Food Poisoning Most Likely at Restaurants

Worried about food poisoning? Then you might not want to eat out. New statistics have revealed that people in the United States are twice as likely to get food poisoning at a restaurant than they are at home.

According to the Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI) -- a Washington non-profit health-advocacy group -- they conducted an analysis of Centers for Diseases Control and Prevention (CDC) and Food and Drug Administration (FDA) reports on outbreaks of food borne illnesses over the last decade.

The analysis results make up the CSPI's "Outbreak Alert!" database, and includes data on nearly 7,500 "solved" outbreaks of food borne illness between 1990 to 2011. Solved outbreaks are instances in which the source of the outbreak was identified by state or federal public health officials.

According to the database, more than 1,610 food poisoning outbreaks occurred in restaurants, sickening more than 28,000 people. Only about half that number, 893 outbreaks in all, were traced to the kitchens of private residences during the same ten years. These home-borne cases of food poisoning made under 13,000 people ill.

The database also provides evidence that implies that over the last decade, reports of food poisoning outbreaks has dropped by nearly 42 percent. However, CSPI official Caroline Smith DeWaal explained in a recent press release that this reduction in reported outbreaks may have less to do with less actually outbreaks occurring and more to do with a diversion from efforts to solve outbreaks.

"Underreporting of outbreaks has reached epidemic proportions," said DeWaal. "Yet the details gleaned from outbreak investigations provide essential information so public health officials can shape food safety policy and make science-based recommendations to consumers. Despite the improvements in food safety policy in the past decade, far too many Americans still are getting sick, being hospitalized, or even dying due to contaminated food."

A press release announcing the latest Outbreak Alert! data was published on April 7.