Posts Tagged: "food bourne illness"

In 1906, when Upton Sinclair published “The Jungle,” that expose of unsanitary conditions in the meat industry shocked the nation, ranging from the public to regulators. Today, it is too well known how much can go wrong in the food supply chain, which is increasingly global. The World Health Organization (WHO) estimates that in the U.S. alone, each year there are 37.2 million foodborne diseases, 228,744 hospitalizations, and 2,612 deaths. In addition to this human tragedy there are the negative commercial impacts such as the cost of recalls, which can bankrupt a company as it did the Peanut Corporation of America after the 2008 outbreak of Salmonella in its products. That means jobs are lost and communities financially devastated. Also, reputational capital takes a hit, demand could be down for exports, and lawsuits are filed. The full extent of these effects is unknown which is why WHO created the Initiative to Estimate the Global Burden of Foodborne Diseases.