E. coli 0157:H7 Ranks as the Fourth Most Costly Foodborne Disease

Suzanne Marks and Tanya Roberts

Food Review/ National Food Review, 1993, vol. 16, issue 3

Abstract: The tragedy of deaths of children linked to undercooked hamburgers in Washington State in January 1993 once again puts the spotlight on food safety. State epidemiologists and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) identified the illnesses in Washington, along with others in California, Nevada, and Idaho, as caused by Escherichia coli (known as E. coli) O157:H7. This bacterium has been linked to a variety of reservoirs including, as in this outbreak, undercooked ground beef. More than 500 laboratory- confirmed illnesses and 4 deaths occurred during this outbreak. The January 1993 E.coli outbreak in the Western States demonstrates the difficulty of identifying the incidence of foodbome disease and the need for mandatory reporting or new data collection systems. The CDC reported: "Despite the magnitude of this outbreak, the problem may not have been recognized in three States if the epidemiological link had not been established in Washington (State)."

Keywords: Food Consumption/Nutrition/Food Safety; Health Economics and Policy (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 1993
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (4)

Downloads: (external link)
https://ageconsearch.umn.edu/record/266129/files/FoodReview-130.pdf (application/pdf)
https://ageconsearch.umn.edu/record/266129/files/F ... 0.pdf?subformat=pdfa (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ags:uersfr:266129

DOI: 10.22004/ag.econ.266129

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in Food Review/ National Food Review from United States Department of Agriculture, Economic Research Service Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by AgEcon Search ().