ecoli and salmonella killing Americans

[Daehawk]

Seems every day now you hear of a new food item killing us. Lettuce, eggs, cut melons, and now cereal just today. Its really getting horrible. So much food making us sick or killing us. Im actually scared of this. As I recall it was about 15 years or so ago when the US drastically cut inspectors. They said we'd pay for it one day and that seems to have arrived. I mean drastic cuts in safety inspection personnel. Like an example if a place had 30 inspectors they ended up with like 2. It just isn't working. People are dying. The US gov doesn't even say anything on it. When will they act?!?

Stat: Each year in the US 23,000 hospitalized and 450 die.

[LawBeefaroni]

You hear about it every day because it's good for ratings.

I know e coli is developing drug resistance but I have a hard time believing that deaths are up that much over 20, 30, 50 years.

[stessier]

I also think it's just better reporting. I'm assuming this was brought on by the Honey Smacks incident? Last I saw, 73 people have reported feeling ill and 23 people have been hospitalized - none have died. I'm not sure if we hear about that at all in the 80s.

[Smoove_B]

There's a whole bunch of different factors. I'll try to be brief.

We're absolutely better at detecting outbreaks and accurately determining the causes. This likely means we're simply getting a better representation of the true burden of illness and deaths associated with E. coli now than say 15, 20 or 30 years ago.

The other big element is we are also discovering how pathogens like E coli are seemingly able to survive in conditions and places we hadn't considered. When I was in school, ground flour wasn't considered a potentially hazardous substance. Well, now we know that somehow there are strains of E. coli than can survive the milling process and when the flour is used for baking or cooking, it's reactivated when moisture is introduced. What this means is that there's now food that we wouldn't have historically considered potentially hazardous (like cereal or cookies) that now might be.

When I was in school, we were drilled on the "classic" hazards - milk, meats, raw eggs. And while they are all problematic, we've since learned that our produce is likely more hazardous simply because of how it's handled and the lack of a "kill step" for those that eat it raw (like a salad) or as part of another meal (like lettuce and tomato on a sandwich).

Another factor is the demographics of the United States, basically our aging population. As the number of people over the age of 55 continues to rapidly grow, the number of people that are more vulnerable to these pathogens also increases. Pathogens like E. coli also disproportionately impact people with chronic health issues, and not surprising, more people in the United States are also living with them as well.

Reporting and the 24 hour news cycle is also a factor. I can assure you there are many other outbreaks that aren't newsworthy happening right now. But if a child dies or it's a popular food item, suddenly it's a news story everyone is reporting on.

I'll now open the room for questions.

[Jeff V]

Does eating e.coli for breakfast build an immunity? Maybe Sugar Smacks can add that tagline just under "12 vitamins and minerals."

I used to wonder why my wife would completely break down a head of lettuce and not just wash but *scrub* each leaf individually. Then she showed me

Spoiler:

Do you really want to see this?

Spoiler:

Don't say I didn't warn you

Spoiler:

Last chance to abort!

Spoiler:

OK, you asked for it.

[Daehawk]

Can start your own bait shop with those.

[Scuzz]

Does anyone really think adding a few inspectors will prevent these outbreaks?

[$iljanus]

I don't think you can ever get 100% prevention but more inspectors to try to keep folks honest along with a robust public health system to track outbreaks so we can contain them is a good thing to shoot for.

Be glad we don't have a level of food safety on par with China. There's a reason why they want our agricultural products.

[Daehawk]

They did cut a shit ton of inspectors years ago. They themselves warned these outbreaks would occur and happen more often. Imagine someone like MHS with compromised immunity getting hold of this bad food. I find it very worrying.

2007
http://prospect.org/article/who-strangled-fda

2007
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/despite-fo ... spections/

2017
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/won ... 2860ed09fa

2018
https://www.raps.org/news-and-articles/ ... s-inspecti

Trump
https://www.cnbc.com/2017/06/30/america ... udget.html

[dbt1949]

Look at the bright side.....we still have more people dieing of cancer and traffic accidents and opposing Donald Trump.

[Jeff V]

Be glad we don't have a level of food safety on par with China. There's a reason why they want our agricultural products.

Well, to be fair, our level of casualties wouldn't even be a rounding error there. They lose 5x more people a day due to broken toe nails than we do in a year of e.coli outbreaks.

[Smoove_B]

I don't think you can ever get 100% prevention but more inspectors to try to keep folks honest along with a robust public health system to track outbreaks so we can contain them is a good thing to shoot for.

It's not just inspections - a small fraction of our food supply (both domestic and imported) is actively inspected by government regulators. I'd say the average person has no idea how little our food supply is directly monitored. We have to hope the existing laws keep the pressure on the manufacturers and distributors to do the right thing, but even under the best of intentions things can happen and people can get sick.

Making sure our surveillance network is well funded, robust and proactive is critical. To that end, I've not heard good things over the last ~3 years regarding larger scale food safety protections.

And at the same time, you have people and groups lobbying for the ability to freely purchase non-pasteurized milk and milk products.

But yeah, let's get indignant about E. Coli in Sugar Smacks.

[Daehawk]

Those first two may be from the third group.

[Punisher]

Does eating e.coli for breakfast build an immunity? Maybe Sugar Smacks can add that tagline just under "12 vitamins and minerals."

I used to wonder why my wife would completely break down a head of lettuce and not just wash but *scrub* each leaf individually. Then she showed me

Spoiler:

Do you really want to see this?

Spoiler:

Don't say I didn't warn you

Spoiler:

Last chance to abort!

Spoiler:

OK, you asked for it.

Heed Jeff's warning.. The video is horrible... It is using one of those awful text to speech voices for narration.. I immediately close those as they irritate me to no end..

[Daehawk]

I cant stand them either. Wife can watch them all day but at the first computer voiced sign I end it.

[gameoverman]

Adding more inspectors only helps if you assume the inspectors can't be paid off, OR if you assume the penalties for violations will be high enough to deter companies from cutting corners(assuming they are cited to begin with). If I'm running one of those companies and the fine is $100k, but I can make $1,000,000 by running a slipslod operation even after paying that fine, why would I care how many inspectors you send?

[Daehawk]

Because people die?

[Isgrimnur]

That’s funny. You need to go watch the scene from Fight Club about the actuarial work.