Chicken is America’a favorite meat, with per capita consumption approaching 110 pounds per person this year, roughly twice as much as beef. Five CDC scientists who analyzed U.S. outbreaks of food-borne illness in recent years say chicken caused the largest number of illnesses when outbreaks were ranked by food category.
In a report in the CDC’s Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, the researchers said chicken was linked to 12 percent of illnesses, followed by pork and seeded vegetables with 10 percent, when outbreaks were traced back to a single food category, a minority of cases.
The Consumer Federation of America said the data “fingers chicken as the country’s most dangerous food. The findings point to the need for stronger protections against Salmonella and other pathogen contamination in chicken, both on the farm and in the slaughterhouse, where industry is now pushing to eliminate line speeds and other food safety controls.”
According to the CDC researchers, 5,760 outbreaks were reported voluntarily by state and local officials through a web-based disease surveillance system from 2009-15. More than 100,000 people fell ill and 145 died in the outbreaks. In nearly six of every 10 outbreaks, the food that caused illness was not reported. In slightly more than two of every 10 outbreaks, the cause was narrowed down to a single food category.
Among those cases, fish caused a number of outbreaks “but the number of illnesses associated with those outbreaks tended to be small compared to other food vehicles, largely because of the toxins involved,” said the CDC analysis. Fish was blamed for 1,353 illnesses, compared to 3,114 for chicken out of 26,550 illnesses traced to a single food category. “Differences in outbreak size are in part attributable to how pathogens contaminate foods: Toxins are produced in individual fish, whereas, salmonella and other bacterial pathogens…can contaminate large amounts of product across vast production chains,” said the CDC.
Norovirus was the most common cause of outbreaks and most often “associated with ready-to-eat foods contaminated during preparation by infected workers in restaurant and other food service settings,” said the analysis. The virus was blamed for one-third of illnesses overall.
To read the CDC report, click here.