How Safe Is Our Food?

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A week before Christmas, 1992, Lauren Beth

Rudolph ate a cheeseburger from a fast food
restaurant in California. On Christmas Eve,
suffering from severe stomach pain, Lauren
was admitted to the hospital. There she
endured three heart attacks before eventually
dying on December 28. She was six years old.
The burger Lauren ate was contaminated
with the virulent1 bacteria E. coli 0157:H7.
Her death was the first in an outbreak2 that
caused 732 illnesses in five states and killed
four children. The E. coli bacteria are so
virulent that it takes no more than a few of
them to cause deadly infection. We used to
think of foodborne3 illness as little more than
a stomachache, says Joseph Levitt of the U.S.
governments Food and Drug Administration.
After the [Rudolph case] we realized this was
no issue of stomachaches, but a serious and
compelling4 public health problem.

Bacteria to Blame

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There is more risk involved in our everyday

activity of eating than you might think. It is
estimated that each year in the United States
76 million people suffer from foodborne
diseases; 325,000 of them are hospitalized
and 5,000 die. In the developing world,
contaminated food and water kill almost two

A sausage-and-pepper sandwich stall in New York, U.S.A. Customers

at stalls like this rely on government food inspectors to make sure the
food they eat is safe.

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million children a year. In most cases, virulent

types of bacteria are to blame.
Bacteria are an integral part of a healthy life.
There are 200 times as many bacteria in the
colon5 of a single human as there are human
beings who have ever lived. Most of these
bacteria help with digestion, making vitamins,
shaping the immune
system, and keeping us
healthy. Nearly all raw
food, too, has bacteria
in it. But, the bacteria
that produce foodborne
illness are of a different,
more virulent kind.
 virulent disease or poison is
A
extremely powerful and dangerous.
2
If there is an outbreak of something
unpleasant, such as violence or a
disease, it suddenly starts to happen.
3
Foodborne bacteria enter peoples
bodies in the foods they eat.
4
A compelling reason is one that
convinces you that something is true,
or that something should be done.
5
Your colon is part of your intestines
the tubes in your body through
which food passes when it has
left your stomach.
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Dishes contain colonies

of Campylobacter, a
disease-causing bacteria
found on retail chickens
tested at the University of
Arkansas, U.S.A.

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Many of the bacteria that produce

foodborne illnesses are present in the
intestines of the animals we raise for
food. When a food animal containing
dangerous bacteria is cut open during
processing, bacteria inside the animal can
contaminate meat. Fruits and vegetables
can pick up the dangerous bacteria if
washed or watered with contaminated
water. A single bacterium, given the
right conditions, divides rapidly enough
to produce colonies of billions over the
course of a day. This means that even
only lightly contaminated food can
become highly infectious. The bacteria
can also hide and multiply on sponges,
dish towels, cutting boards, sinks, knives,
and kitchen counters, where theyre
easily transferred to food or hands.
Changes in the way in which farm
animals are raised are also affecting the
rate at which dangerous bacteria can
spread. In the name of efficiency and
economy, fish, cattle, and chickens are raised
in giant factory farms, which confine large
numbers of animals in tight quarters. Cattle,
for example, are so crowded together under
such conditions that even if only one animal
is contaminated with E. coli 0157:H7, it
will likely spread to others.

To fight Salmonella, graduate student Lisa Bielke sprays

healthful bacteria onto chicks in an experiment to determine
if those bacteria can out-compete harmful bacteria in the
chicks intestines.

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Tracking the Source

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Disease investigators like Patricia Griffin, are

working to find the sources of these outbreaks
and prevent them in the future. Griffin, of the
U.S. CDC (Centers for Disease Control and
Prevention), has worked in the foodbornedisease business for 15 years. Outbreaks like
the incident that killed Lauren Beth Rudolph
turned her attention to the public food safety
threat that exists in restaurants and in the food
production system. Food safety is no longer
just a question of handling food properly in
the domestic kitchen. Now, Griffin says,
we are more aware that the responsibility
does not rest solely with the cook. We know

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Unit 3 Food and Health

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that contamination often occurs early in the

production processat steps on the way from
farm or field or fishing ground to market.
Griffins job is to look for trends in foodrelated illness through analysis of outbreaks.
Her staff tries to identify both the food
source of an outbreak and the contaminating
bacteria. To link cases together, the scientists
use a powerful tool called PulseNet, a network
of public health laboratories connected by
computer that matches types of bacteria using
DNA.6 PulseNet allows epidemiologists7 to
associate an illness in Nebraska, say, with one
in Texas, tying together what might otherwise
appear as unrelated cases. Then its the job
of the investigators to track down what went
wrong in the foods journey to the table. This
allows them to determine whether to recall8
a particular food or to change the process by
which its produced.
 NA is a material in living things that contains the code for their
D
structure and many of their functions.
7
Epidemiologists are scientists who study outbreaks of disease.
8
When sellers recall a product, they ask customers to return it to them.
6

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At a vegetable shipping facility near Cartago, Costa Rica,

workers wear sanitary clothes, and all the vegetables are
washed in clean water.

In January 2000, public health officials in

Virginia noted an unusual group of patients
sick with food poisoning from Salmonella.
Using PulseNet, the CDC identified 79
patients in 13 states who suffered infection
from the same type of Salmonella bacteria.
Fifteen had been hospitalized; two had died.
What was the common factor? All had eaten
mangoes during the previous November and
December. The investigation led to a single
large mango farm in Brazil, where it was
discovered that mangoes were being washed
in contaminated water containing a type of
Salmonella bacteria. Salmonella contamination
is a widespread problem, and more recently
other Salmonella cases have been detected. In
the spring of 2001, for example, almonds from
a farm in California infected 160 Canadians
with Salmonella.

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The mango and almond outbreaks had a

larger lesson; we no longer eat only fruits and
vegetables in season and that are grown locally,
as we once did. Instead, we demand our
strawberries, peaches, mangoes, and lettuce
year-round. As a result, we are depending more

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10

 Sanitary means concerned with keeping things clean and healthy.

A flock of birds, sheep, or goats is a group of them.

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and more on imports. Eating food grown

elsewhere in the world means depending on
the soil, water, and sanitary9 conditions in
those places, and on the way their workers
farm, harvest, process, and transport
the products.

Reducing the Risk

There are a number of success stories that
provide hope and show us how international
food production need not mean increased
risk of contamination. Costa Rica has made
sanitary production of fruits and vegetables a
nationwide priority. Produce is packed carefully
in sanitary conditions; frequent hand washing
is compulsory, and proper toilets are provided
for workers in the fields. Such changes have
made Carmela Velazquez, a food scientist from
the University of Costa Rica, optimistic about
the future. The farmers weve trained, she
says, will become models for all our growers.
In Sweden, too, progress has been made in
reducing the occurrences of foodborne disease
at an early stage. Swedish chicken farmers
have virtually eliminated Salmonella from their
flocks10 by diligently cleaning up their chicken
houses and by using chicken feed that has
undergone heating to rid it of the dangerous
bacteria. Now the chickens that Swedes buy are
Salmonella-free. The success of these pioneers
suggests that it is indeed feasible for companies
and farms to produce safe and sanitary food,
while still turning a profit.

A Danish egg producer fights Salmonella by running eggs under

ultraviolet rays to kill surface bacteria.

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