Foodborne Illness Costs
Carl Custer
Nearly $39 Billion Loss Attributed to Produce
Full report here:
<http://www.producesafetyproject.org/media?id=0009>
Washington DC - Acute foodborne illnesses cost the United States an
estimated $152 billion per year in healthcare, workplace and other
economic losses, according to a report published today by the Produce
Safety Project (PSP).
The study, Health-Related Costs from Foodborne Illness in the United
States, was written by Dr. Robert L. Scharff, a former Food and Drug
Administration (FDA) economist and current Ohio State University
assistant professor in the department of consumer sciences. The study
estimates that more than a quarter of these costs, an estimated $39
billion, are attributable to foodborne illnesses associated with
fresh, canned and processed produce.
The FDA has announced that it will propose before the end of the year
mandatory and enforceable safety standards for the growing, harvesting
and packing of fresh produce. These will be the first nationwide
safety standards for fresh fruits and vegetables.
"An up-to-date cost analysis of foodborne illnesses is critical for
FDA officials and lawmakers to craft the most effective and efficient
reforms," said Jim O'Hara, PSP director. "A decade ago, we spent more
than $1.3 billion annually to try to reduce the burden of foodborne
illness and today we are spending even more. We need to make certain
we are spending limited funds wisely and hitting our target of
reducing sicknesses and deaths, and this study gives us a yardstick to
measure our progress."
Produce (fresh, canned and processed) accounts for roughly 19,700,000
of the reported illnesses documented, at a cost of approximately
$1,960 per case and $39 billion annually in economic losses.
California, Texas, New York, Florida, Illinois and Pennsylvania were
the states most impacted by foodborne illness cases related to
produce.
In additional to national data, the report includes data at the state level.
"The contribution of this study is that it provides more complete
estimates of the health-related cost of foodborne illness in the
United States by summing both medical costs (hospital services,
physician services, and drugs) and quality-of-life losses (deaths,
pain, suffering, and functional disability) for each of the major
pathogens associated with foodborne illness," said Dr. Scharff. "This
cost includes both expenses to the person made ill such as pain and
suffering losses and costs to others in society such as outlays by
insurance companies that pay medical expenses."
Scharff based his analysis on the economic principles currently used
by FDA and U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) economists in their
cost analyses. In addition, to account for uncertainty he utilized
confidence intervals and sensitivity analysis.
The cost of foodborne illness is calculated on both an aggregate level
and a pathogen-specific level.
Egg...@aol.com
Boston, Ma. 02114
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