990348 CDC Says Deadly E. Coli Cases Up Sharply In 1998

Washington - Food poisoning cases caused by a deadly strain of E. coli usually found in ground beef rose sharply last year, government researchers said Thursday.

The preliminary data from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control is part of a project to calculate more accurately how many Americans are sickened and die each year from tainted meat, eggs, lettuce, milk and other foods.

Reliable figures for foodborne illness are one of the few things that consumer groups, the food industry, farmers and health officials all agree are crucial to make foods safer.

Federal regulators are now looking at measures such as irradiation to kill bacteria, more inspectors to check fruits and vegetables, and systematic testing of food.

The new CDC report found the rate of E. coli 0157:H7 rose 22 percent to 2.8 cases per 100,000 Americans last year. The bacteria can cause hemorrhaging and death in children.

E. coli 0157:H7 is most often found in raw meat or hamburger patties that have not been thoroughly cooked.

Health experts cautioned that the new CDC must collect more data to show a reliable trend in foodborne illnesses.

“Although the data are presented as a national summary, it is really averaging out things happening in all the different sites where it was collected,” said Craig Hedberg, an epidemiologist with the Minnesota Health Department.

The new CDC information came from food poisoning cases reported by public health departments in Minnesota, California, Connecticut, Georgia, Maryland, New York and Oregon.

“The amount of variability that we see in the different regions makes me very cautious about throwing all the data into one pot to get a single number,” Hedberg added.

For example, the rate of E. coli 0157:H7 was nearly twice as high in Minnesota as at the other sites. That may be due to Minnesotans having more contact with cows on the farm, at the slaughterhouse and in processing plants, Hedberg said.

With the federal government trying to tighten up food safety rules, U.S. meat plants last week offered to begin testing one of every 300 cattle carcasses for the deadly bug.

The new CDC report also showed that salmonella and campylobacter, the two most common causes of tainted food, fell in 1998. Both cause diarrhea and nausea but are rarely fatal.

Clinton administration officials were quick to take credit for the decline in salmonella and campylobacter cases, crediting science-based inspection procedures adopted by the biggest U.S. meat and poultry plants in January 1998.

“Our new system has resulted in a sharp decrease in salmonella contamination of raw meat and poultry and, we believe, contributed to this decline in foodborne illnesses,” said Agriculture Secretary Dan Glickman.

Two other foodborne illnesses that are less common -- but rank among the most dangerous -- didn't improve in 1998.

Listeria, which kills one out of every five who contract it, was stable at 0.5 cases per 100,000 Americans. Listeria was recently blamed for 20 deaths from tainted hot dogs and meat.

The number of cases of vibrio, a bacteria found occasionally in raw oysters, rose to 0.3 cases per 100,000 Americans, the CDC said. Half of those infected with vibrio die from it.

“The trend is promising but it's clear that tough regulatory action is still needed to clean up E. coli, listeria and vibrio,” said Caroline Smith deWaal, director of food safety for Center for Science in the Public Interest.

The CDC report did not identify how many deaths were due to tainted food in 1998.

Final figures collected by CDC from physicians are eagerly awaited by industry groups who say that an often-used estimate of 9,000 U.S. deaths a year from bad food is too high.

Consumer groups and some health officials contend the estimate may be too low, because most foodborne illness is mistaken for the flu or another ailment.

The estimate was developed in 1994 from mathematical models by the nonprofit group Council for Agricultural Science and Technology. The group also estimated that as many as 33 million Americans are sickened by bad food annually.

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