Washington - Fifty to 100 Americans die annually from a virulent form of E. coli bacteria found mostly in ground beef, according to a preliminary analysis of food poisoning data, an official with the U.S. Centers for Disease Control said on Wednesday.
The information is part of a CDC project now underway to calculate more accurately how many Americans are sickened and die each year from contaminated hamburger, eggs, lettuce, milk and other foods.
Dr. Patricia Griffin, chief of the CDC's food-borne diseases epidemiology section, cautioned that the numbers were tentative until a final report is completed in early 1999.
“This is a work in progress,” Griffin told a food-borne illness meeting sponsored by the U.S. Agriculture Department. “We're just at the beginning of getting better information to make estimates.”
Information reported by state health departments to the CDC between 1982 and 1996 showed a total of 3,404 cases of illness caused by E. coli 0157:H7, Griffin said. Using those figures and other data, she calculated nationwide estimates of 50 to 100 deaths annually from E. coli out of about 20,000 cases.
E. coli 0157:H7 is just one type of food-borne illness but is considered the most dangerous because it can cause bloody diarrhea, kidney failure and death in a small number of cases. It was linked to a record 25 million pound recall of frozen hamburger patties last year that sickened several people in Colorado.
Fewer than a dozen of the microscopic organisms can cause illness, and doctors have no treatment for it.
The documented cases also indicated that E. coli 0157:H7 infections are more common in northern U.S. states that border Canada, a finding that puzzles scientists. “We don't have the information yet to know why,” Griffin said.
The CDC's final report will include estimates for all food-borne disease, including campylobacter, salmonella and other bacteria.
The report, based on diagnosed illnesses submitted by physicians, is eagerly awaited by the food industry and farm groups that complain that an often-used estimate of 9,000 U.S. deaths a year from tainted food is too high.
The CDC and the USDA adopted that estimate from a nonprofit group, the Council for Agricultural Science and Technology, which developed the number in 1994 from mathematical models. The council also estimated that 6.5 million to 33 million people were sickened by bad food each year.
Last month, the CDC issued the first results from its new annual surveillance program of actual cases in a half-dozen U.S. locations. Based on the reported cases, the CDC estimated 8 million Americans were sickened by bad food in 1997 and that most of the cases were caused by campylobacter, which is typically found in raw or undercooked chicken.
The CDC annual report for 1997 also estimated a total of 33 deaths from tainted food, including four from E. coli 0157:H7.
Meat Industry Insights News Service
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