Contaminated food may cause 76 million illnesses and 5,000 deaths in the United States every year, federal health officials said Thursday, using information from a new tracking system.
The number of known causes of food poisoning has increased more than five-fold since 1942. In what it said was the agency’s most complete estimate to date, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said 325,000 people are hospitalized because of foodborne diseases in the United States every year.
The CDC said the new, more precise, estimates are based on a number of sources, including data from a new tracking system called PulseNet, which uses DNA fingerprinting at more than 35 laboratories to more quickly detect foodborne illnesses.
Researchers also used other surveillance systems, death certificates and published studies from academic institutions to estimate that diseases caused by food may cause 76 million cases of gastrointestinal illness and 5,000 deaths annually.
The CDC said the number of known causes of food poisoning has increased more than five-fold since 1942, and the chance of contamination through food-handling errors has risen as more people eat out or eat processed food.
Dr. Mercola's Comment:
The proofreader of this newsletter, Jody, who is also my main therapist for the energy medicine work we do in our office, ate some bad turkey from White Hen the morning before we left for Seattle to study with Dr. Klinghardt this weekend. She had multiple episodes of retching and vomiting and diarrhea, which caused her to cancel her patients on Thursday and not be prepared for the Seattle workshop.
Food infection is a severe problem and I realized that I did not have much in my bag of tricks to address this issue. I am sure it has potential to be a major concern in Y2K. Fortunately, I learned a wonderful trick from Dr. Eileen Wright of North Carolina while I was in Seattle this weekend.
One can inject 1 cc of procaine 1% into the vagus nerve, directly behind the ear in front of the ear lobe. Within minutes the nausea is gone. A most amazing tool. Thank you Dr. Wright.