchers did find that foodborne illness is on the decline; outbreaks of this type of illness were down 42 percent in 2011 from the rate in 2002.
"Underreporting of outbreaks has reached epidemic proportions," CSPI food safety director Caroline Smith DeWaal, said in the news release. "Yet the details gleaned from outbreak investigations provide essential information so public health officials can shape food safety policy and make science-based recommendations to consumers. Despite the improvements in food safety policy in the past decade, far too many Americans still are getting sick, being hospitalized, or even dying due to contaminated food."
"Fresh produce, seafood, and packaged foods regulated by the Food and Drug Administration" (FDA) was responsible twice as many outbreaks of food-borne illnesses when compared with those caused by meat and poultry, which are regulated by the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
The FDA signed the Food Safety Modernization Act into law in 2011; the act hopes to give the agency power to conduct frequent inspections.
