ST. LOUIS (KMOX) – A new CDC report finds foodborne illnesses continue to be a big public health problem in the U.S.
Just how bad is it?
The CDC’s Robert Tokes says they estimate that each year, one in six people in the United States gets sick from eating contaminated food.
“The most frequent cause of these infections was salmonella, which accounted for 38 percent of the reported infections,” he says.
Tokes says just over 19,000 people got sick last year from eating contaminated foods. Thousands were hospitalized and 80 died.
The number of people who got sick from eating tainted poultry is up 13 percent over the past five years or so.
Illnesses linked to raw shellfish are also up. In fact, it’s the most they’ve seen since they started tracking vibrio infections back in 1999.
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