Wednesday, March 3, 2010
The cost of food borne illness
E.coli, salmonella, and other food-borne illnesses, cost the U.S. $152 billion annually in health care and other losses, according to a report released today. The financial cost determined in the new report, published by the Produce Safety Project ,was significantly higher than the $35 billion reported by the Agriculture Department in 1997. The government estimates 76 million people are sickened each year by food-borne illnesses, hundreds of thousands are hospitalized and about 5,000 die.
